The word "alleged" should now be dropped from any description of the way doping permeated and enabled Lance Armstrong's cycling career.

For most of the past 15 years, no discussion or story about Armstrong was complete without that loaded yet qualified term. Doping allegations dogged him, came to naught, were declared specious and dismissed by him. Yet they continued to multiply, rattling behind him like tin cans tied to the bumper of a luxury car.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's release of its "reasoned decision" and staggeringly voluminous supporting documents that resulted in its move to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him from elite competition for life -- charges he opted not to contest -- changes all that, and rewrites Armstrong's sporting epitaph from alleged to proven user of performance-enhancing drugs and techniques.

There is no other logical conclusion. After today, anyone who remains unconvinced simply doesn't want to know.

Lance Armstrong walked away from the USADA charges. GabrielL Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

At the core of USADA's case are the collective sworn confessions of a generation of American riders who lived and trained and raced with Armstrong. Taken together, they constitute overwhelming evidence that can't be painted as disgruntled fragging by ex-"lieutenants.'' Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis lied about their own doping and tacitly covered for their former teammates for years, which made it difficult for some to believe them when they finally told the truth. Now they no longer stand isolated.

USADA also presented scientific evidence, in the form of new analyses of old test data, that leads to the conclusion that Armstrong was doping more than a decade ago and continued to dope during his two-season comeback in 2009-10. Had this case gone to arbitration, experts from both sides would have given contradictory accounts of what the numbers mean. Armstrong could have raised questions about USADA's interpretation, or charged that the samples could have been tampered with, as he has before. Instead, with his entire legacy at stake, he elected to walk away.

You can choose not to believe any or all of the witnesses. You can choose to disregard the flashing neon arrows among the test results. You can somehow construe the $1 million in payments Armstrong made to the Swiss-based company of discredited trainer Michele Ferrari as legitimate medical expenses, or remarkably generous gifts. To discount all three elements of USADA's case, and the way they overlap and intersect, is nothing less than being willfully blind.

The riders who signed sworn affidavits also either testified before a federal grand jury or were questioned by federal investigators, risking perjury if they lied or changed their stories. And by admitting to old transgressions for which they were never caught, several riders -- notably, the recently retired George Hincapie -- have hung their own reputations out to dry. It defies credulity to say that all of these statements were given out of spite or in bad faith or to reduce the witnesses' own doping penalties.

The USADA file is greater than the sum of its parts. It shows how sweeping organized doping can be and how many people will collaborate to keep deception afloat when a star's rising tide is lifting them all. Dozens and dozens of people knew: Teammates. Massage therapists. The bus driver. The gardener. Doctors, girlfriends, managers, personal assistants, wives. Everyone cheated. Everyone was in on it. Everyone rationalized that it was part of the cost of doing business.

Doping was endemic during the era when Armstrong dominated the biggest bike race in the world. Every

participant in the sport-wide Ponzi scheme of that time was to some extent the product of a warped environment, including the champion. What sets Armstrong apart is that his competitive success, fueled by illicit means and synergized with his comeback from cancer, made it possible for him to transcend cycling and reap greater profits than anyone else.

For years, Armstrong's critics depended on deductive reasoning and anonymous sources to peg him as a cheater.