Removing links when exporting to excel

This code works well from this link...Thanks! http://www.aspsnippets.com/Articles/Export-GridView-To-WordExcelPDFCSV-in-ASP.Net.aspx

I now want to turn off all hyperlinks that are in the gridview.  How do I do that with this code?

Button on page<asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Export to Excel" 
     OnClick="BtnExportExcel_Click" Font-Names="Arial" style="text-align: center" />

Code behind:  Public Overloads Overrides Sub VerifyRenderingInServerForm(ByVal control As Control)
        ' Verifies that the control is rendered     

End Sub

 Protected Sub BtnExportExcel_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
        Response.Clear()        Response.Buffer = True
        Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=GridViewExport.xls")
        Response.Charset = ""
        Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"
        Dim sw As New StringWriter()        Dim hw As New HtmlTextWriter(sw)
        GridView1.AllowPaging = False        GridView1.DataBind()
        'Change the Header Row back to white color 
        GridView1.HeaderRow.Style.Add("background-color", "#FFFFFF")
        'Apply style to Individual Cells 
        GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(0).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
        GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(1).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
        GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(2).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
        GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(3).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
        For i As Integer = 0 To GridView1.Rows.Count - 1
            Dim row As GridViewRow = GridView1.Rows(i)
            'Change Color back to white 
            row.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.White
            'Apply text style to each Row 
            row.Attributes.Add("class", "textmode")
            'Apply style to Individual Cells of Alternating Row 
            If i Mod 2 <> 0 Then
                row.Cells(0).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
                row.Cells(1).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
                row.Cells(2).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
                row.Cells(3).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
            End If        Next        GridView1.RenderControl(hw)
        'style to format numbers to string 
        Dim style As String = "<style>.textmode{mso-number-format:\@;}</style>"
        Response.Write(style)        Response.Output.Write(sw.ToString())
        Response.Flush()        Response.End()    End Sub