Dutch paper to Tour winners: Does Lance Armstrong deserves titles?

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf asked the 25 surviving Tour de France winners whether they believe Lance Armstrong should be re-awarded the seven titles that were stripped from him in October 2012.

Half said he should be reinstated as a seven-time winner.

Said five-time winner Miguel Indurain, according to Cycling Weekly, “If nobody else can be reasonably declared the winner of the races in those years it’s clear that Armstrong won these seven Tours.”​

MORE: Lance Armstrong meets with investigators about doping

Armstrong, 42, won the Tour every year from 1999-2005. He lost his titles after USADA published a 202-page report in 2012 detailing evidence of the cyclist's doping. 

Pat McQuaid, the president of the International Cycling Union, spoke at a news conference after Armstrong was formally stripped of his titles:

“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. “Something like this must never happen again.”

- Chris Johnson