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Lance Armstrong (pic courtesy Photosport International)Lance Armstrong: "I’ve paid a high price" for doping
Lance Armstrong believes he has not been treated fairly in the aftermath of being found by the United States Anti-Doping Agency to have masterminded “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen”.
Armstrong told the BBC World Service’s Tim Franks that he had suffered “massive personal loss” while others who had confessed to doping “have truly capitalised on this story”.
But the 42-year-old American, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France victories in 2012, said that if he is treated fairly, he will testify with "100% transparency and honesty" at any future inquiry into doping.
“If everyone gets the death penalty, then I’ll take the death penalty,” he said.
“If everyone gets a free pass, I’m happy to take a free pass. If everyone gets six months, then I’ll take my six months.”
Armstrong was not simply found to have consistently used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career, but to have coordinated the doping programmes at his US Postal and Discovery Channel teams. The USADA found that he had “ultimate control over not only his own personal drug use, but over the doping culture of his team.”
According to the USADA’s Reasoned Decision, Armstrong had final responsibility for hiring doctors and other staff to coordinate the doping programme at his team and his goal of repeatedly winning the Tour de France led him “to expect and to require that his teammates would likewise use drugs to support his goals if not their own.”
The consequences for Armstrong have been, unsurprisingly, severe. The emergence of the full details of his doping activity has opened the door to lawsuits from the former team-mate Floyd Landis and US Justice department, insurance companies that covered his win bonuses and the Sunday Times.
“It’s been tough,” he said. “It’s been real tough. I’ve paid a high price in terms of my standing within the sport, my reputation, certainly financially because the lawsuits have continued to pile up.
“I have experienced massive personal loss, massive loss of wealth while others have truly capitalised on this story.”
Armstrong said that the sport of professional cycling had also been adversely affected by revelations that the sport was driven by doping in the 1990s and 2000s.
“Do I think that this process has been good for cycling?” he asked. “No. I don’t think our sport has been served well by going back 15 years.
“I don’t think that any sport, or any political scenario, is well served going back 15 years.
“And if you go back 15 years, you might as well go back 30.”
Armstrong retired from cycling in 2005, but made a comeback in 2009. He rode two Tours de France before retiring for good in 2011.
While evidence from his 2009 comeback was not central to the USADA case against Armstrong, the agency documents substantial evidence of a continuing relationship with doping doctor Michele Ferrari in 2009, and delaying submitting himself to testing.
The full interview with Lance Armstrong will be broadcast on the BBC World Service Newshour at 13:00 and 14:00 GMT.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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51 comments
Hear hear, he loved the lawyers when they were doing his dirty work making him money.
Is he being made a special case, yes because he is a SPECIAL CASE!
"Not been treated fairly"? What does he know about playing fair?
The last two comments sum it up. If he wasn't such a bully towards colleauges and others that he sued I might feel a bit sorry for him. But as he such a horrid, bullying human being I feel nothing. I hope hes sued for every dime he has and that this never happens again to cycling.
It wont be a popular thing to say but Armstrong is correct, he hasn't been treated fairly.
You either ban everyone involved for the same length of time, rather than giving people reductions for grassing other people up *after* they were caught/retired or you have to give Armstrong the same reduction in sentence.
UCI and ASO had Froome on the podium in Paris with the guests of honour being Hinault and Indurain for being multiple winners whilst Armstrong is being written out of history? Really? Other than their personalities, and possibly nationalities, what have they done differently?
It's a fair comment. Maybe they should just bin the entire list of TDF winners up until 2011? Wipe the slate clean. I'm not sure if I'm joking or not myself.
If the UCI were to wipe the slate clean you'd have to do it from 2014 otherwise they would be the judge and jury saying that they are currently assuming Wiggins and Froome were clean.
It's fairly clear with Contador and the Shlecks recently getting caught and this year Sylvain Georges and Danilo Di Luca being at it that the sport still isn't totally clean.
Personally I don't think they should wipe the slate clean, they should just give the race to the guy that came last, he was either doing it clean or his team weren't that well clued up on doping.
Errr.... Like three time winner of the lanterne rouge Wim Vansevenant?... http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/omega-pharma-lotto-cuts-ties-to-vansevenant
Armstrong had his opportunity to be treated equally (or at least to cut some form of deal), but he refused to cooperate with the USADA and instead perpetuated his lies and attempted to get the investigation / USADA shut down instead using his political influence. He has zero right now to complain that the treatment of athletes was unequal when he refused to be a part of the process and come clean.
