Seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, now in his second year of retirement, continues to have to defend himself against allegations that he used doping products during his career. Just days before the start of this year's Tour, more allegations against Armstrong are due to come out on June 25th in the form of a follow-up to David Walsh's L.A. Confidentiel called From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France.
According to the book's description in online stores, "Walsh explores the many facets of the cyclist doping scandals in the United States and abroad. He examines how performance-enhancing drugs can infiltrate a premier sports event - and why athletes succumb to the pressure to use them."
The book quotes many of the same sources of the previous tome, including Armstrong's soigneur Emma O'Reilly, former U.S. Postal team doctor Prentice Steffen, Greg LeMond, and former Armstrong team-mates.
Armstrong issued a statement that contains harsh criticisms of the author, accusing Walsh of producing an "unobjective" book that is "a sensationalised attempt to cash in on my name and sully my reputation by people who have demonstrated a consistent failure to adhere to the most basic journalistic standards or ethics."
While Floyd Landis is also mentioned in the title of the book, he declined to issue a statement regarding the book's release. His spokesperson Michael Henson stated that Landis' own bookPositively False "will provide an interesting and enlightening response to any of the allegations made in Mr. Walsh's forthcoming book."
Armstrong won a lawsuit against the insurance company SCA Promotions after a trial that included plenty of startling testimony, and refutes Walsh's allegations by stating that "I was awarded 7.5 Million dollars in actual and punitive damages by a professional panel of legal experts who received all the evidence and heard from all the 'eyewitnesses'."
David Walsh himself admitted that much of L.A. Confidentiel was based on circumstantial evidence. However, a lawsuit by Armstrong to require the publisher to include a rebuttal in editions of the book was denied by a French court.
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Armstrong blasted the latest book, saying that it "recycled allegations from the first books and cherry-picked allegations and testimony from the losing side of a court case I won and attempts to portray them as facts."
