Lance Armstrong live interview on Oprah Winfrey TV online now!

So, anyone heard from his best chum Robin Williams lately? He spent many years attacking Lance’s doubters…. Even using them in his comedy stand ups. Venom was particularly aimed at the French, like the whole country.

Nicole Cooke giving her reaction on BBC Breakfast now.

God she’s **** boring. A career in TV doesn’t beckon.

Well what did we expect folks. It was never gonna be any different. Gonna stop wasting my time with it now.

Transcript of the interview on the BBC site here

Gave up after three minutes, got to the point when Oprah asks him why, after 13 years of lying, he is owning up now. He struggles to answer, the actual answer is because he got caught!

Hora, you are hilarious. It takes until now for you to ‘bury’ one of your sporting heros. Did you really retain some hope for him until last night?

Anyway that’s the “its just accusations from bitter losers” excuse put finally to bed.

I guess there will be some still clinging to the “level playing field” excuse.

I haven’t seen the interview yet but reading some of the transcripts it is clear the only thing he is remorseful about is being caught.

I caught some of this on Radio 4 this morning and yeah there was the “well everyone else was doing it” excuse. He even tried to use a dictionary definition of the word cheat as part of his reasoning that he wasn’t really a cheat.

I’ll not post my current opinion of him for fear of ban for either swearing or swear filter avoidance.

I’ll not post my current opinion of him for fear of ban for either swearing or swear filter avoidance.

James Naughtie describing Jeremy Hunt??

Anyone believe it when he says he did not dope on the comeback in 2009?

No of course not. He is playing the long game, he was dirty the whole time but he is managing his risk of perjury from 2005 as I believe the statute of limitations is 7 years. Utter cock the whole lot. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could chuck a mattress up a spiral staircase.

In the best Glaswegian tradition, it would probably be a tirade of compound swear words (including that one).

Not watched it yet, but I keep thinking of this:

Right, now he’s fessed up and done a ‘David Millar’ can we all love him again and suggest that the only way to clean up cycling is make him president of the UCI?

I for one think he’d make an excellent choice, after all DM only wrote a children’s novel* on the subject whereas Lance got to go on Oprah!

* it was accidentally miss classified as a Biography.

What will the long term ramifications be? Will he get lots of folk after him now?

The most sickening thing i’ve heard in years,this guy should go to jail

The most sickening thing i’ve heard in years,this guy should go to jail

really?

Yes he should probably do some jail time but he never raped or killed anyone, didn’t abuse anybodies child or disfigure anyone. Lance Armstrong cheating at riding a bike doesn’t even get on to my scale of sickening things.

I’m glad he did this interview for the simple reason that it’s shown the whole world exactly what kind of person he actually is.

Some of the intimidation, and definitely the abuse of power and wealth through the legal system goes beyond cheating in sport.

Perhaps the biggest revelation is really how twisted the legal system is in favour of the rich and powerful.

Nicole is right: Lance, “and others like him” cheated clean riders out of wins, and even careers.

Nothing new in the interview that we didn’t already know , I think Oprah did a decent job to be fair. The only point I’ll make is this , If I had defrauded sponsors and organisations of millions of pounds of money and was then seen to have broken the law in order to get It I’d be jailed.
End of story .

Bankers, celebrities and politicians walk free, Stanfree.

And rightly so, for they are better than us common folk.

Hora, you are hilarious. It takes until now for you to ‘bury’ one of your sporting heros. Did you really retain some hope for him until last night?

When a man denies something for so long you tend to block part of your brain that would over-ride the last vestige of ‘hope’ (denial) etc.

I think he should go to jail. People who commit small scale fraud with credit card/loans etc- his financial fraud was massive and multiple.

When hes sat in jail he can then reflect on where he went wrong.

He was brilliant!
Whoever does his pr is a genius.
Beautiful to watch in its simplicity.
Admit to the stuff that you can, in sufficient quantity and detail to let most people and the media believe it’s a tick in the box.
Also, starts to make those still chiming up to have him hanged sound like squeaky gates.
The media has had it’s moment of big revelation, everything from now on will be “just another bit about LA” and a bit of an anti-climax.
It’s going to take something really sharp to get this back up in the news after the weekend.
Chapeau most definitely doffed to whoever you are, you are a consummate spinner.

Oh, and LA, a most odious, devious and duplicitous individual. 😀

It’s lovely that he called Betsy Andreu crazy and a bitch but did definitely not say she was fat. He seems to think that’s a positive. What a ****.

