Lance Armstrong says he's weighing the cost and time of filing a lawsuit to get to the bottom of the charges by a French newspaper that he took a banned substance in 1999.
“If you do have a trial you get to the bottom of it and you find out who sabotaged the process and you find out who leaked the details. But, in the meantime, it costs you a million, a million and a half dollars, costs you a couple years of your life. But guess what guys? I've got a lot of things I can do with a million and a half dollars that are a lot better than this and I've got a lot things better to do with two years of my life than deal with this.”
Armstrong made the comment to reporters in the wake of a story this week by L'Equipe, a French sporting newspaper, that a lab found EPO in urine samples taken from during the Tour de France in 1999, the year he won his first of seven championships.
The Paceline fan website (free registration) has a transcript of the telephone Q&A between Armstrong and reporters from his hotel room in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. He had just visited the headquarters of the Discovery Channel, main sponsor for his cycling team.
Commenting on quotes from Tour de France manager Jean-Marie LeBlanc that he and the fans had been “fooled” by Armstrong:
“But to say that I've fooled the fans is preposterous. I've been doing this a long time. We have not just one year of only 'B' samples to say I've fooled the fans, we have seven years of 'A' and 'B' samples and they're all negative. There's never been EPO in there. There's never been steroids in there. So to say after there are a few 'B' samples left around, and by the way, we can't prove if your right or wrong, you cannot defend yourself, to then to say you've wronged the fans and fooled the fans is absolutely unfair.”
“I asked him to put himself in my position. We all know the history here. You know my history with the French. You know my history with the French media, the French Ministry of Sport, the organizers, the labs, the prosecutors, the police, etc. It has been a witch hunt. That was not just a catch phrase to put in the press release to be at the headline. I think all of us are smart enough to know that this has been going on for a long time, close to a decade.”
Armstrong also spoke about whether the charges have hurt his credibility and his reputation, how it ranks in upsets in his career, and the timing of the charges.
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