LANCE ARMSTRONG IS relieved the federal investigation into doping allegations against him has ended, and says he always stayed confident he would not be charged.
Armstrong spoke by phone to The Associated Press on Thursday, his first interview since prosecutors closed their nearly two-year investigation last Friday.
He says the decision to not bring charges should end any questions or rumors about doping during his career.
Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999-2005. He says he quietly celebrated the end of the investigation with his family and a beer at his home in Austin, Texas.
Armstrong is scheduled to travel to Panama City, Panama this weekend to compete Sunday in a triathlon. He also says he’ll spend this year supporting an anti-smoking campaign in California.
Also yesterday, sport’s highest court banned one of Armstrong’s old rivals.
1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich was suspended by CAS for two years and stripped him of his third-place finish in the 2005 race for blood doping.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 38-year-old German, who retired in 2007, was “fully engaged” in the doping program of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes that was exposed in the 2006 Operation Puerto probe.
