Among those watching were people who still wanted to believe the fairytale<\/a> that a cancer survivor recovered from death’s door to win the greatest cycling race on the planet seven times in a row.<\/p>\n An American, beating the Europeans at their own game with such ruthless brutality that it affirmed their beliefs not only in miracles, but in America’s sporting supremacy over the rest of the world.<\/p>\n That the first of his now-annulled seven Tour wins came during the so-called Tour of Redemption in 1999, the year after the infamous Festina affair in which drug raids tore the race apart, was perfect.<\/p>\n Needing a symbol of hope, Armstrong’s victory anointed him as cycling’s Messiah.<\/p>\n Irish journalist Paul Kimmage even noted that Armstrong’s book, It’s Not About The Bike, portrayed him as Jesus in a 2012 piece for the Irish Independent.<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong was the second American to claim the yellow jersey. (Getty Images: Bongarts\/Andreas Rentz)<\/p>\n Armstrong’s famous autobiography is now a mainstay of charity shop piles, as his former disciples have abandoned their faith since the sporting success narrated within those pages was exposed as the cruellest of hoaxes.<\/p>\n No longer a Messiah. Just a very naughty boy.<\/p>\n As Armstrong answered five yes or no questions, the yellow Livestrong wristbands that had become so ubiquitous among many top athletes and fans as a social accessory now felt as though they were beginning to tighten \u2014 rubber handcuffs locking his devotees into the lie.<\/p>\n What was once a token of success and an icon of his hugely successful cancer charity was transformed into a mocking mark of gullibility.<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong said that he had taken a cocktail of drugs to be competitive in professional cycling. (Getty Images: Oprah Winfrey Network\/George Burns)<\/p>\n “Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?” Oprah, bespectacled and authoritative, posed to Armstrong, who still had the sunken cheeks of a perennially underfed endurance athlete, in an open-collared shirt and suit jacket.<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n “Was one of those banned substances EPO?”<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n “Did you ever blood dope or use blood transfusions to enhance your cycling performance?”<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n “Did you ever use any other banned substances like testosterone, cortisone or human growth hormone?”<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n “In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood dope?”<\/p>\n “Yes.”<\/p>\n Hearing those comments 12 years on, those five devastating jabs delivered in his deadpan Texas drawl, underscores the pain he wrought to millions of believers in what had become the cult of Lance.<\/p>\n From actors and athletes to presidential hopefuls, Livestrong wristbands were a ubiquitous accessory. (Getty Images: Corbis\/Brooks Kraft LLC)<\/p>\n “The people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics, the sceptics, I feel sorry for you,” Armstrong said on the Avenue des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in Paris after that 1999 victory, adorned in yellow and framed by the halo-like victory bowl afforded the winners of the Tour.<\/p>\n “I’m sorry you can’t dream big, and I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles.”<\/p>\n Miracles? Not any more, Lance.<\/p>\n One can almost melodramatically believe that Armstrong’s straight-faced calls of “yes, yes, yes, yes, yes” were countered by a crushing wail of “no, no, no, no, no”, by those vanishing few who still believed, perhaps hammering their hands on their coffee tables with each staccato dart, wailing at the descent of their false prophet.<\/p>\n Fans invested to that degree were few by then, though.<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was appointment viewing. (Getty Images: Corbis\/Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc)<\/p>\n For many other people invested in the sport, those considered heretics during Armstrong’s era, these shocking revelations were not a surprise at all \u2014 aside from the slight disbelief that Armstrong was admitting it with his own voice, finally incriminating himself after decades of furious denials.<\/p>\n Armstrong’s contradictions make for compelling tale<\/a><\/p>\n Nothing Lance Armstrong can say will ever make people forget, but the American still presents an intriguing study of a complexly flawed, fallen sporting hero.<\/p>\n Reports of Armstrong’s nefarious influence on the peloton had been circulating for years. During this era, he rode in a cesspit of experimental drug taking as riders and doctors found new, ingenious ways to beat testers and, when a positive slipped through the cracks, had enough gall to deny it outright with enough conviction that you’d have no trouble believing.<\/p>\n To many people within cycling \u2014 including, most credibly, Irish journalist David Walsh \u2014 the admission was nothing but what they had been demanding for decades.<\/p>\n Walsh deserves particular credit for his dogged pursuit of Armstrong, which saw the journalist sued, harangued and slandered over the course of many years.<\/p>\n He was not alone, though.<\/p>\n Emma O’Reilly was sued after her interview provided the backdrop to L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong, the first of many books about Armstrong’s doping that hit and continue to hit the shelves.<\/p>\n Armstrong’s former soigneur Emma O’Reilly (left) was someone who copped plenty of flack for exposing his doping. (Getty Images: Graham Watson)<\/p>\n Armstrong was contrite when Oprah turned her attention to his former soigneur (masseuse), saying that she was “one of these people I have to apologise to”, who got “bullied, who got run over”.<\/p>\n Betsy Andreu, wife of Armstrong’s former teammate Franky Andreu, was another who was “run over” by the rampant lies that fuelled Armstrong’s rise.<\/p>\n But this interview offered no solace for her.<\/p>\n “I’m not gonna take that on. I’m laying down on that one,” he replied when asked if he was unfair to her, adding calculated cowardice to his extensive list of less-than-salubrious attributes.<\/p>\n Bullying was another of his features, a negative trait he did admit to Oprah and one that had been recounted by former teammates such as Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton in their tell-all books.<\/p>\n On the bike, it was (mostly) pure theatre.<\/p>\n “The Look” he gave his longtime rival, Jan Ulrich<\/a>, during the 2001 Tour de France was intense, bullying and completely broke his rival into pieces live on TV.<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong’s battles with Jan Ulrich were thrilling, even if artificially assisted by drugs. (Getty Images: Tim De Waele)<\/p>\n Off the bike, it was torture and, when aligned with accusations of doping, downright sinister.<\/p>\n Italian rider Filippo Simeoni had spoken out and testified against the controversial Michele Ferrari, Armstrong’s coach, and his links to drug taking during the 2004 Tour.<\/p>\n So when Simeoni attacked off the front of the peloton, it was Armstrong who chased him down personally and, when he reached him, made a motion that shouted loud and clear that speaking out, breaking cycling’s drug-fuelled Omerta, would not be tolerated by zipping his lips towards the TV camera.<\/p>\n It is one of the most iconic images in that era of cycling. Armstrong’s former teammate and another admitted doper, Jonathan Vaughters, said of the scene: “You cannot get any more fundamentally evil than that.”<\/p>\n He bullied everyone.<\/p>\n He fooled almost everyone.<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong stood atop the podium in Paris seven times. (Getty Images: Tim De Waele)<\/p>\n But having once been hailed as cycling’s Messiah, he has now inadvertently completed the cycle, martyred by authorities who muddied the waters as to whether he was a victim of cycling’s historic doping culture<\/a> or the chief architect of its most egregious era.<\/p>\n On the official Tour de France honour roll, Armstrong’s name does not appear. But tellingly, nobody has been elevated to replace him<\/a>.<\/p>\n There’s just a blank seven years of no official winner, unlike other cases where the winner has been disqualified for doping offences.<\/p>\n So why is Armstrong different?<\/p>\n![\"Lance](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ec6aed598599bed4b8a6fa266f98f2ba.jpeg\")
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