Cycling: Lab chief 'didn't aid Lance Armstrong'

The head of a drug-testing laboratory in Switzerland has denied giving banned cyclist Lance Armstrong "the key" to avoiding detection for the blood-boosting agent EPO.

Martial Saugy, director of the laboratory in Lausanne, said he met Armstrong and his US Postal team manager, Johan Bruyneel, in 2002 at the request of the International Cycling Union but denied claims by the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency that he had shown the rider how to circumvent tests.

Saugy told reporters in Switzerland yesterday: "The answer to the question of whether I gave Lance Armstrong the key to circumvent EPO tests is clearly no.

"It would be paradoxical for the laboratory that reported the first case of EPO to give the key to circumvent tests. The fight against doping is our life's work."