Tyler Hamilton
A former team-mate of Lance Armstrong has told the 60 Minutes television programme in the US that he used performance-enhancing drugs with the seven-time Tour de France winner to cheat in cycling races, including the Tour.
Tyler Hamilton, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, says Armstrong took the blood-booster erythropoietin in the 1999 Tour and before the race in 2000 and 2001. Armstrong won the race every year from 1999 to 2005.
The interview with Hamilton was broadcast on the CBS Evening News on Thursday.
Armstrong has steadfastly denied doping and has never failed a drug test. He responded on Twitter shortly after the programme was broadcast: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."
Federal investigators are examining whether Armstrong and his former US Postal team engaged in a systematic doping programme, which he denies.
"I saw [EPO] in his refrigerator ... I saw him inject it more than one time," Hamilton said, "like we all did. Like I did, many, many times."
Hamilton told the 60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley: "[Armstrong] took what we all took … the majority of the peloton. There was EPO … testosterone … a blood transfusion."
EPO is a drug that boosts endurance by increasing the number of red blood cells in the body.
Armstrong's lawyer Mark Fabiani said Hamilton "just duped the CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes and Scott Pelley all in one fell swoop".
"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," Fabiani said. "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."
Hamilton won the time-trial gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but failed a drug test later. He was allowed to keep his medal, however, because problems at a laboratory meant his backup sample could not be tested.
Months later he tested positive for blood doping and served a two-year ban which ended in 2007.
Hamilton returned to racing and won the 2008 US road championship but retired last year after admitting he took an antidepressant that contained the banned steroid DHEA. He was officially banned from cycling for eight years, and has since founded Tyler Hamilton Training, a company that helps coach all levels of cyclists.
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