I can understand to a degree why he did not cooperate - the legal ramifications for him are huge given the lies he has told and the lawsuits he brought. However, he brought about this situation himself through bullying and threatening anyone who he considered opposed him, and this is what differentiates him from other riders.
I have a huge amount of sympathy with riders of this generation, they entered a world where completing clean simply did not appear to be an option. Armstrong's attempts to destroy the reputation and careers of others is what sets him apart. That's not even to go into how he amassed a personal fortune through the Livestrong brand and then used cancer as a shield to hide behind
I feel no personal grudge against LA but understand why plenty do. I feel sorry for those who were trying to compete clean, names probably largely forgotten now.
There is an irony in a man facing legal ruin having been so willing to use the law when the boot was on the other foot - live by the sword, die by the sword comes to mind.
I am coming around to Cav's view, ie move on and write off the past. However I doubt that LA's past behaviour is going to allow this to happen.
I think he's a unique case.
I can (sort of) understand how a lie on top of another lie on top of another lie left him a bit trapped in a spiral, but regardless of this he accepted the fame, plaudits and money shamelessly, and aggressively attacked anyone who doubted the myth.
He basically killed off Greg LeMond's bike company, as well as the character assasinations of Betsy Andreu, David Walsh and Emma O'Reilly.
Regardless of his personality (although being Dubya's buddy may not help here) I think the damage he's done should preclude him from playing ANY role in cycling and that no form of reconciliation should take place.
And he still owes me eight quid for that book of his that I was duped into buying.
+1
The fact that he wrecked the lives of so many others who did speak out with his ferocious legal attacks means I have no sympathy for him at all. He was not the only cyclist doping but he was certainly the only one to use such a wide ranging programme of heavy-handed legal measures to quell any negative comments prior to his unmasking as a liar and a cheat.
Even just straight up physical intimidation....
If he hadn't been doing it, someone else would have been. You have to go way down the results to see any clean riders in the years Lance was riding. The whole sport is tainted, and has been for many years, and its a bit daft to pin it all on Lance as some kind of sacrificial purge, whilst so many other riders drift off the back of the peleton they were a massive part of
Lance, do us all a favour and F**K OFF.
It's not about you any more.
The thing that always got to me about him was the fiction he created about his amazing drug free comeback from cancer. What he did was above and beyond what anyone else was doing and he was rewarded above and beyond anyone else. Now he is being legally pursued above and beyond anyone else.
What goes around comes around.
Short of not actually doing any cycling, he had no real choice. A journo says "are you doping?" what does he (or anyone else) say?
"Oh yes, of course I am Mr Journo, didn't you know we all do it?!"
"No, of course not"
And you can attribute answer number 2 to pretty much every cyclist, indeed pretty much every athlete, who's ever been caught.
It's just that once you start lying, the lies have to get bigger, you have to defend those lies, one lie leads to another and the whole thing is actually a house of cards; one wrong move and the whole deck collapses.
There's an interesting 4-part interview with LA over on the cyclingnews website. Regardless of your thoughts on LA, it's worth a read, as is the chapter in Cav's new book (At Speed, out now) which deals with Cav's thoughts on Lance, on doping, on the media attention it gets.
I don't really accept that because he made such a big thing about his cancer. He used it as a screen for those that questioned him. He used it for self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. He didn't have to do that. In fact, out of respect to other cancer sufferers he could have been so much more modest. But he actually used and abused that angle for his own ends so I refute your response CrazyLegs. He, more than anyone else played that card. He made the lie about drugs in sport into something bigger (ie it wasn't just about cheating/competing, it was about life itself).
I read lots of things about Lance and from Lance. I have no sympathy for Lance. He just continues to show what a user he is, so don't patronise me. I've heard what Cavendish thinks too. He just wants it to go away because that suits him. And I don't really care for that because he would like to bury it all in a small forgotten field. Sports has a problem with drugs and burying is not going to help. It just means riders don't have to soul search and answer difficult questions.
He really doesn't understand what he did.
Beyond comment really, what an ego. Not only was he the best cyclist in the world now he's the most hurt? I'm weeping.
Just another David Millar style sob story really.
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