Lance Armstrong has hit out at the New York Times over its story yesterday documenting former US Postal rider Frankie Andreu's confession that he has used EPO.
"I think it's a pretty nasty attempt by the New York Times to link me to doping through somebody else's admission. You have to read way down in the article until Frankie says, 'I never saw Lance do anything', Armstrong told the Associated Press.
"To me, this is a story about Frankie Andreu," Armstrong said. "The fact he took drugs has nothing to do with me."
Armstrong took the opportunity to once again stress that he has never taken drugs, saying that any suggestion he had doped was "ludicrous."
"I can't prove a negative. All I can say is what I said a million times: I was tested at races, in my house, in hotel rooms, airports -- you name it. I had a lot of pressure on me," he said. "My performances never did anything but get better and stronger amid all the pressure and the improved testing."
Late Tuesday evening Armstrong issued a statement refuting the implication that he had known about or requested drug use by Andreu and the anonymous US Postal rider mentioned in the NYT story.
"Today’s article in the New York Times was a blatant attempt to associate me and implicate me with a former teammate’s admission that he took banned substances during his career," said Armstrong in the statement. "The recycled suggestion that former teammates took EPO with my knowledge or at my request is categorically false and distorted sensationalism. My cycling victories are untainted; I didn’t take performance enhancing drugs, I didn’t ask anyone else to take them and I didn’t condone or encourage anyone else to take them. I won clean."
Click here for the full statement.
