Though Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by the UCI, the former champion Miguel Indurain still refuses to accept his guilt.

Indurain, who, along with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, is now back at the top of the all-time Tour annals with five victories, told Spanish radio station Marca: "Even now I believe in his innocence. He has always respected all the regulations… He has won all the cases he's had."

On that basis, Armstrong waiving his right to appeal confused Indurain. "What surprises me is that he doesn't keep fighting," he said. "I think he will come back and appeal and try to show that he played fair for all those years."

Indurain also took issue with the investigative process, challenging the validity of the evidence it produced. "I am a little taken aback. It is strange that this is done only from testimonies. Rules were in place and now it seems they have changed."

The US Anti-doping Agency (USADA) relied on witness testimony from 11 former team-mates and 15 other riders, and their thoroughness was praised by the World Anti-Doping Agency chief John Fahey. "It has always been incumbent on anti-doping organisations to undertake a more coherent approach to widespread allegations of doping," said Fahey, "and it is not sufficient to claim that enough was done just because testing did not lead to analytical violations."

UCI's decision to strip Armstrong of his titles was further reinforced aftrer Armstrong's former team-mate, Steffen Kjaergaard, supported their allegations. "For 15 years I hid a lie," he told a news conference. "I had believed it was best for me and the sport to carry this dark secret to the grave."

Kjaergaard, who raced in the 2000 and 2001 Tours, said that the team took care of his doping needs but kept information in a "closed circuit".

"When I was a part of the US Postal Service team, everything was organised by the team. I did not need to arrange for a doctor or do anything by myself," he said.

"I cannot say if any of my team-mates were using illegal substances," he added. "I can assume that others at U.S Postal were using something that the witness reports said. I have no direct knowledge though."

"The reason that I am coming forth now is that I have had a big problem with my own conscience," Kjaergaard admitted.

He began using banned substances - primarily erythropoietin (EPO) and cortisone - in 1998, before joining Postal Service.

"During this period there was a new EPO test and we had to resort to intravenous micro-dosages to shorten the window where we could be caught," he said. "I also used other illegal substances on the list but not many."

Armstrong, who denies wrongdoing, lost his titles after former team mates testified against him and themselves, describing what USADA called the "most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen".

Kjaergaard's admission dented Norway's self-image as a "clean" nation, at the forefront of the fight against doping in sports. He was instantly removed from his job as sports director for the Norwegian Cycling Federation.

"This is a sad day for Norwegian cycling, but we wanted to have this out in the light," said federation President Harald Tiedemann Hansen, lamenting a "dark day".

"He has admitted to doping and he has nothing to do with the cycling world anymore," Tiedemann Hansen told The Associated Press later. "He has been suspended until his term ends on 31 December and he will not continue in the job."