Lance Armstrong to be Stripped of Tour de France Titles

Late Thursday night, Lance Armstrong announced he will no longer fight charges of using performance enhancing drugs during his career brought by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. He maintains he is innocent, but is weary of the 10 years he's spent battling doping allegations. Armstrong won the Tour de France an unprecedented seven times, but the U.S.A.D.A. maintains he was using drugs and was one of the ringleaders of systematic doping on his Tour-winning teams. His decision, according to the World Anti-Doping Code, means he'll be stripped of his seven Tour titles, the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics and all other titles, awards and money he won from August 1998 forward. "There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, "Enough is enough." For me, that time is now," Armstrong's statement reads. "I’ve been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. Over the past three years, I’ve been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart's unconstitutional witch hunt. The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today — finished with this nonsense." Nathaniel Vinton is an investigative sports reporter with The New York Daily News.