Former USADA chief says Armstrong rep made offer

In this Monday, Jan. 14, 2013 photo provided by Harpo Studios Inc., cyclist Lance Armstrong listens to a question from Oprah Winfrey during taping for the show “Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive” in Austin, Texas. AP FILE PHOTO/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc., George Burns

The former chief of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says a representative of Lance Armstrong’s offered the agency a donation in the range of $200,000 to $250,000 in 2004 and the agency immediately rejected it.

Terry Madden, who led USADA from 2000-07, corroborated a story current CEO Travis Tygart told in an interview earlier this month.

In his interview with Oprah Winfrey on Friday, Armstrong said no one in his camp made such an offer.

“Nobody,” Armstrong said. “Certainly I had no knowledge of that. But I’ve asked around. Did anybody? Not true.”

Madden countered that, saying the Armstrong representative called Tygart — then USADA’s general counsel — who came to Madden’s office with the proposal.

“Then, 10 seconds later, because of our ethics, I told Travis to turn it down,” Madden said. “We called back that representative and gave them our decision immediately.”

Madden said he could not name the Armstrong representative because of a pending federal whistleblower lawsuit against the cyclist.

He called the offer “very, very strange and it was such an easy decision for us.”

“It’s very clear, we cannot accept gifts from people we’re either currently testing or would be testing in the future,” he said.

Asked why he thought Armstrong disputed the offer, Madden said, “It’s just another personal attack on Travis and USADA.”