Lance won't ride in 2006..."crooks and criminals"

TOUR DE FRANCE

Lance won't ride in 2006

'No way I could go to France. I wouldn't get a fair shake,' Armstrong says.

By Suzanne Halliburton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, September 15, 2005

Lance Armstrong, fed up with what he described as the "crooks and criminals"
influencing his sport, said Thursday he will not end his retirement and return
to the Tour de France.

"I've got my kids, my fiancée, my work. Upon further review, why should I come
back and deal with crooks and criminals and people like Dick Pound, who have no
ethics," Armstrong told the Austin American-Statesman.

Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion, and Pound, the director of
the World Anti-Doping Agency, have been clashing for years. After taking over
WADA, Pound described cycling as one of the dirtiest sports in the world.
Armstrong publicly disputed Pound's claims and gave almost $100,000 to his
sports governing body to develop a test for blood boosters illegally taken by
some cyclists to get an edge on the competition.

Their feud escalated last month after L'Equipe, a French newspaper, published
what it said were the results of six positive drug tests from urine samples
provided by Armstrong during the 1999 Tour, the first of his seven straight
victories. The newspaper reported that the positive tests were linked to
Armstrong only by coded numbers.

A French lab acknowledged that it had tested backup urine samples from the 1999
Tour while conducting research to perfect a test for erythropoietin (or EPO), a
banned blood booster. The research was only to be conducted if the samples and
results were kept anonymous.

However, someone leaked the details to the French newspaper. The UCI ‹ the
international cycling federation ‹ started an investigation into the leak early
this month. The agency issued a statement last week saying that the World
Anti-Doping Agency was not turning over documents it needed to finish the
investigation.

On Thursday, Pound said the source of the leak was Hein Verbruggen, the UCI
president. Unlike Pound, Verbruggen enjoys a good relationship with Armstrong.

Pound said he received a letter from Verbruggen, saying he had provided
L'Equipe's reporter with forms indicating Armstrong had tested positive for EPO
during his first Tour victory.

"Mr. Verbruggen told us that he showed all the forms of Mr. Armstrong to
L'Equipe and that he even gave the journalist a copy of one of the documents,"
Pound said during a conference call from Montreal.

"I don't understand why they're not stepping up to that and saying, 'Well, I
guess we do know how the name got public, we made it possible,' " he said.

The UCI, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, said Thursday that Verbruggen was
"really astonished" by Pound's latest comments and accused him of "making false
accusations."

UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani said UCI wrote to WADA on Sept. 5 saying it had
handed one document to L'Equipe's journalist.

"Mr. Verbruggen is of the opinion that this declaration by Mr. Pound is a
demonstration of his bad faith because Mr. Pound knows very well that the other
five documents do not come from UCI," he said. "Mr. Pound cannot pretend that he
did not know that."

Carpani said L'Equipe's journalist had visited the UCI offices, but Verbruggen
himself was not there at the time.

Last week's UCI statement said the French reporter apparently had acquired
"confidential documents, which he was able to consult at the UCI after
receiving, under false pretext, the authorization of Lance Armstrong."

L'Equipe said it matched Armstrong's name to six forms marked with coded numbers.

"It's ... quite clear the only way there could have been a match between the
code numbers and a particular athlete was on the basis of information supplied
by the UCI," Pound said.

"Our suggestion has been to (Verbruggen), 'Why are you looking farther than the
UCI in respect of disclosure?' "

Pound questioned the UCI's willingness to fully investigate L'Equipe's
accusations and wondered whether the cycling body was merely looking for a
"scapegoat."

Later during a teleconference, Armstrong criticized Pound and said he had ruled
out a bid for an eighth Tour de France title.

"No way I could go to France. I wouldn't get a fair shake in France on the
roadside, in the doping controls or in the (drug) lab," Armstrong said.

"I think it's better that way," he added a moment later. "I'm happy with the way
my career went and ended, and I'm not coming back."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

--
Regards,

Klay Anderson
http://www.klay.com
+801-942-8346