The Tour de France organiser, Christian Prudhomme, has called forLance Armstrong's seven victories in the world's greatest cycle race to be erased from the record books following the release of a US Anti-Doping Agency report which said there had been systematic doping at the Texan's US Postal Service team between 1999 and 2005.
"What we would like is for there to be no winner in those years," Prudhomme said. Usada has called for Armstrong to be stripped of his titles and his third place in the 2009 Tour, but that has yet to be ratified. If Prudhomme has his way, that would mean the Tours from 1999 to 2005 being left without a winner.
Prudhomme, who has been in the Alps reconnoitring stage finishes for the 2013 Tour, said that he was shocked by the findings of Usada. "We cannot be indifferent to what Usada has uncovered. It is a dark and deeply disturbing picture. It has called into question a system and an entire era which remains stained for ever. It is a lost decade."
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