LONDON, England: Britain’s Sunday Times said yesterday it had settled with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong after it was forced to pay damages over a report which suggested he had used banned substances.
The paper sued Armstrong for £1m ($1.55m, €1.16m) last October when the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced it had “overwhelming” evidence of his drug use.
He later confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he had taken performance-enhancing substances.
The seven-time Tour de France winner was awarded £300,000 in 2006 after he sued the paper and journalists Alan English and David Walsh, the latter of whom almost single-handedly uncovered Armstrong’s cheating.
Following the USADA announcement, the paper demanded the return of the money plus £720,000 costs and branded the libel “baseless and fraudulent”.
The paper reported that it, Walsh and English had “reached a mutually acceptable final resolution to all claims against Lance Armstrong related to the 2012 High Court proceedings and are entirely happy with the agreed settlement, the terms of which remain confidential”. AFP
