A damning report placing Lance Armstrong at the heart of the biggest doping programme in sporting history has raised questions about what happens next, with the seven-time Tour de France winner’s career and reputation in tatters.

How Armstrong, who is accused of but has consistently denied systematic doping, managed to evade detection will also dog the sport of cycling, which has sought to improve its image after a series of damaging drug scandals.

Potentially central to the implications of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report, published on Wednesday, could be a section in the 202-page document entitled ‘Perjury and Other Fraudulent Conduct to Obstruct Legal or Judicial Processes’.

In it, the organisation documents what it says were Armstrong’s “false statements under oath... and subject to penalties of perjury” in legal proceedings in the US and France concerning accusations of doping violations.

They include statements made denying any links to Michele Ferrari, the former team doctor of the Gewiss-Ballan team, who has been implicated in the possession, trafficking and administration of banned substances and assisting doping.

Armstrong denied being encouraged by Ferrari to take performance-enhancing drugs, using banned substances in his career or seeing team-mates do so.

The USADA, which said doping orchestrated by Armstrong at his US Postal Service team was “more extensive than any previously revealed in professional sports history”, said the rider’s testimony was “materially false and misleading when made.”

The body also accused the Texan of trying to “procure false affidavits from potential witnesses” in a US Department of Justice and USADA case against him in August 2010 to say there was no systematic doping in the team.

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