New allegations against Armstrong

[stop the bleeding]

Latest Cycling News for June 23, 2006

Edited by Jeff Jones, with assistance from Susan Westemeyer

New allegations against Armstrong

Barely three weeks after the Vrijman report dismissed L'Equipe's allegations that Lance Armstrong used EPO in 1999, the now retired seven-time Tour champion has come under fire from another angle. French newspaper Le Monde is reporting in its Friday edition that Armstrong admitted to using performance enhancing drugs prior to contracting testicular cancer in 1996.

The allegations were made during the SCA Promotions vs. Armstrong trial that is in progress in Lance's home state of Texas. SCA Promotions is an insurance company that paid Armstrong millions of dollars for his Tour wins after the team took out a $420,000 insurance policy in 2001. But following the publication of David Walsh and Pierre Ballester's book, LA Confidentiel, les secrets de Lance Armstrong, which alleged that Armstrong had used illegal drugs, SCA disputed the $5 million payment for the 2004 Tour, saying that it wanted evidence (Armstrong's medical records, for example) that the allegations were untrue.

In court statements obtained by Le Monde, Betsy Andreu, the partner of Armstrong's ex-teammate and friend Frankie Andreu, related her version of events that took place in an Indiana hospital on October 28, 1996, while he was being treated for cancer. " started to ask him banal questions, I don't remember," Le Monde quoted an excerpt of Betsy Andreu's testimony. "And all of a sudden, bang, have you ever taken doping products? He replied, yes. asked which ones. And Lance replied: EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids, testosterone."



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