British Cycling president says Armstrong should ‘reveal facts’

PanARMENIAN.Net - Lance Armstrong should reveal all if he admits to doping on the Oprah Winfrey show later this week, British Cycling president Brian Cookson said, according to BBC Sport.

The American was stripped of his seven Tour de France wins following a report by the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada).

Armstrong, 41, who has always denied doping, has remained silent since the report was published in October, but newspaper reports say he may confess.

"Let's have facts, names, places and times," Cookson told BBC Sport.

Cookson said: "If the allegations are true in Tyler Hamilton's book and the Usada report then there are substantial numbers of people involved. The real thing that has to come out is who were these other people involved? Who were the people supplying and helping him, the doctors that helped him, the companies that supplied him? Let's have that information. The sort of thing Armstrong was doing, according to the Usada report, was not just popping a few pills behind the changing rooms, it was sophisticated conspiracies, cheating over a long period of time on a large scale."

In his book, Hamilton, who was a team-mate of Armstrong during his Tour de France victories in 1999, 2000 and 2001, alleged that the American was a fellow doper.

Armstrong ended his fight against the charges against him in August 2012. In October, Usada released a 1,000-page report saying he had been at the heart of "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program" ever seen in sport.

Armstrong was stripped of his titles by the International Cycling Union (UCI) shortly after the Usada report was released and he was given a lifetime ban from the sport.

He also resigned as chairman of the Livestrong foundation - the cancer charity he created - after the cycling body's decision.