Armstrong v. United States Anti-Doping Agency

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) decided which competitors and teams to send to the Olympic Games. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) (defendant) was responsible for implementing the USOC’s national anti-doping policies. The USADA had a set of anti-doping rules (the USADA protocol) incorporated in the USOC’s national policies. The USADA also administered the World Anti-Doping Agency’s anti-doping rules on a national level. Separately, each sport of the Olympic Games had an international sports federation (IF), which managed various aspects of a sport. The IF for cycling was the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). The UCI maintained its own set of anti-doping rules (the UCI ADR) based on but not identical to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s anti-doping rules. In 2012, the USADA sent notification letters to Lance Armstrong (plaintiff), a world-renowned athlete in international cycling competitions and the Olympic Games, charging Armstrong with violations of various organizations’ anti-doping rules, including the USADA protocol and the UCI ADR, and a seven-year-long “doping conspiracy,” which, if found true, would likely prevent Armstrong from competing in future world competitions. Armstrong’s alleged doping was discovered in part through blood samples collected by the UCI. Armstrong sued the USADA in district court challenging the USADA’s jurisdiction to bring charges against him as well as the fairness of the USADA’s arbitration procedures. Armstrong claimed in essence that the correct agency to assert jurisdiction over him was the UCI, not the USADA. The USADA moved to dismiss Armstrong’s claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and/or lack of merit.