US Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart says Lance Armstrong lied in his confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey, and the shamed cyclist has until February 6 to “cooperate fully” if he wants to lessen his life ban.
In an excerpt of an interview with the CBS network, which will air in full on 60 Minutes tomorrow, Tygart said Armstrong lied about several key points — including his claim that he raced clean in his comeback in 2009 and 2010.
Tygart said he has written to the shamed cyclist and offered him a deadline of February 6 to “cooperate fully and truthfully” in exchange for a possible lessening of his lifetime ban from sports.
The USADA chief also told CBS that Armstrong’s vehement claim that he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs when he came out of retirement to race in the Tour de France in 2009 and 2010 is “just contrary to the evidence”.
Tygart reiterated the claims outlined in the report issued last year by USADA, on which the agency based its lifetime ban of Armstrong and the forfeiture of all of his cycling results from August 1998.
According to Tygart, expert reports based on the variation of Armstrong’s blood values in those years make it “one to a million chance that it was due to something other than doping”.