‘Sociopath’ Armstrong deserves jail for dope fraud

CONFESSED DRUGS cheat Lance Armstrong is a ‘‘sociopath’’ who should go to jail for his ‘‘criminal’’ behaviour says the bike mechanic who fled to New Zealand after being hounded out of the United States by the disgraced cyclist.

‘‘He’s worth in excess of US$100 million and none of it has been gained honestly,’’ said Mike Anderson, who was Armstrong’s bike mechanic and personal assistant for two years from 2002 until he was sacked.

‘‘He deserves to go to jail. If you commit a crime, you need to answer for it,’’ he said referring to Armstrong’s admission that he won all his seven Tour de France titles while taking banned drugs, something that would be regarded as sporting fraud in many countries. ‘‘This is not a traffic violation. It’s theft on a large scale.’’

Armstrong, pictured left, confessed to doping over a 10-year period from the mid-1990s to 2005 during in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that screened worldwide over the past two days.

Anderson moved his family to Upper Hutt in 2007 after a trenchant legal battle with Armstrong which followed Anderson’s claim in 2004 that he had found evidence of steroid use in Armstrong’s Spanish apartment. In his interview, Armstrong resolved to apologise to the many victims he sued after they said he used performance-enhancing drugs. But Anderson is not expecting a phone call and would not accept any apology. ‘‘I’ll never get over the anger I have for him, for the way he treated me. What could he possibly say that would help?’’

He also attacked Armstrong for using his testicular cancer illness as a ‘‘shield’’ to protect the ‘‘lies he was living’’.

Meanwhile, World Ironman triathlon officials say they would welcome Armstrong back into their sport if his lifetime ban from all Olympic sports is reduced. ‘‘If the ban was reduced, we would let him compete,’’ said American Andrew Messick, who is in Auckland for an international half-ironman event today.

But Kiwi Olympic silver medallist triathlete Bevan Docherty, who is now competing in Ironman events, says Armstrong should remain banned from all competition.

‘‘I think he should dig a hole and crawl into it and disappear,’’ said Docherty.