Lance Armstrong was widely considered one of the greatest cyclists of all time but eventually fell from his pedestal. The Lance Armstrong doping scandal involved multiple allegations of performance enhancing drug use during his seven consecutive Tour de France wins between 1999 and 2005, which sparked massive global outrage. This scandal also involved other allegations such as blood doping, and a system of cover-ups and deception in the sport. In 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) charged Armstrong with multiple doping violations, stripped him of his Tour de France titles, and banned him from the sport of cycling. In 2013, Armstrong admitted to doping during his cycling career in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, which …show more content…
Scandals must also involve someone with a high status and their transgression must be publicized in order for the public to feel outrage. Lance Armstrong was a household name as he had brought cycling into the international spotlight, and this scandal was widely publicized. The Lance Armstrong doping case is a scandal because it involved the violation of common norms and values such as the rules of fair play in cycling competitions. It also spread institutionally because it brought into question and compromised the health and safety of other athletes. His use of performance enhancing drugs undermined the credibility of the sport as a whole. He was eventually found accountable and punished by the WADA, stripped of all of his titles, and banned from the sport. This accountability also serves as part of the ritual in a scandal of ‘cleansing’ the …show more content…
It’s public knowledge that many professional athletes take performance enhancing drugs in order to secure themselves awards. In the case of the Lance Armstrong scandal, Armstrong had been facing allegations of doping for years before two whistleblowers made the case explode. Frankie Andreu, one of Armstrong’s previously close friends, told sources that Armstrong had admitted to doping in the late 90s, but this was never turned into a scandal. However, the scandal started to gain traction in 2010 when Armstrong’s former teammate, Floyd Landis, who had been stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping, accused Armstrong and other members of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team of systematic doping. He had sent an email to cycling officials accusing Armstrong and other members of their team of using performance-enhancing drugs. Because of these accusations, the federal investigators began to look into the allegations made against Armstrong and eventually found evidence of systematic doping. These two whistleblowers allowed more former teammates and associates of Armstrong to come forward and accuse him of doping and other misconduct, which aided in the