Nice summary on SI - aka Lance gave himself cancer PS wesuck...let's do EPO

In his doping confessional to CBS's 60 Minutes, Tyler Hamilton not
only tells of witnessing teammate Lance Armstrong's use of the banned
blood-boosting agent EPO when they rode together on the U.S. Postal
Service team from 1995 to 2001, but he also delivers a blow to
Armstrong's longtime defense against such allegations: "Never a failed
test," Armstrong tweeted in response to Hamilton's remarks. "I rest my
case."

Hamilton paints a picture of a testing cover-up at the 2001 Tour de
Suisse, telling CBS that Armstrong told him that he failed a drug test
there. The UCI, cycling's governing body, has denied there was any
such cover-up, but another former teammate, Floyd Landis, made a
similar allegation last year in letters to USA Cycling as federal
officials began investigating whether Armstrong was involved in a
doping operation while the team was receiving sponsorship money from
the Postal Service. Armstrong has repeatedly denied ever taking a
performance-enhancing drug, much less testing positive for one. But if
the Tour de Suisse accusations prove true, it would underscore what
many in cycling have asked for two decades: Was Armstrong too big to
fail?

In 1999, while Armstrong was on his way to his first Tour victory
after beating cancer, a French newspaper received a tip that Armstrong
had tested positive for a corticosteroid and had no therapeutic use
exemption (TUE) on his medical form. Armstrong, who was riding for the
Postal team, had just said in a press conference that he did not have
any prescriptions for banned products. When the team discovered that
the newspaper had received the tip, panic hit Armstrong and his inner-
circle, according to Emma O'Reilly, a soigneur from Ireland who worked
with the team and specifically with Armstrong. She was in the hotel
room after the 15th Tour stage when, she says, Armstrong and team
officials devised a plan.

"They agreed to backdate a medical prescription," O'Reilly tells SI.
"They'd gotten a heads up that [Armstrong's] steroid count was high
and decided they would actually do a backdated prescription and
pretend it was something for saddle sores."

In violation of its own protocol requiring a TUE for use of such a
drug, officials from the UCI announced that Armstrong had used a
corticosteroid for his skin and his positive result was excused.
O'Reilly also told SI that, just before the start of the '99 Tour,
Armstrong asked her to use some of her cosmetics to cover up injection
marks on his arm, though O'Reilly does not know what substance
Armstrong had injected. O'Reilly made these same allegations in a 2004
book about Armstrong, published only in French, called L.A.
Confidential. Armstrong subsequently filed a libel suit against
O'Reilly, the book's authors and its publisher. He also sued The
Sunday Times of London for reprinting the allegations in a review of
the book. (Armstrong settled The Times case for an apology and
recovery of his legal costs, and dropped the others.)

As early as 1993, Armstrong's testing data as a member of Team USA was
aberrational. As SI reported in January, USA Cycling sent a request to
the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in 1999 for past test results
-- testosterone-epitestosterone ratios -- for a cyclist identified
only by his drug-testing code numbers. A source with knowledge of the
request says that the cyclist was Armstrong. The lab responded,
detailing the cyclist's test results from 1991 to 1998, with one
missing season: 1997, the only year during that span in which
Armstrong didn't compete. Three results -- a 9.0-to-1 ratio in 1993, a
7.6-to-1 in 1994 and 6.5-to-1 in 1996 -- were abnormally high. Most
people have a ratio of 1-to-1. Before 2005, any ratio above 6.0-to-1
was considered abnormally high and evidence of doping; in 2005 that
ratio was lowered to 4.0-to-1. But the high ratios had not led to
sanctions. The lab wrote that it had been unsuccessful in attempting
to confirm two of the abnormal results, and the third was not
mentioned. All of the tests were reported as negative. According to
sources familiar with the federal investigation, the government has
obtained a copy of the T/E ratio letter first reported by SI.

In August 2005, Armstrong watched his 1999 Tour de France title fall
under scrutiny again when the French sports daily L'Equipe reported
that his urine sample from the race, retested years later for research
purposes not for sanctioning, revealed the presence of EPO. Armstrong
went public and assailed the French lab for its sloppiness. Months
later, Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, who was hired by the UCI to lead an
investigation into the French lab, supported Armstrong's claim of lax
record-keeping at the lab in a 132-page report. In his interview with
60 Minutes, Hamilton says Armstrong used EPO during his 1999 Tour de
France victory. SI previously reported that, following the L'Equipe
report, a lawyer for Armstrong was granted a private meeting with EPO
experts at the UCLA Olympic lab to discuss drug-testing protocols. 60
Minutes reported that Armstrong and Postal team director Johan
Bruyneel met with the director of the lab responsible for his Tour de
Suisse tests.

As SI reported previously, allegations by teammates that Armstrong
used EPO go back even before his first Tour win. Stephen Swart,
Armstrong's teammate on the 1995 Motorola team told SI that he was on
a training ride with Armstrong after a race in Italy in March 1995
when Armstrong, disappointed with the team's results, suggested the
riders start taking EPO. "He was the instigator," says Swart, who
admitted to using EPO after that conversation with Armstrong. "It was
his words that pushed us toward doing it. It was his advice, his
discussions."

Read mo http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz1NEHeIzcg