Lance Armstrong is coming out swinging against the head of the governing body for cycling, Union Cycliste Internationale, with claims he knew about the doping, and encouraged it.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Armstrong alleges that Hein Verbruggen, head of the UCI at the time of Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories, was aware that Armstrong was using banned substances to get an edge in cycling, and even helped to cover it up.
Armstrong made these claims with the knowledge that if he cooperates with the current UCI investigation, his lifetime ban from cycling could be reduced to eight years.
Armstrong says he has no desire to protect those that helped him cheat.
“To think I am protecting any of these guys after the way they treated me, that is ludicrous,” he said. “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.”
Verbruggen has made multiple statements in the past asserting that he had no knowledge of the doping.
In February, he wrote a letter to 15 Olympic officials reading, “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.”
Verbruggen has not made any comment to these recent allegations directly from Armstrong, but as recently as last month, he wrote in a statement to national cycling federations that his “conscience is absolutely clean.”