Armstrong won't interview with USADA

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — 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.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.