Armstrong refusestalk with USADA
By JIM VERTUNO
The Associated Press | February 21,2013
AUSTIN, Texas — Lance Armstrong won’t do a tell-all interview under oath with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to reveal everything he knows about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in cycling.
USADA officials had told Armstrong he must speak with them if he wanted to reduce his lifetime ban from sports. Under their offer, Wednesday was the deadline for him to agree to the interview.
Armstrong attorney Tim Herman said that, after two months of negotiations, the cyclist refused participate in a process designed “only to demonize selected individuals.”
Armstrong said previously he is willing to participate in an international effort to clean up a sport that is based mostly in Europe.
USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said the agency had expected Armstrong would agree to talk and would be “moving on” without him.
“Over the last few weeks he has led us to believe that he wanted to come in and assist USADA, but was worried of potential criminal and civil liability if he did so,” Tygart said. “Today we learned from the media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing not to come in and be truthful and that he will not take the opportunity to work toward righting his wrongs in sport.”
For more than a decade, Armstrong denied using performance-enhancing drugs. But last year, USADA released a report that detailed extensive doping on his seven Tour de France-winning teams and stripped him of those titles. Armstrong then admitted last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he doped to win those races.
He still faces several legal challenges.
Armstrong was the subject of a two-year federal grand jury investigation that was dropped a year ago without an indictment, but the Department of Justice is still considering whether to join a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis.
Armstrong also has been sued by a Dallas-based SCA Promotions to recover more than $12 million in bonuses. And he has been sued by The Sunday Times in London to recover a libel judgment that Armstrong won against the paper.
