In a lawsuit filed against Lance Armstrong, the former Tour de France winner gave names of people who provided him with performance-boosting drugs during his professional career. The answers were given by Armstrong in November 2013 but were only revealed to the public after USA Today Sports acquired these.
Acceptance Insurance filed a case against him to recover bonuses worth $3 million, paid to him upon winning the Tour de France from 1999 to 2001. After denying substance use during his championship years, Armstrong finally confessed in 2013 in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey that he had been doping in all of his Tour de France wins from 1999 to 2005. He also admitted cheating in races in 2009 and 2010.
Armstrong named four individuals: Dr. Pedro Celaya, trainer Pepi Marti, Dr. Michele Ferrari and Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral. All of them used to be part of his cycling team. Armstrong also named people who delivered the drugs to him to win races. He named Julien de Vriese, his bike mechanic, Emma O'Reilly, his masseuse and Philippe Maire, a motorbike courier. All the individuals exposed at various points denied being part of the champion's doping practices.
According to Lance, Dr. Celaya, Dr. Ferrari or Dr. del Moral would supervise his PED use at times, although in most occasions Armstrong would introduce these to himself independently.
Even Johan Bruyneel, team manager, was revealed to be involved in his performance-enhancing drug use. Armstrong said that Bruyneel participated and assisted in his PED use.
Other individuals named to be involved before were Thomas Weisel, financier of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team, former cyclist Chris Carmichael and Mark Gorski, the cycling team General Manager.
According to Armstrong, he usually paid for the drugs himself. He stressed that there are more individuals involved in the matter, although he cannot remember them at the moment. Bleacher Report writes that Armstrong admitted that EPO use contributed to his seven consecutive titles.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
