Armstrong Denies Ownership Role in Former Team

CHAMBÉRY, France — Lance Armstrong, a focus of a federal investigation into possible fraud and doping on the now-defunct United States Postal Service cycling team, distanced himself from that investigation Wednesday, saying that he was just a rider for the team and had no knowledge of what went on within its management.

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Lance Armstrong said that he was just a rider for the team and had no knowledge of what went on within its management.

“The most glaring thing is the misconception that I was the owner of the team,” Armstrong said before Stage 10 of the Tour de France, in which he was in 31st place over all. “That’s completely untrue. No ownership, none at all.”

Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the Tour, said he did not know the people who issued his paychecks, only that the company Tailwind Sports had signed them. He said he had “absolutely” no knowledge of how Tailwind used its funding.

“It wasn’t my company,” he said. “I can’t make it clear enough to you. I don’t know. I didn’t know the company. I didn’t have a position. I didn’t have an equity stake. I didn’t have a profit stake. I didn’t have a seat on the board. I was a rider on the team. I can’t be any clearer than that.”

When asked why he had not cleared up misconceptions about his role on the team years ago, Armstrong said, “I’m correcting that now.”

Federal authorities investigating possible fraud and doping charges against Armstrong and some of his associates recently issued grand jury subpoenas to witnesses, according to several people briefed on the case. Armstrong said Wednesday that he had not spoken with federal investigators, nor had he received a subpoena in connection with the case.

The authorities are particularly interested in the people who dealt with the finances of the Postal Service squad, which was owned by Tailwind Sports.

Jeff Novitzky, a Food and Drug Administration agent who is the lead investigator in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative steroids case, is in charge of the case and is trying to determine whether Armstrong, his teammates, the owners or managers of his former cycling teams conspired to defraud their sponsors by doping to improve their performances and garner more money and prizes. Authorities want to know whether money from the Postal Service, an independent agency of the United States government and the main sponsor of Armstrong’s team from 1996 to 2004, was used to fund systematic doping during that time

The New York Times
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