One-day races and Classics. He achieved international fame for winning the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times from to , but was stripped of his titles in after an investigation into doping allegations , called the Lance Armstrong doping case , found that Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs over his career. As a result, Armstrong is currently banned for life from all sanctioned bicycling events. At age 16, Armstrong began competing as a triathlete and was a national sprint-course triathlon champion in and In , he began his career as a professional cyclist with the Motorola team.
In , he was diagnosed with a potentially fatal metastatic testicular cancer. After recovering, Armstrong founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation now the Livestrong Foundation to assist other cancer survivors. Armstrong retired from racing at the end of the Tour de France, but returned to competitive cycling with the Astana team in January , finishing third in the Tour de France later that year. Between and , he raced with Team Radio Shack , and retired for a second time in Armstrong became the subject of doping allegations after winning the Tour de France.
For years, he denied involvement in doping. In , a United States Anti-Doping Agency USADA investigation concluded that Armstrong had used performance-enhancing drugs over the course of his career [ 6 ] and named him as the ringleader of "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen". His parents divorced in when Lance was two, and when his mother remarried Terry Keith Armstrong, Lance took his stepfather's surname.
Armstrong's total points in as an amateur were better than those of five professionals ranked higher than he was that year. At 16, Lance Armstrong became a professional triathlete and became national sprint-course triathlon champion in and at 18 and 19, respectively. In , Armstrong turned professional with the Motorola Cycling Team , the successor of 7-Eleven team. In , he won 10 one-day events and stage races, but his breakthrough victory was the World Road Race Championship held in Norway.
He was 97th in the general classification when he retired after stage He is alleged by another cyclist competing in the CoreStates Road Race to have bribed that cyclist so that he would not compete with Armstrong for the win. He finished the year strongly at the World Championships in Agrigento , finishing in seventh place less than a minute behind winner Luc Leblanc. Pielke Jr. Armstrong's successes were much the same in However, Armstrong was able to compete for only five days in the Tour de France.
