article_snippet: a damning new report highlights multiple instances in which top UCI officials protected, defended and made decisions favorable to Armstrong despite concerns that Armstrong was doping.
article_snippet: UCI exempted Armstrong from rules, failed to target test Armstrong despite the suspicions, and publicly supported Armstrong against allegations of doping, even as late as 2012," it says.
article_snippet: UCI "saw Armstrong as the perfect choice to lead the sport's renaissance" after a devastating doping scandal at the 1998 Tour de France, according to a damning new report.
article_snippet: The fact that Armstrong was American opened up a new continent for the sport, Armstrong had beaten cancer and the media quickly made Armstrong a global star," him a global star says.
article_snippet: But Armstrong's spectacular downfall in 2012, which saw Armstrong stripped of Armstrong Tour de France titles and dropped by sponsors, helped intensify scrutiny over how Armstrong managed to get away with doping for so long.
article_snippet: In one case, the independent three-person commission says, UCI UCI limited the scope of a supposedly independent investigation into allegations that  Armstrong had tested positive in a drug test at the 1999 Tour de France.
article_snippet: UCI officials and Armstrong's team became heavily involved in the drafting of a supposedly independent investigation into allegations that  Armstrong had tested positive in a drug test at the 1999 Tour de France's report, which was released in 2006.
article_snippet: The significant participation of UCI and Armstrong's team was never publicly acknowledged.
article_snippet: Between 1992 and 2006, UCI's top officials focused on protecting cycling's reputation rather than trying to root out "endemic" doping practices of which UCI's top officials were well aware, the report says.
article_snippet: the report highlights McQuaid's decision to allow Armstrong to participate in the 2009 Tour Down Under even though the cyclist hadn't been in the testing group for the required period of time.
article_snippet: the independent three-person commission says although there is no direct evidence of an agreement between McQuaid and Armstrong, McQuaid "made a sudden U-turn and allowed Armstrong to return 13 days early" to take part in the competition, "despite advice from UCI staff not to make an exception.
article_snippet: There was a temporal link between this decision, which was communicated to UCI staff in the morning, and the decision of Lance Armstrong, which was notified to McQuaid later that same day, to participate in the Tour of Ireland, an event run by people known to McQuaid," the report says.
article_snippet: In the rush to vilify Lance, many of the other equally culpable participants have been allowed to escape scrutiny, much less sanction, and many of the anti-doping 'enforcers' have chosen to grandstand at Lance's expense rather than truly search for the truth," said Armstrong's attorney, Elliot Peters.
article_snippet: The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, which banned Armstrong from cycling for life in 2012, welcomed the independent three-person commission's work.
highlights_snippet: Report: Cycling officials protected and defended Armstrong despite doping concerns .
  
highlights_snippet: Cycling officials exempted Armstrong from rules and failed to target test Armstrong, commission says .
  