Rubiera: I never saw Armstrong dope

Very few words have been said in defence of Lance Armstrong in recent days, but his former domestique José Luis Rubiera has declared that he still views the Texan as the greatest rider of his era. Speaking to El Diario de Mallorca, Rubiera, who rode with Armstrong at US Postal, Discovery Channel, Astana and RadioShack, also said that he never saw the American take banned products and eulogised the ability of controversy-mired coach Michele Ferrari, calling him “the best coach there is”.

Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014). 

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