No special Tour security for Armstrong
Posted
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme says no special security measures will be put in place for Lance Armstrong's return to the race that made the seven-times winner world famous.
Armstrong, who announced in September he was coming out of a three-year retirement, confirmed yesterday that he will take part in the world's greatest stage race next year despite having expressed concerns over his personal safety on the French roads.
"There are 3,500 kms of roads, 10 million people watching along the road. There will be no particular security measures," Mr Prudhomme told reporters at his office just outside Paris.
Mr Prudhomme said he was not surprised Armstrong was returning to the Tour.
"We were more surprised when he announced he was returning to cycling in September," he said.
"It ends a media game but it is, after all, all but logical that he comes back to the Tour.
"He built his whole career on the Tour de France," added Mr Prudhomme, who briefly met Armstrong at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport last week along with the tour organisers ASO.
"We just took note of his desire to come on the Tour.
"He did a lot for the popularity of the Tour in the Anglo-Saxon countries but the Tour is a monument in itself, it is (more than) 100 years old.
"The riders' achievements would not be what they are if they were not made on the Tour."
Armstrong has had a difficult relationship with the Tour organisers. After his seventh consecutive win in 2005, the French sports daily L'Equipe, who belong to ASO's parent company EPA, claimed they had evidence the Texan used the banned blood-booster EPO in 1999.
However, Armstrong was cleared by an independent committee although then World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound called the decision "surprising".
Mr Prudhomme said he did not doubt the quality of L'Equipe's investigation but added there was an eight-year statute of limitations on doping offences.
"At the time there was no possible way to follow up on this," he said.
"Some will see his return as a fantastic comeback, others will only see a remembrance of the past."
Armstrong will hold a news conference in Tenerife, Spain, where his Astana team is training, on Thursday.
-Reuters
Search for news
ABC News Online takes a look at the big stories from 2008.
