Lance Armstrong USADA Evidence Request Offends UCI: We Caught Him, Not You
The United States Anti-Doping Agency has requested Lance Armstrong's help in setting cycling on a new path by asking him to provide evidence against the Internationa Cycling Union, who allegedly assisted Armstrong in covering up his doping scheme.
Armstrong has previously suggested that he has evidence to prove the International Cycling Union (UCI) assisted in preventing test results from his doping scandal to come forward. That evidence is now of interest to the Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), who is still attempting to clean up the sport of cycling.
"Armstrong led us to believe- during the course of our interaction with him- that he had evidence of their complicity in this situation, and of course we've developed additional information that will come out through our process, that I can't comment on right now," Travis Tygart, CEO of the USADA, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
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Tygart suggested that evidence to prove the UCI may have taken bribes from Armstrong to help cover up his doping scheme could help in the organization's attempt to improve the sport.
"We're hopeful at some point he'll come in and be truthful. I think he could provide a lot of information," Tygart told AP. "We certainly are under the impression based on our conversations around our meeting back in December that he has information and evidence that would be extremely helpful and powerful in trying to set cycling on a new path."
The UCI has denied any involvement in Armstrong's drug usage and accused Tygart of misrepresenting the facts.
"He should establish the facts before jumping to conclusions. The UCI welcomes any assistance and clarification that Lance Armstrong may wish to give Mr Tygart on the matter," the organization said in a press release.
"No attempt by Travis Tygart to rewrite history will change the fact that USADA failed to catch Lance Armstrong having tested him just 49 times during his career. The UCI by comparison tested Armstrong 189 times," a spokesperson for the organization said. "As Mr Tygart himself admitted Thursday in other media reports, it was the UCI in its campaign against doping, not WADA or USADA, which caught Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. And it was the UCI catching these two high-profile riders which ended up with them confessing and so enabled the investigation to move against Armstrong."
