Cycling: Drug claim tarnishes golden reputation

American cycling star Lance Armstrong took banned performance-enhancing drugs, says a new book.

The five-time Tour de France winner, who next month will try to become the first person to win six victories, could see his plans to write his name in sports record books disrupted by fall-out from the book.

Titled L.A. Confidential - The Secrets of Lance Armstrong, it was co-written by award-winning Sunday Times journalist David Walsh and Pierre Ballester, a cycling specialist formerly with the French sporting publication L'Equipe.

The 33-year-old Armstrong, an inspiration to millions of people since recovering from cancer in 1998, continues to strenuously deny that he has ever taken performance- enhancing drugs.

But New Zealand cyclist Stephen Swart has backed claims that Armstrong has been involved in doping.

Swart, who rode with Armstrong in the Motorola team in 1994 and 1995, admits that he, Armstrong and other members of team took banned substances, including the blood-boosting product erythropoietin (EPO), after Motorola sent the cycling team to Europe in 1994.

Swart, who retired nine years ago, told the authors that he succumbed to doping because of pressure from the team.

"Motorola was throwing all this money at the team and we had to come up trumps," he is quoted as saying in the book.

Armstrong, who dates rock star Sheryl Crowe, has won the Tour de France every year since 1999 and has motivated thousands of people - cyclists and cancer sufferers.

But at the Tour de France in 1999 he failed a test for the corticosteroid triamcinolone - a banned substance found in some medicines and creams - although cycling's ruling body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), did not punish him.

However, claims by a former physiotherapist with the US Postal team, Irishwoman Emma O'Reilly, that Armstrong used EPO threaten to take the shine off the American's glittering reputation.

O'Reilly worked with Armstrong for three and a half years from 1998 and was in almost constant contact with his close-knit team. She kept a diary.

She reveals how, among other dubious tasks, she was asked by Armstrong to dispose of bags containing syringes after the Tour of Holland in 1998, only months after the Festina drugs scandal at the Tour de France almost brought the race to its knees.

O'Reilly also says that in May 1999, while Armstrong was at a training camp in the Pyrenees, she was asked to drive to Spain to collect drugs which she brought back into France and handed to Armstrong at a rendezvous in a car park.

The book could force Armstrong to answer questions about a rumoured drugs admission to doctors treating him for testicular cancer in October 1996, according to an article in the Sunday Times.

If true, the book's revelations could blow a hole in the career of Armstrong, who thanks to numerous endorsements with multinational companies now earns around $US16 million ($25.7 million).

Armstrong has always strenuously denied taking performance- enhancing drugs and has even issued co-author Walsh - the Sunday Times' chief sports reporter - with a letter saying he faces a costly legal battle if the book alleges that he resorted to doping.

But it is not the first time the American has been in the doping spotlight. Days before the start of the Tour in 2001, Walsh revealed that Armstrong had had close links with a notorious Italian doctor, Michele Ferrari.

Ferrari was formerly the team doctor to the Gewiss-Ballan team, which he was forced to leave after he infamously claimed that EPO, if used properly, was no more harmful than orange juice.

The Italian has since been a target of Italian magistrates investigating the shady world of doping.

Armstrong, who it was alleged made several consultation trips to see Ferrari in Italy, said he had consulted the doctor only on advanced training methods with a view to trying to break the world hour record - which he has yet to attempt.

Although a test for EPO exists, the drug is still believed to be rampant among riders, as it can be detected only if it has been taken within three days of the test.

Blood booster

EPO, or erythropoietin, is a banned performance-enhancer which thickens the blood and raises its capacity to carry oxygen. The drug was at the centre of the notorious 1998 Tour de France doping scandal and is believed to have been used by cheats in endurance sports for at least 10 years.