Re: atheletics
Posted: 22 Jul 2004, 07:43
From AFP:
Lance Armstrong, seeking a record sixth consecutive Tour de France in July, has vowed to take legal action over a new book about him which alleges he used banned drugs.
Tailwind Sports, owner and operator of Armstrong's US Postal Service Cycling team, said Armstrong, 33, will begin libel proceedings against the authors and publishers of "L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong."
"Lance Armstrong utterly denies ever having taken any performance-enhancing drugs," a statement said. "Accordingly, Lance Armstrong has instructed his lawyers to immediately institute libel proceedings."
The book focuses on statements attributed to Emma O'Reilly, a soigneur who worked with Armstrong from 1998-2000. O'Reilly claims Armstrong used the banned blood booster EPO.
O'Reilly also alleges that Armstrong asked her to dispose of bags with syringes after the 1998 Tour of Holland and that in May 1999, as Armstrong trained in the Pyrenees, O'Reilly said she was asked to drive to Spain to pick up drugs which she handed to Armstrong in a parking lot.
O'Reilly claims in the book Armstrong asked her to use makeup to cover up syringe marks on his arm at a Tour de France medical checkup in 1999.
Armstrong, a Texan, has neither tested positive for banned substances nor faced any bans over doping.
O'Reilly, 33, left the US Postal team in 2000 on apparently good terms, with ex-Postal coach Mark Gorski praising her.
Another account from the International Herald Tribune:
Among O'Reilly's charges are these:
In June 1999, during the Dauphine Libéré race, Armstrong told her that his hematocrit level - the relation of oxygen-bearing red corpuscles to white in his blood - was 41 percent, or nine below the legal maximum.
"Everybody in cycling knows you can't win with a level as low as 41 percent," she is quoted as having said. "What are you going to do?"
"He looked at me and said, 'Emma, you know what I'm going to do; I'm going to do what the others do.'" She added: "I knew exactly what he was going to do."
In July 1999, before the perfunctory medical examination that precedes each Tour de France, Armstrong asked her for makeup to cover bruises on his arm caused by injections. The authors say that the many legal injections of vitamins, iron and recuperative agents that riders receive are always administered in the buttocks; the upper arms, they contend, are better suited for such illegal substances as EPO, human growth hormone and steroids.
In May 1998, after the Tour of the Netherlands, Armstrong gave her a bag of empty syringe needles to dispose of.
In May 1999, during a training camp in the Pyrenees, she was sent to the team's headquarters in Spain, where Johan Bruyneel, the Postal Service team's director, gave her a container of about 24 pills that she delivered to Armstrong two days later in a parking lot in Nice, where he then lived.
In July 1999, during the Tour de France that he was easily leading, Armstrong had a positive finding for steroid use. "I already knew about the steroid because Lance had told me," she is quoted as having said.
"He said he had used a steroid before or during the Route du Sud the month before, and he thought it would be O.K. for the Tour. He thought the drug would be completely eliminated from his body."
To resolve the looming scandal, she continues, Armstrong and two officials of his team decided to attribute the steroid to a cream used to treat saddle sores. Since Armstrong had not listed such a cream or treatment on his obligatory medical form, the team's doctor, according to this account, filled out a predated prescription.
At a news conference during the Tour, Armstrong explained the appearance of the steroid as a result of his treatment for a saddle sore.
The storm passed. Afterward, O'Reilly is quoted as having said, Armstrong told her, "Now, Emma, you know enough to destroy me."
The extract in L'Express gives no indication why O'Reilly, who left the team a few years ago to get married, would speak now, especially since she starts her account with an anecdote about Armstrong's generosity and kindness toward her.
As she did in interviews at the time, she also cites the warm friendship between them.
She is not the only witness cited in the extract. Also mentioned are Stephen Swart, a former rider from New Zealand, who alleges that Armstrong paid him $50,000 to allow the Texan to win a series of races in 1993 in the United States with an overall prize of $1 million.
Kathy LeMond, the wife of the American rider who won the Tour de France three times, is also quoted at length about threats that Armstrong allegedly made to him because he had spread doubts about Armstrong's victories in the Tour.
