Lance Armstrong Admits to Doping - kcentv.com - KCEN HD - Waco, Temple, and Killeen

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Calling himself "deeply flawed," now-disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong says he used an array of performance enhancing drugs to win seven Tour de France titles followed by years of often angry denials.

"This is too late, it's too late for probably most people. And that's my fault," he said in an interview aired Thursday night. "(This was) one big lie, that I repeated a lot of times."

Armstrong admitted using testosterone and human growth hormone, as well as EPO -- a hormone naturally produced by human kidneys to stimulate red blood cell production, which increases the amount of oxygen that can be delivered to muscles, improving recovery and endurance.

Armstrong admitted to Oprah Winfrey that, in addition to using drugs, took blood transfusions to excel in the highly competitive, often dubious world of cycling. Doping was as much a part of cycling as pumping up tires or having water in a bottle, he said, calling it "the scariest" that he didn't consider it cheating at the time.

The same man who regularly pointed to his having never failed a known drug test contended in the interview that he wouldn't have been able to win without doing what he did, and which he suspected many other cyclists did as well. While Armstrong didn't invent the culture of doping in cycling, he said, he admitted not acting to prevent it either.

"I made my decisions," Armstrong said. "They are my mistakes."

The first installment in his interview, which was conducted earlier this week with the talk-show host, aired Thursday on the OWN cable network and on the Internet. The second and final installment will be broadcast Friday night.

Armstrong admitted that he was "a bully ... in the sense that I tried to control the narrative," sometimes by spewing venom at ex-teammates he thought were "disloyal," as well as suing publications that accused him of cheating.

He described himself as "a fighter" whose story of a happy marriage, recovery from cancer and international sporting success "was so perfect for so long."

"I lost myself in all of that," he said. "I was used to controlling everything in my life."

Armstrong's history of alleged doping has tarred the cancer charity Livestrong that he founded, as well as tarnished his once-glowing reputation as a sports hero.

Those who spoke out against Armstrong at the height of his power and popularity not only felt his wrath, but the wrath of an adoring public.

Now, with Armstrong stripped of endorsement deals and his titles, those who did speak out are feeling vindicated.

"Eleven years of bullying and threats," Kathy LeMond, the wife of cyclist Greg LeMond -- one of Armstrong's earliest targets and the first American to win the Tour de France -- wrote on Twitter. "LA is now the Greatest Fraud in the History of Sports."

Armstrong in his interview with Winfrey, said he understood that he'd let down many people who believed in him.

"They have the right to be betrayed," he said. "It's my fault."

Armstrong stripped of Olympic bronze

Not only is Armstrong no longer officially a Tour de France winner -- he's no longer an Olympic medalist, either.

The International Olympic Committee has stripped Armstrong of the bronze medal he won in the men's individual time trial at the 2000 Olympic Games and asked him to return the award, an IOC spokesman said Thursday. The committee has not yet decided whether to bestow the bronze on fourth-place finisher Abraham Olano of Spain or to leave the slot vacant, IOC spokesman Andrew Mitchell told CNN.

In October, the International Cycling Union stripped Armstrong of his Tour de France titles. Armstrong responded a few weeks later by tweeting a photo of himself lying on a sofa in his lounge beneath the seven framed yellow jerseys from those victories.

The International Olympic Committee said in October that it was reviewing evidence against him.

Armstrong competed in two events in the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia -- the men's individual time trial, where he medaled, and the men's individual road race, where he finished 13th. He is retroactively disqualified in both races, the IOC said.

"We have written to Armstrong asking him to return the medal" and informed the U.S. Olympic Committee, Mark Adams, another IOC spokesman, said Thursday. It's up to the U.S. committee to handle retrieving the medal from Armstrong, the IOC said.

The decision was made "in principle" at a meeting of the IOC executive board in December, Adams said. The committee did not act on the decision until it received confirmation from the International Cycling Union that Armstrong was not appealing that agency's decision.

The USOC was notified Wednesday that the IOC wants the medal back, USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said.