'Sabotaged' Lance fights back
2005-09-16 07:36
Los Angeles - French sports daily L'Equipe could be part of a much larger conspiracy to destroy the legacy of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, the cycling legend's agent said on Thursday.
Bill Stapleton said apparent lapses in anti-doping protocol raised questions about integrity of the system.
He disputes the way Armstrong's 1999 urine samples were handled and the manner in which information was leaked to L'Equipe, saying France's ministry of sport, the failed Paris 2012 Olympic bid and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) were involved.
"The system seriously failed and when the system fails, you have to go to the head," Stapleton said.
"This is going to trickle all the way up. L'Equipe was a mouthpiece used by people up much higher. It goes to the Ministry of Sport, to the Olympic bid, it goes to Wada and it goes to (Wada president) Dick Pound."
Booster
Armstrong, who retired after his seventh consecutive Tour de France victory in July, has been accused of using banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) by L'Equipe in an August 23 article, which showed details of the drug tests.
L'Equipe reported with a front-page headline "The Armstrong Lie" that six of Armstrong's urine samples from the 1999 race tested positive for EPO, a test perfected only after that inaugural Armstrong triumph.
Speaking in a conference call that included Armstrong, Stapleton said the only way that Armstrong's stored urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France could have tested positive is if someone tampered with the specimens.
"We leave open the possibility that someone sabotaged those samples," he said. "Someone put EPO in them if the test is accurate."
Flawed
Armstrong said that current testing procedures were flawed and Wada knows this - and that is why they are trying to develop a more reliable one.
"Is Dick Pound a vindictive person who holds grudges, perhaps?" Armstrong said.
Armstrong admitted for the first time on Thursday that he gave L'Equipe the authority to view his confidential testing forms from the Tour de France, documents that eventually became the base for their story.
"We authorised the release for a particular purpose," Stapleton said.
"They were supposed to look at the forms to see if there was a medical exemption. We assumed they would go and look at the forms and not leave with them."
Samples
Under standard procedures, French lab workers have no way of knowing which stored urine samples belong to which rider.
Armstrong's name didn't surface until the L'Equipe reporter was able to match the confidential forms to a separate list of sample numbers.
"The only reason to get the forms and numbers was an attempt to match them," said Armstrong lawyer Mark Levinstein. "What kind of event is going on here?
"Either the lab was involved in this or someone told them to do it which is a violation of protocol."