White quits over Armstrong links

GreenEDGE Cycling sports director Matt White has stepped down from his position after admitting to taking part in doping during his time as a team-mate of Lance Armstrong with US Postal in the early 2000s.

White, who has now also stood down from his role with Cycling Australia's national men's high performance program, admitted doping was part of US Postal team's strategy. The admission is another damning claim against Armstrong who has had 11 of his former team-mates give evidence against him to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

White issued a statement on Saturday after earlier being accused of cheating by 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis while with the US Postal team from 2001-2003.

The statement said: "I am aware my name has been mentioned during talks that USADA has had with former team-mates of mine in their investigation regarding doping activities at the US Postal Service team. I am sad to say that I was part of a team where doping formed part of the team's strategy, and I too was involved in that strategy.

"My involvement is something I am not proud of and I sincerely apologise to my fans, media, family and friends who trusted me and also to other athletes in my era that consciously chose not to dope."

White stopped racing in 2007 before moving into positions with Slipstream-Chipotle (now Garmin-Sharp) and GreenEDGE. He said one of the main reasons he stopped racing was the desire to help change the sport with the team's founder Jonathan Vaughters and David Millar.

"I stopped my racing career because I had the opportunity to be part of something that had the potential to actually change cycling," White said. "The ideas about a clean team that Dave Millar and Jonathan Vaughters spoke to me about back then, were ones that the sport desperately needed."

White said he understood the criticism the sport had received but believes the culture is slowly changing.

"As a sport, cycling has received a lot of criticism regarding doping and rightfully so - but certain teams have also led the way in fighting an otherwise never-ending battle to ensure that professional cycling can stay clean," he said. "This battle starts from within and we have had great success in changing this in the current culture in our sport.

"I am convinced that this battle will need constant monitoring and we must learn constructively from the past. The approach that many riders of my generation had cannot be repeated, and I believe that cycling now has the most rigorous and complete testing regimes of any sport."