Lance > Needle

Tosh · May 20, 2011

Surely shome mishtake.....

A former team-mate of cyclist Lance Armstrong has claimed the seven-time Tour de France winner used the performance-enhancing drug EPO.

Tyler Hamilton rode with Armstrong in the US Postal team and says they both used EPO during the 1999 Tour.

Armstrong, who has consistently denied the many such allegations made against him, said on his Twitter page: "Never a failed test. I rest my case."

Hamilton, 40, served a two-year ban for so-called blood-doping from 2005-2007.

"I saw [EPO] in his refrigerator... I saw him inject it more than one time," Hamilton told the CBS programme 60 Minutes, "like we all did. Like I did, many, many times."

Armstrong's spokesman Mark Fabiani said in a statement: "Hamilton is actively seeking to make money by writing a book, and now he has completely changed the story he has always told before so that he could get himself on '60 Minutes' and increase his chances with publishers.

"But greed and a hunger for publicity cannot change the facts: Lance Armstrong is the most tested athlete in the history of sports. He has passed nearly 500 tests over 20 years of competition."

Allegations of the use of banned substances by members of the US Postal team are still the subject of an federal investigation in the United States.

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Hamilton, a gold medallist in cycling from the 2004 Athens Games, is the latest in a list of former team-mates and associates to accuse Armstrong of cheating.

In 2010, Floyd Landis launched a series of damning allegations against Armstrong, with whom he rode in the US Postal team for several years, claiming he had used banned substances throughout his career.

Landis won the 2006 Tour de France but was later stripped of his title after a sample he gave following a stage win tested positive. He protested his innocence until 2010 but then admitted to systematic doping.

Armstrong won the Tour de France for seven consecutive years from 1999-2005. He retired following the last of those triumphs.

The Texan returned to ride in the 2009 race and finished in a creditable third place. He competed in it again in 2010 but could only manage 23rd, although he helped his RadioShack team win the team competition

Earlier this year, the 39-year-old announced that he has retired from competitive cycling for good.

muleskinner · May 20, 2011

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