RadioShack’s Lance Armstrong climbed into a team car and abandoned the Amgen Tour of California after a crash early on in the fifth stage.

Armstrong, defending champion and teammate Levi Leipheimer, and Saxo Bank’s Stuart O’Grady were among those to hit the deck in the pileup, which occurred as the road narrowed leaving Visalia and entering orchard country. O’Grady also called it quits.

Other riders who were at least delayed by the pileup included Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), Jason McCartney (RadioShack) and Bernie Eisel (HTC-Columbia).

Armstrong appeared to have some cuts, and team boss Johan Bruyneel said he would be taken to a hospital for X-rays.

Team spokesman Philippe Maertens said Armstrong was evaluated by doctors in the team bus who gave him eight stitches under his left eye. He also had “a severe left elbow contusion.” The precautionary X-rays found no broken bones.

“It was a shame to have to abandon early and not be able to help Levi to another victory,” Armstrong said. “It was one of those crashes that put a bunch of us down. I tried to give it a go but my eye was swollen so I couldn’t see properly and the pain in the elbow prevented me from holding the bars for the remainder of the stage.”

Armstrong, who had been using the Tour of California as part of his buildup to a Tour de France campaign, said he would take a few days off and resume training.

“It was a relief to learn there were no breaks,” said Armstrong, who had surgery to repair a broken collarbone last year. “I will take a few days to recover and be on the bike as soon as possible”

Lance after the crash - Courtesy Casey B. Gibson

Lance on the doping accusations:

Lance Armstrong on Thursday dismissed accusations by Floyd Landis that Armstrong had schooled him in doping methods. Landis made doping allegations against Armstrong and more than seven others in an email sent to USA Cycling CEO Steve Johnson.

“With regards to the specific allegations, the specific claims, they’re not even worth getting into it,” Armstrong told a scrum of reporters outside the RadioShack team bus before the start of the Amgen Tour of California’s fifth stage. “I’m not going to waste my time or your time.”

Armstrong and team director Johan Bruyneel — against whom Landis also made allegations — spoke for about 10 minutes.

“We have nothing to hide,” Armstrong said. “We have nothing to run from. It’s our word against his word. I like our word. We like our credibility.

“I think history speaks for itself here. We have all followed this case for the last four years. We followed Floyd wining the Tour. We don’t know what he did or didn’t do on that team. We can only speak about what he did on our team.”

Armstrong listed the people whom Landis alleged were involved in doping in an email sent to USA Cycling: “myself, Johan, Levi, Zabriskie, Andy Rijs, Jim Ochowicz, Michael Barry, Matt White …”

“At the end of the day, he pointed the finger at everybody still involved in cycling,” Armstrong said. “Everybody that still enjoys the sport, that still believes in the sport. Everybody still working in the sport was in the crosshairs.

“I’m standing here with you guys because I won the Tour de France seven times. But you gotta keep in mind that the guy in the yellow jersey at this race is also in the crosshairs. And that’s not by accident. And maybe that’s a good strategy to get as much attention as possible. If I can use Allen Lim as an example — somebody that I view as someone that has the highest standards of anyone in this sport — the fact that he’s thrown in there speaks volumes.”

Asked whether Landis’ allegations could affect RadioShack’s entry into the 2010 Tour, Armstrong replied: “You have a somebody who has been under oath several times with a completely different version. You have somebody who has written a book with a completely different version. You have somebody that took people’s money for his defense — some say a million dollars — with a completely different version. He said, he has got no proof. It’s his word versus ours.

“Back in the day there was all this talk, ‘Oh, Floyd has pictures of a refrigerated motorcycle. …’ Where is that? It’s all a bunch of bullshit. It never existed.”

Asked by VeloNews to comment on Landis’ claim that Armstrong and Bruyneel taught him how to dope, Armstrong replied: “Other than saying it’s not true? We can only speak about what happened on our team. I can’t tell you about what happened at Phonak. I can’t tell you how he won the 2006 Tour de France. The one thing that brought this about is him testing positive for synthetic testosterone. And he denies that still, which is slightly odd.

“But we categorically deny that we were in any way involved in teaching anybody — forget about Floyd — teaching anybody how to do it.”

“One word to sum this up: credibility,” Armstrong added. “Floyd lost his credibility a long time ago.”

Courtesy Ben Delaney and www.velonews.com