Los Angeles: Lance Armstrong was on Friday urged to make a full confession about the scale and scope of his doping activities, after publicly admitting that his record seven Tour de France wins were fuelled by banned drugs.
The 41-year-old on Thursday told talk show host Oprah Winfrey in his first interview since being banned for life that his career was a sham and powered by a frightening cocktail of erythropoetin (EPO), blood transfusions and testosterone.
“I made my decisions. They’re my mistake. And I’m sitting here today to acknowledge that and to say I’m sorry for that… I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times,” Armstrong said, describing himself as “flawed”.
His confession stripped bare the legend of the cancer survivor turned champion that inspired millions across the world and made the Texan rider cycling’s first global superstar, popularising the sport beyond its European heartland.
The former US Postal Service team leader admitted to Winfrey that the “mythic, perfect story… wasn’t true”, confirming mounting doubts about his performances that came to a head last October in a devastating US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) dossier.
Reaction to his belated confession was swift, with Travis Tygart, the tenacious USADA chief who exposed Armstrong’s lies with damning eyewitness testimony from his former teammates, calling it “a small step in the right direction”.
Yet Tygart was still guarded, as calls persisted for Armstrong to go further than the terse “yes” answers that he gave about which drugs he took to win cycling’s most famous and gruelling race.
“If he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities,” Tygart said.
Calls for Armstrong to give more detail to the appropriate authorities were echoed across sport, including by the International Olympic Commitee (IOC), who on Thursday stripped him of his bronze medal at the 2000 Games, and the World Anti-Doping Agency.
WADA president John Fahey said Armstrong should appear before an “appropriate tribunal… where he would have to name names, tell of the officials, the entourage, who supplied the drugs, when, where, and which riders were associated”.
The International Cycling Union (UCI), which has been under pressure to say how Armstrong was able to evade detection for so long, called the admissions “disturbing” but said they could yet help lift the spectre of doping that still clouds the sport.
The UCI has been accused of colluding to cover up positive tests but Hein Verbruggen, who was president in the rider’s heyday, claimed the interview showed those claims to be “nothing more than an unsubstantiated theory”.
“Those who accused or suspected us are obviously disappointed. Nothing was ever hidden,” Verbruggen was quoted as saying by the Dutch news agency ANP.
Armstrong confirmed details outlined by USADA such as the existence of the shadowy courier known as “Motoman” who delivered EPO to riders.
But he took issue with other claims, saying he did not believe the doping program on the US Postal Service team was the biggest in the history of sport and could not compare to the state-sponsored scheme in the former East Germany.
He also denied that the UCI covered up a positive drug test from the 2001 Tour of Switzerland and denied using banned drugs when he returned from retirement and raced in the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.
Armstrong said he justified his actions in the years that he won the Tour from 1999 to 2005 because doping was then part of the culture of the sport — and he did not believe he could win the race without illegal assistance.
He did not see it as cheating, he said, adding: “I viewed it as a level playing field.”
“All the fault and all the blame here falls on me,” Armstrong said. “Whether it’s fans or whether it’s the media … it just gets going and I lost myself in all that.”
He admitted he bullied people who did not go along with the “narrative” he constructed but denied forcing teammates to dope and was worried when accusations against him by ex-teammate Floyd Landis sparked a US federal criminal probe in 2010. When it ended in 2012 with no charges, Armstrong thought he was “out of the woods”.
Armstrong said he would be happy to play a role in a “truth and reconciliation” period in cycling.
“If they have it and I’m invited, I’ll be the first man in the door,” Armstrong said, while acknowledging that he had “no moral platform” from which to pursue a clean-up of the sport.
Dear TNT Reader,
At The News Tribe, our mission is to bring you free, independent, and unbiased news and content that keeps you informed and empowered. We are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism, as we understand that we are a platform for truth.
Apart from independent global news coverage, we also commit our unique focus on the Muslim world. In an age marked by the troubling rise of Islamophobia and widespread misrepresentation of Muslims in Western media, we strive to provide accurate and fair coverage.
But to continue doing so, we need your support. Even a small donation of 1$ can make a big difference. Your contribution will help us maintain the quality of our news and counteract the negative narratives that are so prevalent.
Please consider donating today to ensure we can keep delivering the news that matters. Together, we can make a positive impact on the world, and work towards a more inclusive, informed global society.
Donate Monthly Subscription Annual Subscription