Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, said that if he could go back in time to his 1995 heyday of racing, he’d “probably do it again,” he said.
He made the remarks during an interview with BBC Sport, while speaking of his upcoming documentary, “Lance Armstrong: The Road Ahead.”
In the interview, he explained that times and attitudes were much different in the 1990s than now — and that’s when he made the decision to take performance-enhancing drugs.
“If I was racing in 2015, I wouldn’t do it again,” he said, People reported. “Take me back to 1995 when it was completely and totally pervasive, I’d probably do it again. People don’t like to hear that. That’s the honest answer.”
Mr. Armstrong admitted that his decision to dope was a bad one — but the era helped push him to choose cheating.
“It’s an answer that needs some explanation,” he said, People reported. “I look at everything when I made that decision, when my teammates made that decision. It was a bad decision in an imperfect time, but it happened.”
Still, Mr. Armstrong said he’s clear on one change he would like to make, whether living in the 90s or now: Himself, he said.
“For 15 years, I was a complete [expletive] to a dozen people … that’s the man that really needed to change and never come back,” Mr. Armstrong said, People reported. “If I go back to 1995, I think we’re all sorry. You know what we are sorry for? We’re sorry we were put in that place. None of us wanted to be in that place. We all would have loved to compete man on man … naturally, clean. Yeah, we’re sorry. We all looked around as desperate kids.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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