Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.
After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, confessing to using banned substances for decades.
"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said.
In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.
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The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.
Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."
He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone.
He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the race again in 2010.
"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.
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Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive," from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.
"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.
"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."
"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.
"No," he said.
Also on Thursday, before the Winfrey interview aired, the International Olympic Committee stripped Armstrong his of 2000 Olympic bronze medal.
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Lance Armstrong Confesses to Doping
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