Armstrong Admits Doping

After years of vehement denials and ruthless attack and legal action agaisnt those who accused him, Lance Armstrong finally came clean last night (January 17th), admitting in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he'd doped throughout his cycling career, including when he won all seven Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005 that have since been stripped from him.

In the interview -- the second part of which will air tonight on Winfrey's OWN network -- Armstrong acknowledged being the ringleader of an elaborate doping scheme for his U.S. Postal Service team, and said he didn't feel at the time that he was doing anything wrong or that he was cheating, implying that most of his rivals at the time were doping too.

However, Armstrong didn't give too many details, and didn't want to name anyone who helped him dope or rivals who he believed been doping. He also insisted that he'd stopped doping in 2005, and that when he returned from retirement and raced in the 2009 and 2010 Tour de Frances, which he didn't win, he was clean. Critics piont out, however, that there's a lot of evidence that he was still doping then.

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He insisted that he never forced anyone on his team to dope if they didn't want to, and didn't fire any one who refused to. Armstrong admitted being, quote, "flawed" and a bully against those who accused him, many of them onetime friends and associates, calling his actions "inexcusable" and saying he knows there are those who will never forgive him. He also told Winfrey he regrets coming back from retirement, saying there was a much better chance he would never have gotten caught if he hadn't.

One thing Armstrong didn't have a clear answer for is why he's coming clean now. However, there have been reports that he wants to be able to compete in triathlons, which he was doing after retiring from cycling in 2011, and can no longer do after a lifetime ban from competitive sports was imposed on him last year after a damning report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. If he totally comes clean about his doping and provides information on the anti-doping scheme, he might be able to get his ban reduced to eight years, at which time he'd be 49.

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