While Armstrong’s admission is another step in the right direction for cycling, it seems to me that the more pressing problem at the moment is the continuing presence of Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen in positions of leadership at the UCI. It’s hard to see how McQuaid in particular can be anything other than irretrievably tainted by the lack of leadership, and possible collusion, during the Armstrong era when there was clearly a lack of will within the UCI to adequately investigate the suspicions that were growing about Lance’s success.

Even Phil Liggett, the international voice of cycling, feels let down by Armstrong.
Surely he knew all along?

Brian Cookson, president of British Cycling, was on BBC news earlier. Lets just say he wasn’t impressed by Mr A, the newsreaders seemed a little taken aback by his stance 🙂

when there was clearly a lack of will within the UCI to adequately investigate the suspicions that were growing about Lance’s success.

Not just a lack of will to investigate, but fought tooth and nail to stop the USDA investigation.

Learnt more about Lenor than Lance.

LOL

The most sickening thing i’ve heard in years,this guy should go to jail

His treatmeent of folk was more sickening this is just the show trial and his attempt at redemption

TBH this sums up his attitude [ my bold]

You said to me earlier you don’t think it was possible to win without doping?
Not in that generation, and I’m not here to talk about others in that generation. It’s been well-documented. I didn’t invent the culture, but I didn’t try to stop the culture, and that’s my mistake, and that’s what I have to be sorry for, and that’s what something and the sport is now paying the price because of that. So I am sorry for that. I didn’t have access to anything else that nobody else did.“

so he is sorry he cheated [ but hes not really a cheat], sorry he did nothing about it – he made it worse much worse.

Should have been more on his treatment of Emma and others as ell as we all knew about the cheating but what made him do that and to that level?

I think he should go to jail. People who commit small scale fraud with credit card/loans etc- his financial fraud was massive and multiple.

By that logic, all the drugs cheats should be locked up then. There would be some talent in that jail, perhaps they could form a prison team? Smuggle in EPO in cakes and peoples arse holes?

I heard that in part two he implicates Wiggo.

He was brilliant!
Whoever does his pr is a genius.
Beautiful to watch in its simplicity.
Admit to the stuff that you can, in sufficient quantity and detail to let most people and the media believe it’s a tick in the box.
Also, starts to make those still chiming up to have him hanged sound like squeaky gates.
The media has had it’s moment of big revelation, everything from now on will be “just another bit about LA” and a bit of an anti-climax.
It’s going to take something really sharp to get this back up in the news after the weekend.
Chapeau most definitely doffed to whoever you are, you are a consummate spinner.

+1
The whole thing is stage managed to an astonishing degree.
Having said that, going by what I’ve seen on various news reports, blogs, forums and twitter feeds this morning, it’s not worked particularly well with the more enlightened watchers.

a cover version is in the works

I just read some comments on the BBC, its worked with the General public, they mainly seem to buy the “it was a level playing field” bullshit.

“When I was diagnosed, that turned me into a fighter. That was good. I took that ruthless win-at-all-costs attitude into cycling which was bad”

The cancer made me do it. Jesus Christ 🙁

I heard that in part two he implicates Wiggo.

I don’t buy into any of the podium finishes as being 100% clean. If the testing was that bad and/or you doped out of season then rode clean on the approach- who knows?

Hora you have only just realised that LA was a cheat please dont swing to the other extreme and think this means they all must be cheats

Whilst i dont wish to mock you, I remember believing the LA dream[ or wanting to] and being pissed off when i realised he was just a fraud

This view you now have is no wiser than the view you previously held.
it might make sense to listen to some others views on this as they have had the better judgement.

I mean that inoffensively unlike some who have posted at you.

As LA clearly says he will not mention riders [ and will have no knowledge on this anyway] i think that may just be a joke 💡

If there is one thing to come out of this , Its that I’d definately nail Betsy Andreu.

+1

Not at the same time tho

LOL at Hora

While it’s understandable that Armstrong’s actions will cast a long shadow over professional cycling for a long time, I think we’re all missing the bigger picture; namely that he’s ruined the film Dodgeball for ever.
Without Armstrong’s intervention in the heart-rending emotional climax, who knows if Peter LaFleur would have gone back to the competition, and even if Steve The Pirate would have found his treasure?
For shame, Lance. For shame.