Judge: Lance Armstrong must face doping lawsuit

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday rejected Lance Armstrong's bid to dismiss a federal whistleblower lawsuit claiming that he and his former cycling team, which had been sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, had defrauded the government through a scheme to use banned, performance-enhancing drugs.

U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins in Washington, D.C., said the complaints brought by the government and Armstrong's former teammate Floyd Landis were "rife with allegations" that Armstrong had knowledge of doping and made false statements to conceal it.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven victories at the Tour de France and banned for life in 2012 after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report accusing him of engineering one of the most sophisticated doping schemes in sports.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)