Saugy denies telling Armstrong how to avoid EPO positive

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Martial Saugy met with Lance Armstrong and explained how the EPO test worked, but did not in any way supply him with information as to how to beat the tests. Saugy, head of the Lausanne WADA doping laboratory, issued his denial at a press conference Friday afternoon.

Saugy admitted in 2001 that, at the UCI's request, he met with Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel at the lab and explained the test to them. On an interview broadcast on American TV Wednesday night, USADA CEO Travis Tygart said that he met Saugy in 2010 and asked about the incident.

“I asked him: ‘Did you give Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel the keys to beating the EPO test?’ And he nodded his head yes,” Tygart said.

“The meeting with Lance Armstrong took place, I have never made a secret of that,” Saugy said Friday.

“Travis Tygart is an important man in the fight against doping and I think very highly of him. But he interpreted this alleged nod wrong. I never made this gesture.”

He continued, “The fight against doping is our mission in life. It would be a paradox if we would expose it all to the athletes.”

The lab had tested doping controls from Armstrong during the Tour de Suisse 2001 which were suspicious and could indicate the use of EPO, but were not positive.

That one meeting was the extent of his relationship to Armstrong.  “I have seen him perhaps 20 minutes in my whole life,” he said.