Armstrong’s Team Cleared

An exhaustive doping probe into Lance Armstrong’s cycling team was closed last week because of a lack of evidence, a French judicial official said.

After 21 months of inquiries, investigators found no proof that the U.S. Postal Service team used banned substances during the 2000 Tour de France, the official told the Associated Press on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Armstrong won his second consecutive Tour title in 2000. He won the Tour for the fourth consecutive year in July.

“To me, it was like ‘Oh, really? Great. Whatever,’ ” Armstrong told the Austin American-Statesman. “We knew all along there really was no case.

“It took two years to announce something that we knew two weeks into it that there was nothing there. The political process ran its course.... They got into it, saw they were going to lose, and they didn’t know how to handle it. So it went on and on and on.”

U.S. Postal’s director of operations Dan Osipow also expected the probe to be dropped.

“It’s a relief that it’s officially over,” Osipow said. “We’ve expressed our innocence time and time again.

“All along, we felt this conclusion would be found. It’s taken a lot longer than anyone expected.”

The judicial official said that none of the tests carried out on blood and urine samples taken from Armstrong and his teammates two years ago showed evidence the cyclists used banned drugs or underwent banned medical procedures.

The deputy director of the Tour de France, Daniel Baal, said the decision to end the probe “means that all the doubts and all the accusations [against U.S. Postal] had no foundation.”

Miscellany

More than 1,000 fans cheered Little League’s newest champions at a parade in Louisville, Ky.

The 11 and 12-year-old Louisville team members started at their home field and rode along Main Street to Slugger Field downtown.

The players appeared tired as they gathered on a stage in front of Slugger Field--home of the triple-A Louisville Bats--with Mayor Dave Armstrong.

The team, led by Aaron Alvey and Zach Osborne, defeated Sendai, Japan, 1-0, on Aug. 25 to take the world title.

Matt Welsh broke the 50-meter backstroke short-course world record at the Australian swimming championships in Melbourne.

Welsh finished in 23.31 seconds, .11 of a second faster than the former record in a 25-meter pool set by American Neil Walker on March 16, 2000, at Athens.

Passings

Jake Richardson, a defensive tackle for the Georgia football team that defeated Texas in the 1984 Cotton Bowl, has died at the age of 38. Richardson, who died Thursday of kidney failure at Emory Hospital, was a member of the Bulldogs from 1982-85.