If Lance Armstrong loses Tour de France titles, who gets them?

A file photo taken on July 24, 2005 shows, from left, Italian Ivan Basso, carrying his child, overall winner Lance Armstrong of the United States and German Jan Ullrich celebrating on the podium after the 21st stage of the 92nd Tour de France cycling race between Corbeil-Essonnes and the Champs-Elysees in Paris. / FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

(CBS/AP) PARIS - The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said on Thursday night that it will strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.

But the cyclists Armstrong beat to win his seven Tour de France victories may soon get a chance at his titles. But their ranks include men who have faced a tangle of doping bans and accusations, possibly presenting a headache for Tour leadership.

Lance Armstrong subject to lifetime ban and fan fallout
USADA to ban Armstrong for life, strip Tour titles

Here's a look at who else was on the podium in the seven Tours that Armstrong won from 1999-2005:

1999

No. 2 : Alex Zulle, Switzerland. His 1998 team, Festina, was ousted from the Tour that year in connection with the widespread use of the performance-enhancing drug EPO. Zulle later admitted to using the blood-booster over the four previous years. The Festina affair nearly derailed the 1998 Tour, and is widely seen as the first big doping scandal to jolt cycling.

No. 3: Fernando Escartin, Spain.

2000

No 2: Jan Ullrich, Germany. The 1997 Tour winner, a five-time Tour runner-up and longtime Armstrong rival. He was the top-name cyclist among at least 50 implicated in the "Operation Puerto" police investigation in Spain in May 2006. Ullrich was stripped of his third-place finish from the 2005 Tour and retired from racing two years later. Earlier this year, he confirmed that he had had contact with Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor at the center of that scandal, calling it a "big mistake" - but did not admit to doping.

No. 3: Joseba Beloki, Spain. Implicated in Operation Puerto, he retired in 2007. He was reportedly was cleared by a Spanish court of any involvement in the case.

2001

No 2: Ullrich.

No. 3: Beloki.

2002

No. 2: Beloki.

No. 3: Raimondas Rumsas, Lithuania. On the last day of the 2002 Tour, police stopped his wife, Edita, at the Italian border and searched her car, turning up suspected doping products. A French court later handed them four-month prison sentences on doping-related charges. The cyclist denied taking banned substances at that event, and all his tests came back negative. He said the products in his wife's car were for his mother-in-law. The next year, he was given a one-year ban after testing positive for EPO in the 2003 Giro d'Italia.

2003

No. 2: Ullrich.

No. 3: Alexandre Vinokourov, Kazakhstan. He later served a two-year doping suspension after twice testing positive for banned blood transfusions during the 2007 race. He won the Olympic road race in London last month and has announced plans to retire.

2004

No. 2: Andreas Kloeden, Germany.

No. 3: Ivan Basso, Italy. Excluded from the 2006 Tour because of his involvement in Operation Puerto. He claimed that he gave his blood to Fuentes - the Spanish doctor at the center of that scandal - but never used it. Later that year, Basso received a two-year doping ban; he later returned, and won his second Giro d'Italia in 2010.

2005

No. 2: Basso.

No. 3: Ullrich.

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Lance Armstrong

[SpreadTheWealth]

In each of the 7 years, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers have already been caught guilty of doping and in some years, almost the entire top 10-12 have been caught. Bottom line, Lance never failed a test, where the rest did.

[Ck00009]

It sounds like a witch hunt to me. Others were doing it, yet Lance Armstrong is being punished, years later, while no physical evidence ... Only the word of other athletes who clearly may have ulterior motives??? This is not justice, but rather a vendetta it would appear. I think of how hard this man worked for these wins over the years, and the sad message it sends to children and others who look up to him. It is shameful!

[ssporleder]

OK, how is it THEY have not been stripped of their places in races if it has been PROVEN they doped????

[AnnieDanny]

THat's what I don't understand... if everybody was doing it, why are they coming down so hard on these guys now after 10-12 years? If people knew it THEN, why didn't anybody say anything?

Seems like a witchhunt to me. It is what it is. Or rather, it is what it WAS, and now that there are sophisticated tests to detect doping, NOW they can stop it.

But why make such a hideous mess of the past? And ruin people's lives? There's no way to sort it all out.

If it's so important, they should have done something about it back then, IMO. They had just as much to go on THEN as they do now, they're relying primarily on the word of other athletes. Seems to me this should have been taken care of long ago, not after the guy won 7 tours.