Lance Armstrong’s crisis PR is best-case scenario

After fighting allegations of performance enhancing drug use for most of his career, the seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor and his PR team made a tactical decision to back away from the latest investigation, this time by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

He released a statement on Thursday night that says he’s not going to fight the latest “witch hunt.” The result will likely mean he will be stripped of the titles and banned from the sport.

In the statement, Armstrong did not admit guilt. Instead, he said, “enough is enough.”

“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now. I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. Over the past three years, I have been subjected to a two-year federal criminal investigation followed by Travis Tygart’s unconstitutional witch hunt. The toll this has taken on my family, and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today—finished with this nonsense.”

It’s a smart statement, and regardless of where you fall on the issue, it does make the USADA seem hell-bent on finding Armstrong guilty by any means possible and making a name for itself.