Lance Armstrong has admitted he used performance enhancing drugs from the start of his professional career, making the admission in a yet to be air two-part ESPN documentary.
He now puts his first doping experiences back to 1992 or 1993, meaning he now admits he doped through his career and in the period before 1998, when he returned from cancer to win the Tour de France seven times.
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Asked by the film makers when he first doped Armstrong says: “Wow straight into that; I was probably 21.”
Armstrong explains he was "dabbling" in "low octane cortisone, or whatever was around" at that early point of his career.
He is also asked if he believed his drug-taking
contributed to his cancer diagnosis:
“I don’t know the answer to that. But I certainly
wouldn’t say no. The only thing I’ll tell you is the only time in my life I
ever did growth hormone was the 1996 season.
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“So in my head, growth, growing hormone and cells – if
anything good needs to be grown it does. But wouldn’t it also make sense if
there is anything bad in there it, too, would grow?”
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The American, now aged 48 years, had previously been
stripped of his results from 1998 onwards; the period after returning to the
sport from testicular cancer.
While he wore the yellow jersey of the Tour de France
into Paris seven times, he has long been stripped of those wins because of his
doping.
However, he had been able to hang onto other results
before 1998, including the gold medal he won at the World Championships in Oslo
in 1993.
But now in the new documentary he has made admissions that put that world title at risk as the doping he has admitted to pre-dates that victory.
During that period before 1998 he also won two stages of
the Tour de France, in 1993 and 1995, and the US national road race title, in 1993.
In 1995 he took victory in Clásica de San Sebastián and the following year claimed La Flèche Wallonne.
In theory all of those wins, and others from the pre-1998
period, are at risk of being stripped from him as he says he began doping when
he was about 21 years old.
That would date back to his first season proper in the pro
peloton with Motorola in 1993 or as a stagiaire with the same time in the final
months of 1992.
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