UCI backs stripping Lance Armstrong of Tour de France wins

• International Cycling Union known for being friendly to Armstrong, but passes on appeal.
• Tour de France previously said it would strip Armstrong's titles if no appeal was filed.
• Armstrong has not discussed case, but told supporters it has been a 'difficult couple of weeks.'

The Lance Armstrong doping case finally appears to be over.

His seven titles in the Tour de France have been stripped and vacated.

The famed cyclist also has been banned for life in sanctioned Olympic sports.

Case closed.

After receiving the massive evidence file compiled against Armstrong on Oct. 10, the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced Monday that it would not appeal the sanctions imposed upon the cyclist in August by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

By rule, UCI had the right to appeal those sanctions to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, even though Armstrong himself had declined to go to arbitration to fight the charges. But on Monday, UCI said it was declining to do so -- a decision that is likely the final official word on the subject after years of accusations and investigations.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," UCI president Pat McQuaid said at a press conference.

The World Anti-Doping Agency also holds the right to appeal the sanctions but that is not expected as WADA has been a staunch supporter of USADA's actions to date. In a statement Monday, WADA said it would review UCI's decision and the rest of the evidence before making a decision.

The Tour de France is a sanctioned event of UCI, the sport's international governing body, meaning it is now bound by rule to strip Armstrong's seven titles from 1999 to 2005. The tour said on its website Monday that Armstrong "is therefore stripped of his titles," plus his third-place finish in 2009. The director of the tour previously said no replacement winners are likely to be named for those years, mostly because the other podium finishers from that era also have been linked to doping. A decision on that is expected to come Friday.

DIRTY ERA:Doping prevalent during time of Armstrong's wins

UCI's decision is not surprising, given the scope of the evidence in the USADA case file, but the news still marks another blow for Armstrong, whose last realistic shot at keeping his titles was an appeal fought by a group he has maintained close ties to over the years. Indeed, in his unsuccessful efforts in federal court to challenge USADA''s jurisdiction, Armstrong argued that it was UCI that had the authority to review the evidence against him.

USADA and UCI also have not seen eye-to-eye on the Armstrong case. UCI previously has been critical of USADA's actions, questioning the fairness of its process -- repeating an argument Armstrong has made relentlessly -- and even trying to take over the investigation at one point.

USADA said in July that such a take-over would be like "the fox guarding the hen house."

In a testy exchange of letters last summer, USADA noted UCI's history of lax oversight when it was in charge of anti-doping enforcement, an era now viewed as dominated by doping. USADA also accused UCI of being overly friendly with Armstrong, pointing out that the cyclist previously had given donations to UCI of as much as $200,000.

Included in the evidence file is the sworn statement of former cycling teammate Tyler Hamilton, who testified that Armstrong tested positive for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland but that Armstrong told him he was going to have a meeting with UCI "and everything was going to be OK" -- an alleged cover-up that the UCI has denied.

"Today, the UCI made the right decision in the Lance Armstrong case," USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in a statement. "Despite its prior opposition to USADA's investigation into doping on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team and within the sport, USADA is glad that the UCI finally reversed course in this case and has made the credible decision available to it."

In the end, UCI couldn't ignore the amount of evidence, especially the 26 witnesses who told investigators that Armstrong was a leader and key figure in a long-running team doping conspiracy. On Oct. 10, USADA released more than a 1,000 pages of details that told how Armstrong and his teammates used banned drugs and blood transfusions to boost performance while also using sophisticated means to avoid testing positive.

"I was sickened by what I read in the USADA report," McQuaid said, noting the testimony of Dave Zabriskie's account of how Armstrong's team manager Johan Bruyneel convinced him to cheat.

''The story he told of how he was coerced and to some extent forced into doping is just mind boggling.''

Bruyneel has also been charged by the USADA and is awaiting a hearing that is expected to take place later this year.

McQuaid pledged that UCI would use the report to help further clean up the sport that has been mired in doping scandals that includes Armstrong and former teammates Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador being stripping of Tour de France titles in the past 14 years of the race.

"It's the biggest crisis cycling has ever faced," McQuaid.

The evidence persuaded virtually all of Armstrong's sponsors to terminate their relationship with him, including Nike and Trek, which made the bikes Armstrong rode to his seven Tour victories. After Monday's announcement by UCI, one holdout sponsor, sunglasses company Oakley, said it also would end its relationship with Armstrong.

"Based on UCI's decision today and the overwhelming evidence that USADA presented, Oakley has severed its longstanding relationship with Lance Armstrong, effective immediately," the company said in a statement.

Armstrong also announced Wednesday he would step down as chairman of Livestrong, the cancer-fighting charity he founded, but said he would remain active in the group and appear at its events.

He did that over the weekend at Livestrong's 15th anniversary celebration in his hometown of Austin, Texas, but Armstrong avoided discussing the USADA evidence and loss of his sponsors.

Instead, he encouraged attendees to keep up their work in support of Livestrong and allowed that, for him, it had been a "difficult couple of weeks."

An assistant for Armstrong's attorney, Tim Herman, said Herman was in trial today and had no comment on UCI's decision.