I love all sports and always watch The Tour De France and marvel at the skills and fitness level of the Athletes on show

As a coach in athletics I have to say that I never came into contact with or know anybody who had deliberately taken any performance enhancing drugs.

I have been involved and trained with some top national/international middle and long distance athletes so my experience has not just been at grass roots level.

All the coaches and athletes I have come into contact with have been massively against it but time and time again at the highest level people are being “found out”

Unfortunately this is a sad indightment of the modern world in any field of sport where money is involved!

I watch most sports and have to believe that “the best of the best” haven’t cheated and take what we are seeing at face value.

This maybe naive but you cannot just presume everybody is a cheat!

In my experience this is not the case and to think otherwise would place all top sporting achievement into doubt and make sport irrelevant!

All these cheats do is damage the sports they tell us they love.

Unfortunately whether he cheated or not, Mr Armstrong has made a very good life for himself off the back of it and, whilst there is advantage to be gained it is a problem we will have to accept will be there for a long time to come.

Personally when things like this happen I just find it very sad.
I remember watching him achieve most of his wins on the TV and marvelling at the spectacle just to learn now that it could have been drug enhanced and another athlete has been denied their chance of glory.

The case against Armstrong is claimed to consist of testimonies from more than a dozen witnesses, including eyewitness reports from team-mates that amount to “overwhelming evidence” that Armstrong was not only guilty of using an array of illegal performance enhancing methods, but also played a vital part in their distribution and use by other riders.

In the same statement, Usada said: “Numerous witnesses provided evidence to Usada based on personal knowledge acquired, either through direct observation of doping activity by Armstrong, or through Armstrong’s admissions of doping to them that Armstrong used EPO [erythropoietin], blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone during the period from before 1998 through 2005, and that he had previously used EPO, testosterone and HGH [human growth hormone] through 1996.

“Witnesses also provided evidence that Lance Armstrong gave to them, encouraged them to use and administered doping products or methods, including EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone during the period from 1999 through 2005. Additionally, scientific data showed Mr Armstrong’s use of blood manipulation including EPO or blood transfusions during Mr Armstrong’s comeback to cycling in the 2009 Tour de France.”

I admit that, like many people, I’d like to to believe Armstrong’s innocence and that colours my judgement. But even considering that, surely Armstrong’s argument – “show me one failed drug test”, some physical evidence, – holds some merit? So I’m with Marcus. Maybe one of cycling’s greatest heros *is* a fraud, but its governing body is rubbish either way, because they’re making accusations they refuse to (or can’t) back up.

Really disappointing.