Lance Armstrong has no regrets when it comes to using illegal performance-enhancing drugs that ultimately led to him being stripped of seven Tour de France titles.
In an NBC Sports Network special with Mike Tirico that will air Wednesday, Armstrong explained he “wouldn’t change a thing” about what happened:
“I wouldn’t change the way I acted. I mean I would, but this is a longer answer. Primarily, I wouldn’t change the lessons that I’ve learned. I don’t learn all the lessons if I don’t act that way. I don’t get investigated and sanctioned if I don’t act the way I acted. If I just doped and didn’t say a thing, none of that would have happened. None of it. I was begging for, I was asking for them to come after me. It was an easy target.
“We did what we had to do to win. It wasn’t legal, but I wouldn’t change a thing—whether it’s losing a bunch of money, going from hero to zero.”
The UCI stripped Armstrong of his Tour de France titles in October 2012, shortly after the United States Anti-Doping Agency accused him of doping and drug trafficking based on blood samples and interviews with 26 people. Armstrong then admitted to cheating throughout his cycling career during a January 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
I’m getting pretty tired of this guy trying to “own his bad decisions” by continually trying to justify them. The dude ruined the lives of people around him, and what was his punishment? A life of luxury with homes in Aspen and Austin? Ya, no wonder he feels ok about cheating.