Lance Armstrong once again accused of doping by former teammate

Lance Armstrong will be injected with EPO during the Tour de France 1999, according to his former U.S. Postal teammate Tyler Hamilton. The latter has told the U.S. television network CBS as part of a documentary airing Sunday.

Former rider Tyler Hamilton told the U.S. television network CBS that he saw his teammate Lance Armstrong inject EPO during the Tour de France in 1999, the year of the first of seven consecutive victories in the Texas the greatest cycling race in the world.

"I've seen (EPO) in his refrigerator. I've seen (Armstrong) to inject more than once," said Hamilton in the issuance of survey "60 minutes", which will posted Sunday, but an excerpt of which is spent Thursday night.

(Injecting EPO) We've all done it. I did, on numerous occasions, "added Armstrong teammate with U.S. Postal in 1998 to 2001.

"(Armstrong) took what we all take the majority of the bunch .... There was COOL ... ... testosterone blood transfusion."

Hamilton also said that Armstrong had used EPO to prepare for the Tour de France 2000 and 2001 he had tested positive in 2001 during the Tour of Switzerland, an event run before the Great Loop.

"20 years of career. 500 doping controls in the world, and outside competition. Never tested positive. The facts speak for themselves," he quickly responded Armstrong, now retired, via Twitter.

In a statement on the site www.facts4lance.com, his lawyer Mark Fabiani said: "The appeal for money and lust for publicity (Hamilton) can do nothing about: Lance Armstrong is the athlete most controlled history. "

A year after Landis

These accusations came one year after those of Floyd Landis, winner of the Tour for doping deposed 2006 and Armstrong teammate with U.S. Postal in 2002 to 2004. On this basis, a federal investigation had been launched in the U.S. in summer 2010 concerning the possible use of public funds for illegal purposes (eg traffic or use of drugs) and conducted by the Attorney Jeff Novitzky, the Man of the Balco case in 2003.

Armstrong has indeed won the Tour de France six times with a team sponsored by U.S. Postal, company funded by the U.S. government.

Cancer survivor (1996) also won in 2005 with Discovery Channel, before retiring until January 2009, when he returned to competition for two years but without success sport.

"Relief"

Hamilton is one of the witnesses who testified before the grand jury convened in Los Angeles by federal investigators.

"For six hours, I told the whole truth and nothing but the truth," said Hamilton in a letter to his family and friends and published Thursday by the specialized site cyclingnews.com. I felt a kind of relief that I had not felt before. All the secrets, the weight I carried for years, have suddenly vanished. I realized that this was the path (the confession) that I had to take. "

"It is high time this nonsense stops investigation and that the huge sums of money (public) is spent devoted to investigations that are truly to defend Americans against harm," Mark Fabiani calls on facts4lance.com a site launched Thursday by the Clan Armstrong.

Hamilton, 40, had always denied doping. He ended his career after he was suspended eight years in 2009 because of a second doping offense. In 2004 he was the first athlete guilty of doping through blood transfusions and in 2009 he had tested positive for an anabolic steroid (DHEA), a substance contained in a medication he was taking to treat chronic depression.

In 2004, the American had had to keep his Olympic gold medal against the clock in Athens thanks to a conservation problem of his B sample after testing, despite strong suspicions.