Former teammates support Armstrong

Associated Press

ROME

Two former teammates of Lance Armstrong said they never saw the seven-time Tour de France winner or Tyler Hamilton use banned drugs. The European pair also said they weren’t particularly close to the American riders.

In an interview with “60 Minutes” aired Thursday on the “CBS Evening News,” Hamilton admitted he doped and said Armstrong did as well.

Reaction in Europe to the latest doping revelations involving Armstrong and his former U.S. Postal team was a mix of surprise and sorrow.

Pascal Derame, a Frenchman who was on the 1999 Tour-winning team with Armstrong and Hamilton, said he wasn’t in Armstrong’s “inner circle.”

“There was a team and then there was the inner circle. Tyler was in the inner circle,” as was Frankie Andreu, Derame said. “[Armstrong] was a lot closer to Tyler than to us. ... Perhaps he didn’t trust the French.”

The “60 Minutes” segment, which will air in its entirety on Sunday, also includes an interview with Andreu. Now one of the race directors at the Tour of California, Andreu told the show he took banned substances because lesser riders he believed were doping were passing him.

“I never saw [Armstrong] take anything,” Derame said. “I cannot say what I didn’t see.”

Derame added he mostly roomed with a Danish rider, Peter Meinert-Nielsen, and did not have much interaction with Armstrong even though they rode on the same Tour team.

“You can live together without living together,” he said.

UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani said the governing body is aware of the latest allegations against Armstrong via the media but will not comment.

“Only Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Armstrong are in a position to comment,” Carpani said.

Another former teammate of Armstrong and Hamilton, Steffen Kjaergaard of Norway, rode on U.S. Postal’s Tour de France team in 2000 and 2001.

“I didn’t feel any pressure of doing any prohibited thing to be stronger, to do doping,” Kjaergaard said. “I didn’t have any hints, ‘You should do this. You should do that.”’