Armstrong's cycling manager banned for ten years for 'doping involvement'

The former cycling manager of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has reportedly been handed a ten-year ban for his involvement in doping.

The American cycling legend was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and given a lifetime ban for doping in 2012, following which he finally admitted using banned substances in a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013.

According to the BBC, manager Johan Bruyneel, along with doctor Pedro Celaya and trainer Jose 'Pepe' Marti, worked for Armstrong's US Postal Service team (USPS), and while Bruyneel has been banned for ten years, Celaya and Marti both were given eight-year suspensions by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

A USADA statement said that the evidence establishes conclusively that Bruyneel was at the 'apex of a conspiracy to commit widespread doping on the USPS and Discovery Channel teams spanning many years and many riders', adding that Celaya and Marti may have 'allowed themselves to be used as instruments of, that conspiracy'.

The report mentioned former professional cyclist, Bruyneel, who worked with Armstrong at the USADA and Discovery Channel teams, was team manager for all of Armstrong's seven Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005.

Although Bruyneel, who is banned until June 2022, admitted that doping was a 'fact of life in the peloton for a considerable period of time', however, he added that a very small minority of them have been used as scapegoats for an entire generation.