The Sunday Times publishes open letter to Oprah Winfrey on Lance Armstrong in US newspaper
The Sunday Times has published an open letter in the form of an advert in the Sunday edition of US broadsheet, Chicago Tribune.
The ad in the newspaper was written in the style of an open letter from David Walsh, chief sports writer at The Sunday Times, to Oprah Winfrey ahead of her interview with Lance Armstrong on Thursday, January 17.
It comes following The Sunday Times announcing in December last year that it plans to sue Armstrong for more than $1.5 million over the settlement of a libel action.
In 2006, The Sunday Times paid Armstrong £300,000 to settle a case after it reprinted claims from a book in 2004 that he took performance-enhancing drugs, which he vehemently denied.
However, according to reports, Armstrong now plans to confess to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his cycling career. His confession would follow the 2012 report by the US Anti-Doping Agency, which concluded Armstrong was at the centre of a doping progrmme on his team. He was consequently stripped of seven Tour de France medals and banned for life from the sport.
The advert was put together by The Sunday Times inhouse editorial team and lists the 10 questions that David Walsh suggests Oprah asks Armstrong. These include: “Did you tell doctors at the Indiana University Hospital on Oct 27, 1996 that you had taken EPO, human growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone?”
“After returning from cancer how did you justify putting banned drugs in your body?”
And: “Did you sue The Sunday Times to shut us up?”
Tomorrow, Sunday 13 January, people will also get another chance to read Walsh’s Sunday Times Magazine article and view the video of his Times+ live event from December. These will be hosted on a public page on Sunday.