Sport

MIAMI (AP):

Disgraced US cyclist Floyd Landis revealed new cheating allegations in a series of messages to sponsors and officials, alleging that former teammate Lance Armstrong not only joined him in doping but taught others how to beat the system and paid an official to keep a failed test quiet.

Landis admitted for the first time what had long been suspected - that he was guilty of doping for several years before being stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title.

His fresh accusations, contained in emails sent last month, prompted Armstrong to hold an impromptu press conference yesterday before he began the fifth stage of the Tour of California in Visalia.

"If you said, 'Give me one word to sum this all up,' credibility," the seven-time Tour de France winner said. "Floyd lost his credibility a long time ago.

"We have nothing to hide. We have nothing to run from," said Armstrong, who later quit the race to go to a hospital for X-rays after crashing just outside of Visalia, California.

Though Landis lost his title, he denied cheating until now, and his recent emails detail his blood doping.

Clear my conscience

"I want to clear my conscience," Landis told ESPN.com. "I don't want to be part of the problem any more."

He claims that Armstrong and long-time coach Johan Bruyneel paid an International Cycling Union official to cover up a test in 2002 after Armstrong purportedly tested positive for the blood-boosting drug EPO. The UCI, however, denied changing or concealing a positive test result.

In an email Landis sent to USA Cycling chief Steve Johnson, he said Armstrong's positive EPO test was in 2002, around the time he won the Tour de Suisse. Armstrong won the Tour de Suisse in 2001 and did not compete in 2002.

"We're a little confused, maybe just as confused as you guys," Armstrong said, with Bruyneel by his side. "The timeline is off, year by year."

Landis said he was asked at one point to stay in an apartment where Armstrong was living and check the temperature in a refrigerator where blood was being stored for future transfusions. "Mr Armstrong was planning on being gone for a few weeks to train. He asked me to stay in his place and make sure the electricity didn't turn off or something go wrong with the refrigerator," Landis wrote.