DISGRACED AMERICAN CYCLIST Lance Armstrong is set to lose another of his honours if the mayor of the commune d’Huez in the Alps gets his way to strip Armstrong’s name from two corners named after him on the legendary climb to the top of Alpe d’Huez.
Jean-Yves Noyrey told AFP on Tuesday that he would put it to the council on 11 November but wasn’t sure his motion would prevail.
“I want to take his name away from the corners and leave it blank, and I will be proposing that to the municipal council on November 11,” he said.
“The fact that Lance Armstrong has been stripped of all of his titles (his seven Tour de France crowns 1999-2005) has provoked us into posing the question ourselves of whether his name should remain on the corners.
“But opinions on the council are split. Some think that just because he has been stripped of the titles that we should also take away his victory in the stage.”
The Alpe d’Huez climb is probably the most famous climb of the Tour comprising 21 corners over 14 kilometres and an altitude of 1100 metres.
Each corner carries the name of one or several riders who have won the stage in the Tour de France — something Armstrong did twice, in 2001 and 2004. The International Cycling Union (UCI) on Monday gave its backing to a damning US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) dossier that placed the Texan at the heart of the biggest doping programme in sport, erasing his record back to August 1, 1998.
