Exactly five years after Lance Armstrong confessed to doping on the Oprah Winfrey show, the disgraced Texan has suggested he has paid a financial price of over 100 million US dollars, with the approaching government-led whistleblower trial, sparked by Floyd Landis, possibly costing him more and revealing further details of his past.
USA Today quoted Armstrong as saying via email that the confession had cost him "in excess of 100 mil". In the days after his confession, long-term sponsors such as Oakley, Trek and others suddenly dropped their huge endorsements and sponsorship, massively reducing his income.
The 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey, which was broadcast on January 17 and 18, marked a pivotal if perhaps calculated moment for Armstrong after he spent the previous 15 years vehemently denying any allegations of anti-doping violations and attacking his critics. He admitted to the use of cortisone, EPO, Human Growth Hormone, Testosterone, and blood doping, and suggested it would have been impossible for him to win the Tour de France clean.
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Armstrong made the confession after the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigation labelled the US Postal Service team's operation as "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen". USADA stripped Armstrong of all results from August 1 1998 and handed the Texan a lifetime ban, which was ratified by the UCI.
USA Today recalled the fifth anniversary of the confession by speaking to many of the people who could testify against Armstrong in May, including Betsy Andreu, Kathy LeMond, David Walsh and former assistant Mike Anderson.
Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in 2013 that he would “spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologise to people”. When USA Today asked Armstrong for fresh comment on his apologies, he is reported as saying: “If this is really the direction you’re going in for any story I have no comment.”
A string of lawsuits
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