Lance Armstrong On His Life After Doping Scandal

After staying away from public life for a long time, and avoiding to talk about his controversial history, Lance Armstrong opened up in an interview for “Today”.

The former cyclist who was one of the most known persons in the world even before his doping usage, openly spoke about life after the embarrassment he experienced.

When being asked about his dishonest behavior during the career, and the fact that he lied closest friends in his non-profit foundation Livestrong community, Armstrong stated that it doesn’t matter how some might see and call that, because the point is the same.

It was bad.

Now, he likes to think about the future, and his intention is to get even with those people. In order to do that, he must dedicate the rest of his life to that cause.

“I don’t know if it’s fraud – you can call it whatever you wanna call it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, right? I mean, it’s fraud, betrayal, feeling complicit, all of these things that we know people felt”

“That’s on me. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make that right.”

Armstrong mentioned many things, among others his interview with Oprah, when he confessed the usage of doping. Back then, according to his words, he couldn’t lie anymore, and despite knowing that he might face many lawsuits, the truth had to be told at any cost.

His sincereness hadn’t been that appreciated, and the whole confession didn’t turn out to be productive as some might think.

“No, I don’t think it worked,” he said. “I think it absolutely did not work. For half of the room, it wasn’t enough. And then for the other half of the room, it was way too much.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jtDH-10m2s

Armstrong also stated that the U.S. Anti Doping Agency’s classification of him as a mastermind of one organization which was the biggest doping program ever, is not valid and that he ended up being a scapegoat.

The seven-time winner of Tour de France, who was later stripped of all those titles, stated that he wasn’t some kind of an exception in the cycling world. PED usage and cheating were, in fact, a regular thing.

In order to have some chances of winning, he too had to take performance-enhancing drugs.

“What I would rather do is go back and win seven in a row against everybody else that’s drinking water and eating bread,” he said. “That’s what I would want. And I believe that that would happen.”

Six years ago, today’s President Mr. Donald Trump wrote a tweet, in which he criticized Armstrong saying that he will be remembered as a failure. When asked does he feels like a failure now, the 47-year old answered negatively.

“I don’t feel like a failure. And I’ve never felt like a failure since then.”

Though he did say earlier during the interview, that his life wasn’t very shiny either, but quite the opposite.

“The last six years in a lot of ways has really sucked,” he said. “It’s been terrible.”

“The last 6 years, in a lot of ways, has really sucked.” Watch Lance Armstrong speak out to @andrewrsorkin about his rise, his fall and his hope for redemption pic.twitter.com/jauIEguPfJ

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 6, 2018

Lance Armstrong had been considered as one of the greatest athletes ever, until his doping scandal emerged to the surface. With all the media attention around him, he quickly became one of the biggest brands in sports history. That is one of the reasons his downfall was so cruel.

After his interview with Oprah, several big sponsors decided to file a lawsuit against him, while almost all left. All of his titles were removed, and the public didn’t care for any explanations, unlike with some other athletes.

He drew a parallel between his case and Alex Rodriquez’s. The former MLB star didn’t receive as many critics as he did, and that is something which hurt Armstrong.

“A-Rod didn’t raise half a billion dollars and try to save a bunch of people’s lives. That’s the irony in this.”