IN his first professional race, he was the last man in out of 111 riders, but he later became a record seven-time winner of the Tour de France, the world’s most prestigious cycling race, and one of the most gruelling contests in all types of sport.

But after years of denial, Lance Armstrong finally confessed to doping, on January 14 of this year in an interview with famous Talk Show host, Oprah Winfrey. Doping, as you likely already know, is the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs in sport.

The heat was already on the legend for quite some time, as, since October 22, 2012, Armstrong had been officially stripped of all seven of his Tour de France titles; and just last Tuesday, the deadline to file a formal complaint, the Justice Department laid out its case in a lawsuit against Lance Armstrong, saying the cyclist violated his contract with the U.S. Postal Service, and was “unjustly enriched” while cheating to win the Tour de France. The government had earlier announced it would join the whistle-blower lawsuit brought by former Armstrong teammate, Floyd Landis.

But, is doping a relatively new thing? It would seem not, as Wikipedia, the free Online Encyclopedia states, under “Doping”, that when the fittest of a nation were selected as athletes or combatants, they were fed diets, and given treatments considered beneficial. For instance, Scandinavian mythology says ‘Berserkers’ could drink a mixture called “butotens”, perhaps prepared from the Amanita muscaria mushroom, to increase their physical power a dozen times at the risk of insanity.

With reference to another case from the early 19th Century, Wikipedia said: “The people of the country can, having eaten certain leaves or roots, toil vigorously all day without feeling hungry, thirsty or tired, and all the time showing a happiness and gaiety.”

In yet another case, Abraham Wood, a participant in an endurance walking race in Britain, said in 1807 that he had used laudanum, or opium, to keep him awake for 24 hours while competing.

Armstrong, who was born in Plano, Texas, was a standout athlete from boyhood days, and by age 13, was already competing in, and winning, triathlons (races in which participants must run, swim, and cycle). Was he doping then? At 13 years old, I should think not.

In high school, Armstrong began to focus solely on cycling, and in 1990, he was invited to try out for the United States national team. He finished 11th at the 1990 World Amateur Cycling Championships in Japan, even though he had little formal coaching. By the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, he was one of the top amateurs in the world. Though he finished a disappointing 14th he decided to turn professional.

In his first professional race, the 1992 Classico San Sebastian in Spain (referenced above), Armstrong was the last man to finish the race out of 111 riders. Was it determination, or doping, when he rebounded to finish second in his next race, and by 1993 emerged as one of the world’s top riders?

Following this feat, he entered the Tour de France for the first time and won one section, or stage, although he did not attempt to complete the entire course of the race, more than 3,200 km (in excess of 2,000 miles). In 1995, Armstrong won the Classico San Sebastian, as well as the Tour DuPont, the biggest professional road race in the United States. He repeated the wins in 1996, but in October of that year, he was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer, which had spread to his lungs and brain.
Battling back with surgery and chemotherapy, Armstrong was declared cancer-free one year later, and resumed competitive cycling in mid-1998, quickly returning to his old form with a number of top-five finishes and several victories.
In an amazing performance, Armstrong dominated the 1999 Tour de France, winning four individual stages, and wearing the leader’s yellow jersey for most of the race. He finished first by more than seven minutes overall, and became just the second American ever to win the Tour de France.

Armstrong repeated as champion in 2000, 2001, and 2002, each time finishing the race more than six minutes ahead of his closest competitor. In the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Armstrong earned a bronze medal in the time-trial event.

By 2004, Armstrong had fully established himself as the most successful rider in the history of the race by winning the Tour de France six times, breaking the record in five. Not content with simply breaking the record, Armstrong returned in 2005 and won the Tour de France for the seventh consecutive time.  With this he cemented his status as perhaps the greatest competitive cyclist ever, before retiring at the age of 33 from competitive cycling.

To return to the issue of doping, the use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical by most international sporting organizations, and especially by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Ethicists have argued that it is little different from the use of new materials in the construction of suits and sporting equipment, which similarly aid performance and can give competitors an unfair advantage over others.

The essence of the Armstrong story is that the Postal Service had doled out approximately $40 million to be the title sponsor of Armstrong’s teams for six of his seven Tour de France victories. A figure recorded in the filing in U.S. district court in Washington, D.C has indicated that $17 million had been from 1998 to 2004.

Firing back, Armstrong’s attorney, Elliot Peters, called the government’s complaint “opportunistic and insincere.”   In recent news, he was cited as saying: “The U.S. Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team. Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this. The USPS was never the victim of fraud. Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years.”

Previous studies done for the Postal Service concluded that the agency reaped at least $139 million in worldwide brand exposure in four years: $35 million to $40 million for sponsoring the Armstrong team in 2001; $38 million to $42 million in 2002; $31 million in 2003; and $34.6 million in 2004.

Paul D. Scott, the lawyer representing Landis (the former teammate cited earlier), issued a statement Tuesday night, saying: “Mr. Landis is pleased to see the United States take this important step toward recovering taxpayer dollars lost to fraud.”

Scott said the doping scandal does more damage than good to the policies, programmes and international standing of the United States for it to be associated with a cycling team that dopes to win, and the fact that the team’s fraud was concealed for many years does not take away from the fact that the United States was harmed. By breaking the rules and covering it up, Armstrong and Bruyneel had committed fraud against the U.S. Government, the complaint said.

Armstrong is also fighting a lawsuit from Dallas-based promotions company, SCA, which wants to recover about $12 million it paid him in bonuses; and a lawsuit from the London-based Sunday Times wants to get back $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel case.

The government must prove not only that the Postal Service was defrauded, but that it was somehow damaged.