Anti-doping officials: Armstrong must say more
BY EDDIE PELLS Associated Press
Saturday, January 19, 2013
1/19/13 at 5:37 AM
For anti-doping officials, Lance Armstrong's admission of cheating was only a start. Now they want him to give details - lots of them - to clean up his sport.
Armstrong's much-awaited confession to Oprah Winfrey made for riveting television, but if the disgraced cyclist wants to take things further, it will involve several long meetings with anti-doping officials who have very specific questions: Who ran the doping programs, how were they run and who looked the other way.
"He didn't name names," World Anti-Doping Agency President John Fahey told The Associated Press in Australia. "He didn't say who supplied him, what officials were involved."
In the 90-minute interview Thursday night with Winfrey - the first of two parts broadcast on her OWN network - Armstrong said he started doping in the mid-1990s, using the blood booster EPO, testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone, as well as engaging in outlawed blood doping and transfusions. The doping regimen, he said, helped him in all seven of his Tour de France wins.
His openness about his own transgressions, however, did not extend to allegations about other people. "I don't want to accuse anybody," he said.
But he might have to name names if he wants to gain anything from his confession, at least from anti-doping authorities.
Armstrong has been stripped of all his Tour de France titles and banned for life. A reduction of the ban, perhaps to eight years, could allow him to compete in triathlons in 2020, when he's 49.
Almost to a person, those in cycling and anti-doping circles believe it will take nothing short of Armstrong turning over everything he knows to stand any chance of cutting a deal to reduce his ban.
"We're left wanting more. We have to know more about the system," Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme told the AP. "He couldn't have done it alone. We have to know who in his entourage helped him to do this."
Original Print Headline: Officials want more from Lance
Associated Images:
The World Anti-Doping Agency wants Lance Armstrong to give more details after admitting cheating during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired Thursday night. JAMES KNOWLER/AP file
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