LANCE ARMSTRONG SAID tonight that viewers can judge for themselves on how candid he was in his interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“I left it all on the table with her and when it airs the people can decide,” he said in a text message to The Associated Press.
Armstrong responded to a report in the New York Daily News, citing an unidentified source, that he was not contrite when he acknowledged during Monday’s taping with Winfrey that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
He’s also held conversations with US anti-doping officials, touching off speculation that the team leader who demanded loyalty from others soon may face some very tough choices himself: whether to cooperate and name those who aided, knew about or helped cover up a sophisticated doping ring that Armstrong ran on his tour-winning US Postal Service squads.
“I have no idea what the future holds other than me holding my kids,” he said.
Armstrong’s interview with Winfrey won’t begin airing until tomorrow night, but already some people want to hear more — under oath — before he’s allowed to compete again in elite triathlons, a sport he returned to after retiring from cycling in 2011. In addition to stripping him of all seven of his Tour de France titles last year, anti-doping officials banned Armstrong for life from sanctioned events.
“He’s got to follow a certain course,” David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said. “That is not talking to a talk-show host.”
Former teammate Frankie Andreu, one of several riders Armstrong cast aside on his ride to the top of the sport, said no one is better-suited to provide anti-doping authorities with a blueprint for cleaning up the sport.
“Lance knows everything that happened,” Andreu told the AP. “He’s the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It’s up to him how much he wants to expose.”
