20 biggest sports scandals of all-time

15. Lance Armstrong admits to using PEDs

During his reign of dominance over the sport of cycling, Lance Armstrong was one of the most uplifting stories in all of sports.

Two years removed from winning a near-fatal bout with testicular cancer, Armstrong began a streak of seven consecutive Tour de France victories that would span from 1999 to 2005. Due to the feel-good nature of his personal story, as well as his tremendous charity work in supporting cancer patients through the Livestrong Foundation, he became an iconic figure in the world of sports.

Unfortunately, these accomplishments would be tarnished by performance-enhancing-drug use.

In 2010, disgraced former teammate Floyd Landis made startling accusations against the legendary cyclist, claiming that the he had been using PEDs throughout his career. Two and a half years later, Armstrong came clean during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

During the interview, he admitted to using some form of blood doping or PEDs during all seven of his Tour wins.

The admission occurred as evidence from a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation mounted against him. Consequently, Armstrong was stripped of all of his Tour de France titles, as well as his 2000 Olympic bronze medal.

While it does not excuse his transgression’s, the USADA report that implicated him pointed out a much larger problem at hand: eighty percent of the Tour de France medalists from 1996 to 2010 were similarly connected to blood doping or PED use.

Next: 14. Pete Rose banned from baseball