Armstrong facing financial ruin from R1.2-billion suit Contributions to charitable foundation now down to half
DISGRACED cyclist Lance Armstrong admits that he will risk financial ruin when his $100 million (R1.2-billion) whistleblower lawsuit goes before a jury in the United States later this year.
The latest of the American’s many legal problems has seen his former US Postal Service team-mate Floyd Landis, the man whose evidence helped to expose Armstrong’s doping offences, bring a case to court for damages.
Due to the team being sponsored by the American post office, the US federal government has joined Landis in claiming $100-million, one third of which would be awarded to Landis himself for originally bringing the suit.
Armstrong, who revealed he had sought counselling following his public doping confession, is confident of victory in the legal battle, but the fallen seventime Tour de France winner concedes that he is worried.
“I mean, the whistleblower case is a $100million case. If I lost, we would not be sitting at this table anymore,” Armstrong told a group of journalists, including AFP, at his home in Aspen, Colorado.
“We wouldn’t be sitting in this home anymore. We wouldn’t be sitting in any home. I don’t have $100-million.
“We like our case is all I will say. I’m not going to jinx myself. But I don’t know. How do you guys see it? Say the jury says: ‘Pay up $100-million.’ Floyd Landis gets $33-million (R410-million).
“Is everybody at this jury happy with that? I would think what everybody thinks. There’s no logic to that.”
Few athletes – few people – have ever suffered such a calamitous fall from grace as Armstrong, who inspired millions by beating cancer and going on to win one of the world’s hardest sporting events multiple times before being exposed for drug abuse.
While he insists that he is not in the “dark place” that anti-doping former cyclist