End to Armstrong probe welcome in Qatar

Cycling teams at the Tour of Qatar on Sunday welcomed the end of a US federal investigation into Lance Armstrong, saying they were hopeful the seven-time Tour of France champion could finally move on with his life.

Federal prosecutors dropped their investigation of Armstrong on Friday, ending a nearly two-year effort to determine whether the American cyclist and his teammates were involved in doping. Armstrong has long denied doping and said he was “gratified” by the decision.

Laurenzo Lapage, the Greenedge cycling sporting director who worked with Armstrong on the US Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams from 2003 to ’07, said the decision reaffirmed what most colleagues of Armstrong had long believed: he didn’t dope.

“Everyone who knows Lance and was racing and working with him knew this before,” said Lapage, as his Australian team prepared for the first stage of the Tour of Qatar.

“It was not a surprise for anyone. It’s a good feeling that the truth is out now,” Lapage said. “The guy had a lot of success and a lot of people were jealous … People tried to break him down with lies and it is really good thing everything (is) over for him now. He did a lot of great things for cycling. It is his moment to live in peace.”

Johnny Weltz, the sporting director of the American team Garmin-Barracuda and who rode with Armstrong on the Motorola team in 1995, said Armstrong was an easy target.

“The people who (made) these charges, they wanted to be Lance and didn’t manage it,” Weltz said.

Investigators looked at whether a doping program was established for Armstrong’s team while, at least part of the time, they received government sponsorship from the US Postal Service. They also examined whether Armstrong encouraged or facilitated doping on the team.

Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999-2005.

Weltz added: “You can always bring questions up for everything. We are used to that in our world. You suspect someone if they do well.

“You can’t go further when you have a federal investigation for two years and they don’t nail him. You have to let the guy go.”

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