Lance Armstrong has returned his bronze cycling medal, after a top Olympic official complained that he still had it.
Armstrong won the medal at the 2000 Summer Olympic s in Sydney. In January the International Olympic Committee vacated the medal Armstrong won in the road time trial, according to the Associated Press. On Thursday Armstrong tweeted that he had given the medal back.
Armstrong’s tweet included a photo of the medal and its blue ribbon. The tweet also included a message that read ‘‘The 2000 Bronze is back in possession of (at)usolympics and will be in Switzerland asap” notes the AP.
A U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman released a statement about the return of the medal.
“The IOC and the USOC had previously requested that the medal be returned,” USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said, according to the New York Daily News. “The USOC has made arrangements to return the medal to the IOC.”
The IOC has said the Armstrong medal will not be reallocated. For years Armstrong denied that he had used performance-enhancing drugs. He confessed to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January. Armstrong had his seven Tour de France titles taken away as a result of the confession.
There is good news for Armstrong though. The New York Daily News reports that federal judge Morrison England has dismissed a $5 million lawsuit against Armstrong on books that Armstrong had written. The lawsuit complained that the books Armstrong wrote, “It’s Not About the Bike” and “Every Second Counts,” misled buyers. The suit claimed that the books were depicted as “truthful works of nonfiction biography, when in fact these books were works of fiction containing false and misleading statements.”
Luckily for Armstrong that lawsuit has been dismissed and he doesn’t have to worry about it.