Shamed cyclist Lance Armstrong, shorn of cycling’s greatest prizes and expelled from sport, wants to compete again and doesn’t believe he deserved the “death penalty” of a life ban.
“Hell yes, I’m a competitor,” Armstrong told talk show host Oprah Winfrey when asked in the second instalment of their televised interview aired on Friday if he wanted to compete again.
“It’s what I’ve done my whole life. I love to train. I love to race. I love to toe the line,” said the 41-year-old Texan. “Not the Tour de France, but there’s a lot of other things I could do.
“I made my bed,” he said. “But if there was ever a window, would I like to run the Chicago Marathon when I’m 50? I would love to do that.”
In the opening segment of the interview shown Thursday, Armstrong confessed that his record seven Tour de France titles were fueled by drugs, confirming much of the US Anti-Doping Agency’s findings about his use of blood-boosting EPO, blood transfusions, cortisone, testosterone and human growth hormone.
When Winfrey noted that virtually every article on the once revered cyclist now begins with the word “disgraced” Armstrong said he felt it fit.
