Lance Armstrong settles with Sunday Times in libel case
Lance Armstrong and The Sunday Times have reached a final resolution in a libel suit and counter-suit based on 2004 claims the disgraced cyclist was using performance-enhancing drugs.
Lance Armstrong talks to a reporter after finishing the first leg of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, in Des Moines, in July. On Sunday, The Sunday Times announced they had settled with Armstrong in a libel suit and counter-suit based on doping claims.
Andrea Melendez/The Des Moines Register/AP
London
British newspaper The Sunday Times has reached a settlement with Lance Armstrong after suing the disgraced cyclist to recover damages from a libel settlement.
The paper paid Armstrong 300,000 pounds (now about $470,000) in 2006 to settle a case after printing claims that he took performance-enhancing drugs.
But confirmation that Armstrong led a massive doping program on his teams came last year from a US Anti-Doping Agency report, prompting a confession by the American, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
The Sunday Times announced it was suing Armstrong for around 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to reclaim the 2006 settlement payment plus interest and legal costs.
In Sunday's editions, the paper said it and the article's authors had reached a "mutually acceptable final resolution" with Armstrong, but said the terms are confidential.
It was The Sunday Times chief sports writer David Walsh's co-authored book, "LA Confidential," that detailed Armstrong's role in cycling's doping culture and was serialized by his paper in 2004.