Trek Bicycle Corporation officials told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel yesterday that they have provided documents to a federal criminal investigation involving Lance Armstrong.

Trek spokesman Bill Mashek told the newspaper that company officials were contacted by investigators just before last month’s start of the Tour de France, which US star Armstrong has won a record seven times.

“We have been contacted and we have provided information,” Mashek said.

“We are cooperating fully in the investigation.”

Armstrong is the top endorser of the Wisconsin-based bicycle firm.

Trek has worked with Armstrong since 1998 when the company backed Armstrong’s US Postal Service team. Trek now sponsors Armstrong’s latest team, Radio Shack.

Trek has no plans to drop its sponsorship of Armstrong, Mashek said.

He noted: “It is important to remember these are just allegations.”

Mashek said investigators did not interview Trek employees and that the information Trek provided consisted of documents, adding that investigators asked Trek not make public details of the probe.

“We are respecting that,” Mashek said, not revealing which federal agencies are involved in the investigation.

The New York Times reported in midweek that prosecutors have questioned many former associates of Armstrong, including an anonymous cyclist that backed ex-Armstrong team-mate Floyd Landis’s claim that Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs.

Armstrong has steadfastly denied being a dope cheat and his attorney responded by saying the Times story was mere innuendo against a rider who has never tested positive for doping.

The New York Times said the agent in charge of the probe is Jeff Novitzky, the former lead investigator into the BALCO steroid scandal, and he could be trying to make a case that Armstrong and others defrauded sponsors by doping.

Leadville 100

Lance Armstrong will defend his title at the Leadville 100 mountain bike race on August 14 and fellow American Levi Leipheimer will race alongside him.

Organisers announced the two American cycling protagonists and Radio Shack team-mates, will be among a field of 1,500 riders who start at 10,500 feet and climb 2,000 feet more in the top United States cycling high-altitude endurance challenge.

Armstrong won last year’s Leadville 100 in a record time of six hours, 28 minutes and 50 seconds.

Leipheimer will be competing in his first mountain bike race.