The former head of the French anti-doping agency has accused Lance Armstrong of using a bike with a motor during his career, saying he believed the American’s superiority over his rivals during the Tour de France was not just down to drugs.
Armstrong has faced the same accusation before but dismissed it out of hand, saying nobody during the period of his career was even aware of the technology required to conceal a motor in a racing bike.
No evidence has ever emerged he used a motor. However, as the technology has become more popular over the last decade there has been speculation it may have been possible to conceal a motor in a racing bike during Armstrong's career.
The former head of French anti doping, Jean-Pierre Verdy, has now written a book and he has told French TV station Stade 2 he believes Armstrong was motor doping.
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“Lance Armstrong, this is the best scam. With complicity
at all levels. He got special treatment. Many told me that I should not tackle
legends, that I was going to find myself alone,” he said.
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Verdy continued: "I also believe that he had a motor in the bike. I still have the images in my head of a mountain stage where everyone is collecting themselves and he leaves everyone on the ground.
“At the end of the stage, I call all the specialists I know, and they don’t understand how this performance is possible, even with EPO.
"There was something wrong, and all the specialists were telling me the same thing; (that) it was not the EPO that made the difference.”
Verdy, founder and director of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), worked for the agency from 2006 to 2015.
He says while only a minority of athletes dope, and while the issue is not confined to cycling, he believed cycling was at the forefront of trying to find new ways to dope and conceal it.
“Cycling remains quite emblematic. Historically,
cyclists are the ones who slow down the fight against doping the most, and who
are on the front line to find the new drugs that have just been released,” he
said.
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