Lance Armstrong, seeking a record sixth consecutive Tour de France in July, has vowed to take legal action over a new book about him which alleges he used banned drugs.
Tailwind Sports, owner and operator of Armstrong's US Postal Service Cycling team, said Armstrong, 33, will begin libel proceedings against the authors and publishers of "L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong."
"Lance Armstrong utterly denies ever having taken any performance-enhancing drugs," a statement said. "Accordingly, Lance Armstrong has instructed his lawyers to immediately institute libel proceedings."
The book focuses on statements attributed to Emma O'Reilly, a soigneur who worked with Armstrong from 1998-2000. O'Reilly claims Armstrong used the banned blood booster EPO.
O'Reilly also alleges that Armstrong asked her to dispose of bags with syringes after the 1998 Tour of Holland and that in May 1999, as Armstrong trained in the Pyrenees, O'Reilly said she was asked to drive to Spain to pick up drugs which she handed to Armstrong in a parking lot.
O'Reilly claims in the book Armstrong asked her to use makeup to cover up syringe marks on his arm at a Tour de France medical checkup in 1999.
Armstrong, a Texan, has neither tested positive for banned substances nor faced any bans over doping.
O'Reilly, 33, left the US Postal team in 2000 on apparently good terms, with ex-Postal coach Mark Gorski praising her.
Another account from the International Herald Tribune:
Among O'Reilly's charges are these:
In June 1999, during the Dauphine Libéré race, Armstrong told her that his hematocrit level - the relation of oxygen-bearing red corpuscles to white in his blood - was 41 percent, or nine below the legal maximum.
"Everybody in cycling knows you can't win with a level as low as 41 percent," she is quoted as having said. "What are you going to do?"
"He looked at me and said, 'Emma, you know what I'm going to do; I'm going to do what the others do.'" She added: "I knew exactly what he was going to do."
In July 1999, before the perfunctory medical examination that precedes each Tour de France, Armstrong asked her for makeup to cover bruises on his arm caused by injections. The authors say that the many legal injections of vitamins, iron and recuperative agents that riders receive are always administered in the buttocks; the upper arms, they contend, are better suited for such illegal substances as EPO, human growth hormone and steroids.
In May 1998, after the Tour of the Netherlands, Armstrong gave her a bag of empty syringe needles to dispose of.
In May 1999, during a training camp in the Pyrenees, she was sent to the team's headquarters in Spain, where Johan Bruyneel, the Postal Service team's director, gave her a container of about 24 pills that she delivered to Armstrong two days later in a parking lot in Nice, where he then lived.
In July 1999, during the Tour de France that he was easily leading, Armstrong had a positive finding for steroid use. "I already knew about the steroid because Lance had told me," she is quoted as having said.
"He said he had used a steroid before or during the Route du Sud the month before, and he thought it would be O.K. for the Tour. He thought the drug would be completely eliminated from his body."
To resolve the looming scandal, she continues, Armstrong and two officials of his team decided to attribute the steroid to a cream used to treat saddle sores. Since Armstrong had not listed such a cream or treatment on his obligatory medical form, the team's doctor, according to this account, filled out a predated prescription.
At a news conference during the Tour, Armstrong explained the appearance of the steroid as a result of his treatment for a saddle sore.
The storm passed. Afterward, O'Reilly is quoted as having said, Armstrong told her, "Now, Emma, you know enough to destroy me."
The extract in L'Express gives no indication why O'Reilly, who left the team a few years ago to get married, would speak now, especially since she starts her account with an anecdote about Armstrong's generosity and kindness toward her.
As she did in interviews at the time, she also cites the warm friendship between them.
She is not the only witness cited in the extract. Also mentioned are Stephen Swart, a former rider from New Zealand, who alleges that Armstrong paid him $50,000 to allow the Texan to win a series of races in 1993 in the United States with an overall prize of $1 million.
Kathy LeMond, the wife of the American rider who won the Tour de France three times, is also quoted at length about threats that Armstrong allegedly made to him because he had spread doubts about Armstrong's victories in the Tour.
