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Lance Armstrong has admitted using
performance-enhancing drugs during all
seven of his Tour de France wins.
The 41-year-old made the admission during
an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
"I view this situation as one big lie I repeated
a lot of times," he said. "I made those
decisions, they were my mistake and I'm
here to say sorry."
However the cyclist denied it was "sport's
biggest doping programme", saying "it was
smart, but it was conservative, risk averse".
After years of denials, Armstrong told
Winfrey:
he took performance-enhancing drugs
in each of his Tour wins from
1999-2005
doping was "part of the process
required to win the Tour"
he did not feel he was cheating at the
time and viewed it as a "level playing
field"
he did not fear getting caught
"all the fault and blame" should lie
with him
he was a bully who "turned on" people
he did not like
his cancer fight in the mid-1990s gave
him a "win-at-all costs" attitude
he would now co-operate with official
inquiries into doping in cycling.
Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de
France titles last year after being labelled a
"serial cheat" by the US Anti-Doping Agency
(Usada).
The body said he led "the most sophisticated,
professionalised and successful doping
programme sport has ever seen".
The American decided not to contest the
charges, saying last year he was tired of
fighting the allegations. He had always
strongly denied doping.
That all changed within seconds of an
explosive opening to the interview when
Winfrey demanded yes or no answers.
"Did you ever take banned substances to
enhance cycling performance?"
"Yes."
"Was one of those substances EPO?"
"Yes."
"Did you use any other banned substances?"
"Yes."
Armstrong admitted to taking performance-
enhancing drugs Erythropoietin (EPO),
testosterone, cortisone and human growth
hormone as well as having blood
transfusions.
He continued: "All the fault and blame is on
me and a lot of that is momentum and I lost
myself in all that. I couldn't handle it. The
story is so bad and toxic and a lot of it is
true."
Asked if doping was part of the process
required to win the Tour, he said: "That's like
saying we have to have air in our tyres or
water in our bottles. It was part of the job.
"I don't want to make any excuses, but that
was my view and I made those decisions."
In a key exchange Winfrey asked: "Did it feel
wrong?
Armstrong replied: "No. Scary."
"Did you feel bad?"
"No. Even scarier."
"Did you feel that you were cheating?"
"No. The scariest."
Armstrong continued: "The definition of a
cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or
foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a
level playing field. I didn't understand the
magnitude of that. The important thing is
that I'm beginning to understand it.
"I see the anger in people, betrayal. It's all
there. People who believed in me and
supported me and they have every right to
feel betrayed and it's my fault and I'll spend
the rest of my life trying to earn back trust
and apologise to people."
On whether it was the biggest doping
programme in sport he said: "I didn't have
access to anything that anybody else didn't.
"Winning races mattered for me but to say
that programme was bigger than the East
German doping programme of 70s and 80s
is wrong."
Armstrong said his battle with cancer in the
mid-1990s turned him into a "fighter".
"Before my diagnosis I was a competitor but
not a fierce competitor," he said. "I took that
ruthless win-at-all-costs attitude into cycling
which was bad."
Armstrong denied riders had to comply to a
doping programme to compete for the team,
but admitted his personality could imply that.
He said: "Yes, I was a bully. I was a bully in
the sense that I tried to control the narrative
and if I didn't like what someone said I
turned on them.
"We felt like we had our backs against the
wall and I was a fighter."
Armstrong said he had not been afraid of
getting caught. "Testing has evolved. Back
then they didn't come to your house and
there was no testing out of competition and
for most of my career there wasn't that much
out-of-competition testing so you're not
going to get caught because you clean up for
the races.
"I didn't fail a test. Retrospectively, I failed
one. The hundreds of tests I took I passed
them."
However, he did admit that he received a
back-dated therapeutic user exemption
certificate for a cream containing steroids at
the 1999 Tour to ensure he did not test
positive.
Armstrong retired from cycling in 2005 but
returned to the sport between 2009 and
2012.
He told Winfrey that he did not use drugs
after his return to the sport. "That's the only
thing in that whole Usada report that really
upset me," he said.
Armstrong said he regretted his return, and
was asked if he would have "got away with
it" if he had not come back.
"Impossible to say," he replied, but added his
"chances would have been better".
However, he conceded that when he
discovered George Hincapie, who was the
only man to ride in the same team as
Armstrong for each of his seven Tour wins,
had given evidence against him last year, he
knew his "fate was sealed".
"George is the most credible voice in all of
this," Armstrong added. "He did all seven
Tours. We're still great friends. I don't fault
George Hincapie, but George knows this story
better than anybody."
Armstrong said he would now co-operate
with Usada. " I love cycling and I say that
knowing that people see me as someone who
disrespected the sport, the colour yellow," he
said.
"If there was a truth and reconciliation
commission - and I can't call for that - and
I'm invited I'll be first man through the door."
He went on to say that he wished he had
complied with the Usada investigation. "I'd
do anything to go back to that day," he said.
"I wouldn't fight, I wouldn't sue them, I'd
listen. I'd do a couple of things first.
"I'd say give me three days. Let me call my
family, my mother, sponsors, [the Lance
Armstrong Livestrong] foundation and I wish
I could do that but I can't."
Asked if his former doctor Michele Ferrari,
who was banned for life by Usada after being
found guilty of numerous anti-doping
violations, was the "mastermind", Armstrong
said: "No. I'm not comfortable talking about
other people.
"I viewed Dr Michele Ferrari as a good man
and I still do."
He said he regretted "going on the attack"
against masseuse Emma O'Reilly, who was
an early whistleblower.
"She is one of these people that I have to
apologise to," he said. "She's one of these
people who got run over, got bullied."
He denied making a $100,000 donation in
2005 to cycling's governing body, the UCI, to
cover up a failed drugs test. "It was not in
exchange for help," he said. "They called.
They didn't have a lot of money. I did. They
asked if I would make a donation so I did.
"That story [of a cover up] isn't true. There
was no positive test. There was no paying off
of the lab. There was no secret meeting with
the lab director. I'm no fan of the UCI. That
did not happen."
However, Armstrong refused to answer
questions regarding allegations made by
former team-mate Frankie Andreu, who
admitted in 2006 to taking EPO before the
1999 Tour - Armstrong's first victory - and
his wife Betsy,
The duo testified in 2006 that they heard
Armstrong tell a cancer doctor that he had
doped with EPO in 1996. Armstrong swore,
under oath, that it did not happen.
He told Winfrey that he had a 40-minute
telephone conversation with the Andreus but
he was not prepared to reveal what was said.
Armstrong says sorry for doping - BBC Sport
...He was tested...??? And the fact that he took great pains to evade mean the Americans suspected and in sports, guilt is presumed before innocence. Do much critical thinking?
