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Lance Armstrong confessionLance Armstrong says everyone would dope if they could get away with it
Lance Armstrong says that none of the riders he competed against believe he was a cheat because they were all doping, and believes that if a new drug comparable to EPO were developed, everyone would take it.
Speaking to Jeremy Whittle of The Times, the 43-year-old also said that legalising doping would be a terrible idea because of the “tremendous risks” it would lead athletes to take.
Armstrong was banned from sport for life in 2012 following an investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and stripped of the seven successive Tour de France victories he achieved between 1999 and 2005.
Currently, he is defending a lawsuit, brought by Floyd Landis under whistleblower legislation, that has been joined by the US Department of justice and could potentially cost him close to $100 million.
He told The Times: “None of my fellow competitors think I am a cheat. Kevin Livingstone [Armstrong's former US Postal Service team mate] had the best comment in his deposition.
“They asked him, 'What do you mean everyone was doing it? What percentage of riders in the Tour de France of your generation were on EPO?
“And he said, 'Well, of the 190 riders in the Tour, 200 were on EPO.'
“The sport fostered that culture,” Armstrong continued.
“You had a substance, EPO, that was efficient and if they had an equivalent tomorrow that is undetectable, everyone would be on it.”
But asked whether doping should be legalised, he said: “That would be a really bad idea. You’d have people taking tremendous risks.
> Jim Ochowicz helped fix $1m bike race, claims Lance Armstrong
“I have a 16-year old son. He’s 6ft 3in, 230lb, and really good at American football. I know what goes on in that sport and I wouldn’t want him in that situation.”
Referring to the period when he dominated the Tour de France, he said: “For those seven years our story was, ‘We train harder than anybody else, we are more organised than anybody, we have better tactics, a better team, more reconnaissance, better technologies, wind tunnels, better equipment.’ That was all true, but we just didn’t mention the last part” – that being doping.
However, he says that wasn't the key factor in his success. “Of course not. It would have been if nobody else had it, but everybody had it. It upsets me that people think it was all down to doping. It’s just not true.”
He continued: “USADA had three or four key messages to pound home – ‘the most sophisticated doping programme in history, the greatest fraud in the history of sport, Armstrong forced young men to put dangerous substances in their body’ – all of which is untrue.”
> Armstrong: My fall from grace cleaned up cycling - but it wasn't worth it
While USADA maintained that Armstrong was doping after he came out of retirement in 2009, when he rode with Astana before joining RadioShack the following season, he is adamant that he was riding clean.
“In 2009, and 2010, I did nothing,” he insisted. “I have said that under oath. If there is a reliable test that absolutely works and they say, ‘Lance, give us your samples,’ then 100 per cent I’d be in favour.
“But they don’t want to do that because if I’m proven clean in 2009 and 2010, it works against their narrative,” he added.
When Armstrong eventually confessed to doping in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey in early 2013, he also maintained that he had not used drugs following his return to the sport.
If he had been doping during that period, and admitted doing so, that would have laid him open to potential claims from his former sponsors for the return of money they paid him – something they are barred by statutes of limitations to do for the period in which he has admitted doping.
> Lance Armstrong says he wouldn’t need to dope in 2015
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Headline:
Lance Armstrong says "
everyoneI would still be doping iftheyI could get away with it, and also coercing team-mates into doping, and bullying anyone who stands up to me."TFTFY.
This is why he deserves to be a so-called "scapegoat". He has shown no remorse, let alone repentance.
He still hasn't won me over due to the fact that he still seems in denial about actually having done anything wrong.
Because having a blood transfusion in a camper van at the side of the road is perfectly healthy. #Cuckoo
There have been rumours for years about sports other than cycling.
See Operation Puerto, for footballers and tennis players as well as cyclists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Puerto_doping_case
1983 Pan American Games.
"The modern age of drug testing essentially started at the 1983 Pan Am Games in Caracas, Venezuela. A team of scientists... developed a new method for steroid testing in anticipation of two large international sporting events that year, the Pan Games and world track and field championships...
The Pan Am drug testing caught a lot of athletes by surprise... a dozen American athletes in various events suddenly withdrew from the competition and returned to the U.S., and at least another dozen athletes from other countries also left without explanation.
