Lance Armstrong part of elaborate doping system in cycling, claims drug cheat Landis
By ANIThursday, May 20, 2010
NEW YORK - Disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has admitted that he and other members of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team, including Lance Armstrong, were involved in blood doping between 2002 and 2005.
The 34-year-old American had initially denied taking illegal stimulants after he was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for failing a doping test.
According to the New York Daily News, Landis wrote a letter to cycling officials last month, outlining an elaborate doping program underpinning the cycling team.
In his letter, Landis described injection of banned drugs, use of testosterone patches, and blood transfusions.
Landis also wrote about his experience in 2004, and revealed that on their journey back from a race the cyclists were given blood transfusions to boost their oxygen capacity.The driver pretended to have engine trouble and stopped on a remote mountain road for an hour or so the entire team could have half a litre of blood added,” Landis wrote.
“This was the only time that I ever saw the entire team being transfused in plain view of all the other riders and bus driver,” he added.
Armstrong, who has always vigorously denied doping, is alleged in the letter by Landis to have participated in that and many other instances of doping, the report said. (ANI)
