Lance Armstrong admits doping offences to Oprah

EXPLOSIVE ADMISSIONS: LANCE Armstrong has apologised after admitting his Tour de France titles were fuelled by an array of drugs.

LANCE Armstrong has admitted his seven Tour de France titles were fuelled by an array of drugs, reversing years of denials in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey.

"I made my decisions. They're my mistake,'' Armstrong told US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, in his first interview since he was stripped of his record yellow jersey haul and banned from sport for life late last year.

"And I'm sitting here today to acknowledge that and to say I'm sorry for that,'' said Armstrong, who kept any emotions in check as he described years of cheating, lying, and attacking those who had the temerity to doubt him.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times,'' he said.

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LANCE v OPRAH - TOMORROW

Join us for complete coverage of the second part of the Lance Armstrong interview from 1pm tomorrow (AEDT).

Armstrong will field questions about his charity Livestrong, the much-maligned photo he posted on Twitter with his Tour jerseys, how his family coped with his disgrace, the message he has for his fans and what's next for him.

Live chat - Analysis from Leo Schlink - Video highlights

Oprah's interview with Armstrong will be shown live in Australia on the Discovery Channel on Foxtel tomorrow at 1PM AEDT. 

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"Certainly, I'm a flawed character,'' said Armstrong, who was once revered as a cancer survivor who beat the odds to succeed on cycling's greatest stage, and then used his fame to help others fighting the disease.

"It's just this mythic, perfect story,'' he said. "And it wasn't true.''

Winfrey's interview opened with a rapid-fire series of "yes'' or "no'' questions that saw Armstrong admit with terse "yes'' answers to using the blood-booster EPO, blood-doping transfusions, testosterone and human growth hormone.

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All were listed by the US Anti-Doping Agency in the damning report on which it based the 41-year-old American's life ban and the loss of all his cycling achievements since August 1998.

Armstrong confirmed details contained in the report such as the existence of the shadowy courier known as "Motoman'' who delivered EPO to riders.

But he took issue with other USADA assertions, saying he didn't believe the doping program on the US Postal Service team was the biggest in the history of sport, and that it couldn't compare to the state-sponsored doping program in the former East Germany, for example.

He denied that the International Cycling Union (UCI) covered up a positive drug test from the 2001 Tour of Switzerland, and he denied that he used banned drugs when he returned from retirement and raced in the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.

For many of his admissions, Armstrong related the justifications he made to himself, saying that in the years that he won the Tour from 1999-2005, he did not believe it was possible to capture cycling's greatest race without doping.

Back then, Armstrong said, he didn't even think of himself as cheating. He didn't feel he was doing something wrong.

"Scary,'' said Armstrong, who went so far as to look up the definition of "cheating'' in the dictionary.

"And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe,'' he said. "I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field.''

He described his favoured "cocktail'' of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, recalling that at the time he told himself that his history of testicular cancer somehow justified it.

"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 didn't go along with the "narrative'' he constructed, and said some of those most hurt, such as former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy, may never forgive him.

Asked by Winfrey about whether he'd sued a particular nay-sayer, he said his camp sued so many people he couldn't even be sure.

Armstrong - who was stripped of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal hours before the airing of the interview - denied forcing teammates to dope, but admitted that they may have felt pressure to follow his example.

Had he not come out of retirement in 2009, Armstrong said, he doubted anti-doping officials would have ever caught up with him.

He said he was worried when accusations against him by former team-mate 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''.

Now that USADA have made their case stick, however, Armstrong said he'd 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.

After the interview was broadcast, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart called Armstrong's admissions "a small step in the right direction."

"Tonight, Lance Armstrong finally acknowledged that his cycling career was built on a powerful combination of doping and deceit,'' said Tygart, who guided the USADA probe that led to Armstrong's ban and loss of titles.

Armstrong had previously dubbed USADA's investigation a "witch-hunt'' and accused Tygart and his colleagues of pursuing a "vendetta'' against him and going so far as a lawsuit questioning their jurisdiction.

Tygart's brief statement made reference to none of that, nor did it address any details of Armstrong's confessions and which USADA charges Armstrong verified or challenged.

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"His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction,'' Tygart said.

"But 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.''

Meanwhile, Livestrong, the cancer charity founded by Armstrong, said it was "disappointed'' that he had misled it and many others about doping.

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"We at the Livestrong Foundation are disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us,'' it said after the broadcast.

Prior to recording the interview on Monday in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he personally went to Livestrong headquarters to apologise to its staff - and in the interview, he wore its iconic yellow rubber wristband.

"We accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course,'' the charity said in its statement, received 40 minutes after the conclusion of the first part of the interview, which continues tomorrow at 1pm AEDT..

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