October 20, 2006 Lance Armstrong has bashed L.A. Official, a new book released in France Thursday, describing it as “another baseless attack.”

The book, written by David Walsh and Pierre Ballester, authors of 2004’s L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong, focuses on the testimony given in the legal dispute between Armstrong and SCA Promotions, a Dallas-based provider of prize coverage for promotions, contests, and games that tried to withhold a $5 million bonus contracted to Armstrong for his sixth Tour de France victory.

SCA Promotions’ attempt to deny Armstrong his bonus was based on doping allegations that surfaced in Walsh and Ballester’s L.A. Confidential, but Armstrong denied the claims, sued, won, and received $7.5 million from the company, reports the Associated Press (AP).

“This latest attack will be no different than the first—a sensationalized attempt to cash in on my name and sully my reputation by people who have demonstrated a consistent failure to adhere to the most basic journalistic standards or ethics,” Armstrong says in a statement he issued on October 18.

L.A. Confidential compiled interviews and suppositions to build a circumstantial case that Armstrong had taken performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO and steroids. In a 2005 interview, Walsh admitted to Outside that his book offered no conclusive evidence to support the accusations (Read the article, ”J'Accuse”.)

Walsh and Armstrong clashed as early as 2002, when Armstrong told the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, “Walsh is the worst journalist I know. There are journalists who are willing to lie, to threaten people, and to steal in order to catch me out. Ethics, standards, values, accuracy: these are of no interest to people like them.” In his October 18 statement, Armstrong claims that L.A. Official, like L.A. Confidential, will only be published in France to “hide from legal accountability.” “I imagine he [Walsh] is trying to make a living, but I’d say at someone else’s expense,” USA Cycling CEO Steve Johnson told Outside Online. “From our organization’s perspective, it has no relevance because it falls so far outside our standards for managing doping issues—it can’t even be considered.”

Armstrong concludes his statement by saying, “I raced clean. I won clean. I am the most tested athlete in the history of sports. I have defended myself and won every court case to prove I was clean. Yet another French book with baseless, sensational, and rejected allegations will not overcome the truth.”

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