Armstrong ready to co-operate with agencies to ‘clean up cycling’

Lance-ArmstrongLondon, Jan 26 : Lance Armstrong's attorney, Tim Herman has claimed his client is ready to work with the doping agencies to help them clean cycling from the stigma of drugs.

However, Herman said the sport''s governing body and world anti-doping officials should take the lead on that effort, the Sky News reports. Armstrong admitted last week in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey that he took a variety of performance-enhancing drugs as he won seven Tour de France titles.

In letters sent this week between lawyers for Armstrong and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the agency''s attorney William Bock asked that Armstrong must testify under oath by February 6.

But Armstrong''s attorney, Herman, responded that Armstrong could make that deadline and called for the cycling union and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to take up efforts to stamp out doping, the paper reported.

Herman wrote in his letter that the USADA has no authority to investigate, prosecute or otherwise involve itself with the other 95% of cycling competitors, adding, therefore, in order to achieve the goal of cleaning up cycling, it must be WADA and the UCI who have overall authority to do so.

The letter also said the disgraced cyclist was prepared appear before a truth and reconciliation commission to be held by the International Cycling Union (UCI). Armstrong told to Winfrey that he had used a banned cocktail of the blood-boosting agent EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone. (ANI)