ARMSTRONG LOSES TITLES, BANNED FOR LIFE

LANCE ARMSTRONG IS STRIPPED
OF HIS 7 TOUR DE FRANCE TITLES

www.nytimes.com - The International Cycling Union announced Monday that it would not appeal the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s ruling to bar Lance Armstrong for life from Olympic sports for doping and for playing an instrumental role in the team-organized doping on his Tour de France-winning cycling squads. That decision to waive the right to take Armstrong’s case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the highest court in sports, formally stripped Armstrong of the seven Tour titles he won from 1999 to 2005. “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling; he deserves to be forgotten in cycling,” Pat McQuaid, the president of the cycling union, known as U.C.I., said in a news conference in Switzerland. McQuaid said he was “sickened” by the facts in the 202-page report the antidoping agency made public two weeks ago regarding the evidence it had in the Armstrong case, and called it mind-boggling how former teammates like the five-time national time-trial champion David Zabriskie were pushed to use performance-enhancing drugs. 

McQuaid said that Armstrong’s teams had a “win at all costs” attitude fueled by “deceit, intimidation, coercion and evasion,” and that all of the evidence was there to prove that Armstrong doped. He added that he was sorry the cycling union had not caught Armstrong and his teammates “red handed” so he could have thrown them out of the sport. Armstrong, who has vehemently denied ever doping, declined to comment Monday. His biography on his Twitter page had been changed to no longer say he is the seven-time Tour de France winner. 
The antidoping agency applauded the cycling union’s acceptance of the penalties the agency gave Armstrong in August. The cycling union’s announcement delivered yet another devastating blow to Armstrong, who has unceremoniously fallen from grace within the past two weeks. Also, the International Olympic Committee is reviewing Armstrong’s case and will probably strip him of the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Cycling’s governing body has stripped famed U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and banned him for life. The International Cycling Union has ratified the sanctions handed down in August by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which stripped Armstrong of the titles he won from 1999 to 2005.  “A lot of these guys made a lot of money out of their cheating. A lot have admitted they cheated and apologized to their family and friends, but they have not apologized to the U.C.I. or the sport,” said Pat McQuaid, the president of the cycling union. “The greatest offense is the culture of lies and corruption several people created in the small world of cycling to protect its million-dollar man”, said Shannon J. Owens, a Sports commentator. In this material world, the conditioned souls have four defects, one of which is Vipralipsa which is the tendency to deceive or cheat.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

The conditioned soul has four defects: (1) bhrama (‘the tendency to error’), (2) pramada (‘inattention’), (3) karanapatava (‘the inadequacy of the senses’) and (4) vipralipsa (‘the desire to deceive’).  Any conditioned soul has these defects.  Bhrama means the tendency to think something that is true to be false and vice versa.  ... The word Pramada means ‘inattention.’ Even when the senses do their job, the mind is not entirely attentive and so makes further errors.  Karanapatava means the incapacity of the senses to properly perceive anything.  And the last fault is quite devastating; it is Vipralipsa, ‘the desire to deceive.’ ... The four flaws, i.e., the desire to deceive, inattentiveness, the inadequacy of the senses, and the tendency to error, affect the judgment of every human being. Even the greatest scholars cannot free themselves of these defects when it comes to assessing transcedence.

Śrīla Bhakti Promode Puri Mahārāja :
“Śrī Guru Pranali - Siddha Pranali”
A conversation with a sannyasa disciple,
Durga Puja, Sept. 28, 1998, Gopinatha Gaudiya Matha,
Cakra Tirtha, Jagannatha Puri.
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library - http://bvml.org/SBPPG/sgp-sp.html

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