Cyclist Lance Armstrong admits to doping
Posted January 17, 2013 6:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CHICAGO (NEWS1130) – Lance Armstrong confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, reversing more than a decade of denial.
“Yes,” Armstrong said when Winfrey asked if he used a series of drugs to help his record run.
“I made my decisions. They are my mistake,” says Armstrong.
Sitting in a chair across from Winfrey, Armstrong said he could not have won the race seven times without the drugs and gave a small smile.
“In your opinion, was it humanly possible to win the Tour de France without doping, seven times in a row?” asked Winfrey.
“Not in my opinion,” quipped Armstrong.
“You didn’t just deny it, you brazenly and defiantly denied everything you just admitted, why admit it now?” probed Winfrey.
“That’s the best question. That’s a logical question. I don’t know that I have a great answer,” continued Armstrong. “I view the situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times.”
Jonathan Wornell with Vancouver’s Westside Cycling Classic watched the entire interview and admits the sport has been operating under a cloud of suspicion – a cloud he believes is about to clear.
“It’s a time of rebirth for the sport. Everybody knew in the back of their minds that something was wrong. We can finally move forward,” he insists.
“We are glad the time came for him to come out. It’s unfortunate that it took the sport down this path. We need some new role models to show how to compete properly.”
Armstrong was stripped of all his titles in the wake of a US Anti-Doping Agency report last October and banned for life from competing in triathlons and other sanctioned events. He also lost nearly all his sponsors and left the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997.
Armstrong says he quit using performance-enhancing drugs in 2005.
