Cycling: Lance Armstrong reveals having doped from the start of his career

It's a revelation that could further obscure Lance Armstrong's cycling career. The deposed star admitted, in a documentary from the American chain ESPN, that he had started doping "probably at 21 years old", that is to say at the beginning of his professional career.

💥 Doping - Lance Armstrong's revelations in a new ESPN documentary! pic.twitter.com/vtHF3zuASF

"Wow, it starts strong, I was probably 21 years old," replied Armstrong to journalist Marina Zenovich, who asked him when he had his first doping experience.

The exchange appears in a 90-second trailer, released Monday, for a two-part documentary called "Lance", which will be broadcast by ESPN in the United States on May 24 and 31.

In this trailer, where several former Armstrong teammates at US Postal, such as Tyler Hamilton and George Hincapie, answer the same question about their first doping experience, the 48-year-old Texan says that there are "several ways to define doping".

"It was a step on my part"

"The easiest way is to say it's not following the rules. Did we get vitamin injections and things like that before [being 21 years old]? Yes, but it was not illegal, I always asked what I was given? I always knew what was in the injections and it was always me who made the decision ", -he explains.

"Nobody ever said to me: 'Don't ask a question, we give you that and that's it'. I would never have accepted that. I inquired, it was a step on my part", said Lance Armstrong.

The American, who made the law on professional cycling in the 2000s, won seven consecutive editions of the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005.

His world title threatened?

But the former leader of the US Postal and Discovery Channel teams was robbed of his victories, after receiving a lifetime suspension in 2012, following an investigation opened by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada). The latter has established that he is the head of "the most sophisticated, professional and efficient doping system in the history of sport".

In 2013, he admitted to having doped from 1996 in a very followed interview granted to the American television star Oprah Winfrey. If he started doping at 21, so in 1992 or 1993, it could cast a shadow on his world title won in 1993 in Oslo.

With AFP

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