New York - Lance Armstrong finally admitted on Thursday that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his cycling career.
As expected, he confessed to cheating in the first part of a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey that was recorded three days earlier at his hometown of Austin, Texas.
“Yes,” he replied when asked directly whether he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Armstrong said he was “sorry” for taking performance-enhancing drugs during his career and that it was a mistake.
“I made my decisions. They're my mistake. And I'm sitting here today to acknowledge that and to say I'm sorry for that,” the seven-time Tour de France winner told Winfrey. “The culture was what it was.”
“I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times,” Armstrong said, admitting that he was a “flawed character”.
“All the fault and all the blame here falls on me,” he said.
Armstrong, after years of denials, acknowledged in the interview taped on Monday that he took several banned performance enhancing substances during his cycling career.
Armstrong said he’d had blood transfusions and taken EPO, testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone in all seven of his Tour de France victories. - AFP and Reuters