The team has dismissed several riders in recent years because of doping suspicions and convictions, including Tyler Hamilton, an Olympic gold medalist for the United States and a Tour contender.
The greatest breakthrough performance at an Olympics — and one that has not been tainted by doping suspicions — was Bob Beamon's winning long jump in the 1968 Games in Mexico City.
But he, too, has faced doping suspicions after acknowledging last week that he had worked with Dr. Michele Ferrari, an Italian doctor who was found guilty of sporting fraud and malpractice in 2004 but who won an appeal two years later.
The partnership of Catlin and Armstrong, 37, would bring together one of the world's foremost antidoping experts with an athlete who, despite his accomplishments both on and off the bike, has been dogged by doping suspicions.
Though still haunted by doping suspicions, the Astana team is an established part of international cycling, and their presence at elite events has brought incalculable amounts of – mostly positive – publicity to the Astana brand, the real goal of the club's financial backers.
There was no evidence Armitstead had taken drugs, but it's impossible not to associate missed tests with doping suspicions.
The absence of top contenders was reminiscent of 2008, when three Russian runners, including the 2004 silver medalist Tatyana Tomashova, were suspended because of doping suspicions.
The IAAF itself was implicated in the report, along with the Russians, for what its authors called a "collective and inexplicable laissez-faire policy" toward pursuing doping suspicions.
"I know there has been some controversy about those victories," he said, referring to the doping suspicions that have followed him throughout his career.
He was scheduled to ride not the Giro but the Tour of California when his Liquigas teammate Franco Pellizotti, second in the Giro last year, was barred from this race because of doping suspicions.
