London:Lance Armstrong who had won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005 before being disqualified from those races and banned from competitive cycling for life for doping, has claimed that the former head of world cycling knew about his drug abuse and encouraged him to cover up his doping.
In an interview to a sport web site, he said the then president of the UCI, Verbruggen, was complicit in the skulduggery that allowed him to continue in the 1999 Tour de France despite a positive drugs test.
His allegations contradict Verbruggen's insistence that he has never been involved in doping cover-ups. Armstrong has no desire to protect senior UCI officials if he appears before the independent inquiry that has been called for by Englishman Brian Cookson, world cycling's new president.
It has been made clear to Armstrong that his cooperation could be rewarded with a reduction of his lifetime ban to eight years.
'To think I am protecting any of these guys after the way they treated me, that is ludicrous. I'm not protecting them at all. I have no loyalty towards them. 'I'm not going to lie to protect these guys. I hate them. They threw me under the bus. I'm done with them,' said Armstrong.
In February, Verbruggen personally delivered a letter to the most important 15 Olympic officials at the Lausanne Palace Hotel, attacking the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and denying he had aided any cover-up of Armstrong's doping.
Verbruggen said, 'I have been frequently accused that, in my UCI presidency, my federation would not have been too serious in its anti-doping policy and that - in particular the Lance Armstrong case - the UCI and myself have been involved in covering up positive tests.
'Cover-ups never took place. Not only would this never have been allowed, but there simply was nothing to cover up. Armstrong, nor his team-mates, never tested positive.'
