Tyler Hamilton says he watched Lance Armstrong inject EPO

CYCLING: Lance Armstrong's former teammate Tyler Hamilton claims he saw the seven-time Tour de France winner use the banned drug EPO.

CYCLING: Lance Armstrong's former teammate Tyler Hamilton claims he saw the seven-time Tour de France winner use the banned drug EPO the first year he won the race in 1999, CBS News reported yesterday.

Hamilton told 60 Minutes that he witnessed Armstrong using EPO (erythropoietin), which is designed to increase endurance by boosting production of red blood cells.

"I saw it in his refrigerator," Hamilton told the American news program in the interview to air tomorrow. "I saw him inject it more than one time, like we all did, like I did many, many times."

Cancer survivor Armstrong won the Tour de France for the first time in 1999 and captured every race from 1999-2005.

Armstrong has vehemently denied using performance-enhancing drugs during his controversial cycling career.

He reiterated that stance yesterday, using his social networking page Twitter to get his message across.

"20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case," he said.

Hamilton, who admits to using performance-enhancing drugs, retired from cycling in 2009 after a second positive drug test.

Hamilton says Armstrong took a blood-booster before the 2000 and 2001 Tour de France races.

Armstrong "took what we all took . . . the majority of the peloton", Hamilton told 60 Minutes. "There was EPO . . . testosterone . . . a blood transfusion."

Armstrong is the subject of an investigation by federal investigators who are trying to determine if the US Postal cycling team owes much of its success to a systematic doping program.

The 39-year-old Armstrong retired in February.

He initially retired from cycling after the 2005 Tour de France, but returned to competition in 2009.

He finished third in the 2009 Tour de France and most recently placed 67th in January's Tour Down Under in Australia.

Hamilton, a gold medallist in cycling from the 2004 Athens Games, is just the latest in a growing list of former teammates, ex-associates and co-workers to accuse Armstrong of cheating.

Last year, former teammate Floyd Landis launched a series of damning allegations against Armstrong, with whom he rode in the US Postal team for several years, claiming Armstrong had used banned substances throughout his career.

AFP