According to British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Hein Verbruggen, former president of the UCI, said he is 'totally fed up' with Lance Armstrong's allegations. The former president of world cycling's governing body, dismissed Lance Armstrong's accusations that he conspired in covering up a positive drug test in 1999 as "bullshit".

In November Armstrong claimed that Verbruggen, in an attempt to steer clear of another scandal in the Tour de France a year after the Festina affair, had not only turned a blind eye when Armstrong explained a positive test for cortisone using a backdated prescription for a saddle sore cream, but had energetically encouraged the dodge.

"The real problem was, the sport was on life support," Armstrong told the Daily Mail. "And Hein just said: 'This is a real problem for me. This is the knockout punch for our sport, the year after Festina, so we've got to come up with something.' So we backdated the prescription."

However, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph Verbruggen rejected the Armstrong allegation in no uncertain terms: "It's a bullshit story and nothing else. Never, ever would I have had a conversation saying, 'We have to take care of this'.

Verbruggen also vigorously exonerated the UCI, both during his own reign and those of his succesors.

"It may very well be that he or somebody else from the team has given me a call and my first reaction was, 'Shit. We had this Festina problem and now this.' But that's a very long way to concluding we have to do something about it … You will never, ever find any cover-up in the UCI while I was president, and I'm sure afterwards neither."

Speculating about Armstrong’s motives for allegedly making false accusations against Verbruggen personally and the UCI in public,

Verbruggen more than insinuated that Armstrong had been motivated by money when making his claims.

"Lance Armstrong has his own agenda and that is certainly his own personal interest, whether it is that he wants his sanctions to be reduced or whether he wants money," the Dutchman said. "Usually, with Lance, there is always an interest also in money. My interest is the truth."