Lance Armstrong will need 'miracle' to get ban reduced, says

[grigor]

World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) president John Fahey has insisted it would take "something close to a miracle" for Lance Armstrong to get his lifetime ban from competitive sport reduced.

Speaking on the opening day of the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg, Fahey said the case against Armstrong was "irrefutable" and that he considered the issue "done and dusted".

Armstrong was banned last year following an exhaustive investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), which concluded in a 1,000-page report that the 42-year-old American was a "serial cheat" who was behind the "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen".

Armstrong has since offered to testify at any future investigation into doping, promising "100 per cent transparency and honesty", but has hinted he would only do so if his punishment was brought into line with other confessed dopers who were given more lenient bans.