Armstrong will answer "honestly" during Oprah talk
This July 5, 2004 file photo shows Lance Armstrong, third from right, framed by his teammates during the second stage of the 2004 Tour de France cycling race between Charleroi and Namur, Belgium. / AP Photo/Christophe Ena
Updated 7:49 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas Lance Armstrong said he will answer questions "directly, honestly and candidly" during an interview with Oprah Winfrey next week. He will also apologize and make a limited confession to using performance-enhancing drugs, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
Armstrong has spent more than a decade denying that he doped to win the Tour de France seven times. Without saying whether he would confess or apologize during the taping, Armstrong told The Associated Press in a text message early Saturday, "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say."
A confession would be a stunning reversal for Armstrong after years of public statements, interviews and court battles from Austin to Europe in which he denied doping and zealously protected his reputation.
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Lance Armstrong
Armstrong was stripped of his titles and banned from the sport for life last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping agency issued a detailed report accusing him of leading a sophisticated and brazen drug program on his U.S. Postal Service teams that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of performance-enhancing drugs.
Armstrong's interview with Winfrey is not expected to go into great detail about specific allegations levied in the more than 1,000-page USADA report. But Armstrong will make a general confession and apologize, according to the person, who requested anonymity because there was no authorization to speak publicly. Several outlets had also reported that Armstrong was considering a confession.
Armstrong hasn't responded to the USADA report or being stripped of his Tour de France titles. But shortly afterward, he tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader's jerseys on display in a room at his home in Austin. He also agreed to be interviewed there, in what the Oprah Winfrey Network announced would be a "no-holds barred" session. That's scheduled to be taped Monday and broadcast Thursday night.
"His reputation is in crisis," said crisis management expert Mike Paul, president of New York-based, MGP & Associates PR. "Most people don't trust what comes out of his mouth. He has to be truly repentant and humble."
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He also has to be careful.
Armstrong is facing legal challenges on several fronts, including a federal whistle-blower lawsuit brought by former teammate Floyd Landis, who himself was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title, accusing him of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The U.S. Justice Department has yet to announce whether it will join the case.
The London-based Sunday Times is also suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit against Armstrong to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded him as a bonus for winning the Tour de France.
The only lawsuit potentially impacted by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from his sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during a federal investigation that was closed last year without charges being brought.
However, he lost most of his personal endorsements — worth tens of millions of dollars — after USADA issued its report and he left the board of the Livestrong cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997. He is still said to be worth an estimated $100 million.
Livestrong might be one reason to issue an apology or make a confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with Armstrong.
He may also be hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career. But World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what new information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation. USADA chief Travis Tygart did not return a call Saturday from the AP.
Armstrong met with USADA officials recently to explore a "pathway to redemption," according to a report by by ""60 Minutes Sports" aired Wednesday on Showtime.
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Dirty is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren't.
Lance Armstrong never said he didn't dope. He always only said, "Every test I took came up negative". Why not openly declare that he didn't dope? Why use the cagey dodge of invoking the tests? The convenient suggestion behind that, that the tests are infallible, for that matter, that they work at all! And the veiled threat to the anti doping authorities, that, if they blow the whistle on him, he'll blow the whistle on them that they knew the tests did nothing and they never admitted it and, instead, themselves cravenly used them to back up their own claims that sports are "clean"!
And why didn't more people see this? Why didn't more question the suspicious nature of everything associated with it? Those who are paid by the New World Order to promote entire rafts of lies have their incentive. Whole groups of people, it appears, supported Lance Armstrong because they knew he was guilty, but they are so wantonly depraved, they treasure the opportunity to spit in the faces of everyone else, to take obtuse positions patently insipid, then attack those who reveal the insipidity for what it is!
And they're still out there! Waiting for the next non credible instance to start beating the drum for the lie of the "official story", imagining with delight how others might be steaming that lies are so greedily embraced and endorsed, or enjoying when others try to place comments revealing the lies for what they are, to which the maggots will reply with mockery, invective, viciousness, vulgarity, accusations of mental problems in the others. They already spread the lie about "Nayirah" that led into the First Gulf War, the supposed fate of Dale Earnhardt, Sr., September 11, Neda, and now they are promoting the palpably suspicious claims about Malala Yousufzai, "Hurricane" Sandy and the Sandy Hook incident. Malala Yousufzai seems to have more questionable facets than real ones; "Hurricane" Sandy seems to have been a man made catastrophe built around a minor storm, intended to make the gullible think nature is out to get us and we need FEMA to protect us; and Sandy Hook evidently a lie built around a "phantom" class of "victims" that didn't even exist, to "justify" limiting gun rights or at least make the public more afraid.
And how will those chastened or vindicated by an admission of guilt by Lance Armstrong follow it up? What other fraud will they address and oppose? Will the fight the claims that "vaccines" are "safe"? Will they promote that it's chemtrails, the program of poisoning the air with weather control substances from high flying jets, that is causing climate change, not just fossil fuels? Will they admit that the Aron Ralston story sounds suspicious? Will they refuse to accept claims that the Greg Mortenson "charities" are legitimate?
Because the lies are out there, new ones all the time, as well as those who will push them.
PS: Hope your other ball rots off.
Bout has all the ism's covered...
Lance stings us again for more Money and Oprah gets a cut too
BEAUTIFUL. I. LOVE IT
Afterall, his failed cigarette ban venture failed terribly, and thus his media and propaganda dollars were a thing he sorely missed out on.