Nineteen athletes in total failed drug tests at the 1983 Pan Ams."
http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000017
And much much more. I've come to believe that cycling is not a particularly druggy sport, its just that cyclists have got caught.
There are allegations about Kenyan athletes.
I do hope that nice Mo Farah is not doping.
He still doesnt think he cheated anybody. Amazing.
Regardless of the bullying and the cheating the few who may not have been doping Armstrong can be seen as the inadvertent saviour of pro cycling. Had he slunk off with just 3 or 5 TDF wins he might never have been caught and the sport would still be mired in doping.
You only have to look at athletics, rugby and tennis to see what sports still operating in denial look like. Do I hope the heroic 'gifted' athlete Usain Bolt is clean? Yes I do. Does the Jamaican Athletics Association's doping history and IAA's current testing fill me with confidence? No.
You will never stop cheating. Never. Has Armstrong's cheating produced possibly the biggest positive changes for a single sport ever seen? I would say yes.
Regardless of the bullying and the cheating the few who may not have been doping Armstrong can be seen as the inadvertent saviour of pro cycling. Had he slunk off with just 3 or 5 TDF wins he might never have been caught and the sport would still be mired in doping.
You only have to look at athletics, rugby and tennis to see what sports still operating in denial look like. Do I hope the heroic 'gifted' athlete Usain Bolt is clean? Yes I do. Does the Jamaican Athletics Association's doping history and IAA's current testing fill me with confidence? No.
You will never stop cheating. Never. Has Armstrong's cheating produced possibly the biggest positive changes for a single sport ever seen? I would say yes.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I have to pick you up on a few points there....
1. "Saviour of pro cycling"?....google doping cases in cycling and just have a look at what has happened since he came back in 1999. Not exactly a positive trend is it?
2. You're suggesting the sport is no longer "mired in doping"...I think we all know that's just not the case. Elite sport across the board has major problems and its almost getting to the point that we dont know what we are watching now.
3. How do you define "positive change"? Right here, right now, 4 years after he has left the scene, the current tour winner is having to publish data to try and prove his performances are genuine.....
4. This is from 2012 after the saviour left us http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/opinion-michael-ashenden-on-omerta-101/
Nobody believes it anymore.
I think he's right and he's been made a scapegoat. Why hasn't anybody else who's been banned for doping had their Grand Tour victories wiped from the history books?
Do you follow professional cycling much? Convicted dopers in the modern era all have thier results voided: Ulrich, everythign post 2005, Contador's 2010-2012, Valverde's 2010 results etc etc
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tour_de_France_general_classificat...
I think the main difference between Lance and other dopers is the picture that is bigger than just doping. Contador, for example, tested positive and then protested his innocence until it was impossible to protest any more, he was given a sentence and he quietly served his ban.
Lance, on the other hand, tested positive and then started a campaign of slandering and suing anyone who called him a doper, he instigated a program of doping within his team, he forced others to dope, destroyed the careers of some, earned millions through fraud, conned the whole watching public and is still in denial, while living a comfortable life.
And here he is now spouting more bullshit to deflect the truth. Would everyone dope if they could? This is possibly true. Is the reason that they shouldn't that of it likely to encourage riders to make unnecessary risks with their health? Load of crap! They already take life threatening risks.
Should he be treated differently? Hell yes!
Why does anyone still give this pariah the oxygen of publicity?
The full article and interview along with a sport editor Opinion piece is in today's Times. Well worth a read, it's genuinely fascinating (whether or not you like Lance or believe anything he says).
I need to just ignore this. I really do. But I just can't help myself:
"Many of my fellow competitors think I am a cheat."
"I fostered that culture"
"‘the most sophisticated doping programme in history, the greatest fraud in the history of sport, Armstrong forced young men to put dangerous substances in their body’ – all of which is true."
There, FTFY Lance. And one more for the road:
But they don’t want to do that because if I’m proven clean in 2009 and 2010, it works against their narrativeNobody cares. The effects of doping last for years. EPO lets you train harder for longer than all your competitors while allowing you to recover better. HGH, Steroids, Clenbuterol, all have clearly long-lasting impacts on an athlete’s physiology. It is not only very hard to believe that whether or not Lance was "clean" in 2009 is actually in doubt but it is beyond moot anyway.