The Armstrong Lie Page #2

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I don't believe a word he says.

I want this man to suffer.

And I say that with all sincerity.

I can't believe

we all got duped.

Lying jerk.

The guy's a complete phony.

He could've come clean.

He owes it to the sport

that he destroyed.

Was it a big deal to you?

Did it feel wrong'?

At the time? No.

It did not even feel wrong?

No.

The prime time confession turned

out to be a bumpy ride for Lance.

But it might never

have happened if he hadn't

decided to take

a victory lap in 2009.

And your comeback.

Do you regret now coming back?

I do.

We wouldn't be sitting here

if I didn't come back.

The comeback.

What was he thinking?

I kept wondering

about that question

throughout the year

as I followed him.

It's been a long time.

Will you be ready for the Tour?

I'm comin'.

I'll be there July 4th.

A few weeks

ago, when he first came up with

the idea of a possible comeback,

I was really surprised.

I remember I sent him

a message back and I said,

"Are you at a party?

Are you sober?"

Johan Bruyneel,

Lance's team director

for all seven of

Lance's Tour wins,

was now running Team Astana.

He reunited with Lance

to help guide his comeback.

We good?

Sure.

So is there a motivator

for you this time around?

Is this in some way for you

to say to all the critics...

It's been an interesting

reaction with the comeback.

I mean, some people are curious,

some people are pissed,

and some people are ecstatic.

Few people in sport divide

public opinion quite like Lance Armstrong.

To millions, he is

a source of inspiration.

But to some, his incredible tale is

just that, incredible, hard to believe.

Yet so many wanted to believe.

Wherever Lance went,

he moved the needle.

More fans, more money

for sponsors and promoters.

Even so, the organization

that ran the Tour de France

was reluctant to

invite him back.

Just 10 months before the race,

the comeback was in jeopardy.

The story is,

"Refused entry into

"the Tour de

France for no reason."

This guy is comin' back.

He's never been caught,

prosecuted, busted for anything.

He's coming back with the most legitimate,

credible program that there is.

They won't let him

in the marquee event.

I think the media

would f***in' crush 'em.

If they don't let him ride...

He's gonna take so

much attention away

from the Tour de

France to other events

that they have to let him in.

I think they may

come out of the gate and say,

"Of course he can't race

in the Tour de France."

Neither could Ivan Basso,

neither could Floyd Landis.

They all cheated.

That's not the same.

They were all busted.

And they think Lance is busted.

No, he's not.

But they think...

He's not.

They think it might be that way.

L'Equipe said he cheated.

He's never tested positive.

They think he has.

He didn't.

But L'Equipe said he did.

What was the headline?

Yes.

"The Armstrong Lie."

Long before Oprah,

"The Armstrong Lie" article

offered proof that Lance's first

Tour win had not been clean.

Through clever detective work,

the author

discovered that many of

Armstrong's urine

samples from 1999

contained

a doping drug called EPO.

If you consider my situation,

a guy who comes back from,

arguably, a death sentence,

why would I then

enter into a sport

and dope myself up

and risk my life again?

That's crazy.

I would never do that.

No. No way.

It was a bold claim,

considering how many

riders around him

had been busted.

And even after

Lance's seven Tour wins,

pro cycling continued to

suffer from doping scandals.

There are a lot of us

who wanted this to be

a clean sport and a clean effort

and a clean

victory and everything.

But there's just too much

swirl around it constantly.

Shortly after

Armstrong retired, there was

this huge bust

called Operation Puerto,

in which most of

his rivals got popped.

If it was

the NBA All-Star game,

it would have been every

player on both teams

essentially busted for doping

except that one

guy who just retired.

Throughout Lance's Tour wins,

all but one of the cyclists who

finished on the podium with Armstrong

were implicated

in doping scandals.

And finally,

the last thing I'll say for

the people that

don't believe in cycling,

the cynics and the skeptics,

I'm sorry for you.

I'm sorry you can't dream big, and I'm

sorry you don't believe in miracles.

After winning in 2005,

what better moment to walk away?

What better moment to stay away?

Why couldn't he have

just said thank you?

"I had a nice career and now it's over.

Thank you."

But that's not in him.

And that urge to crush,

that urge

to push back,

that urge to dominate,

not just to be content with

winning, but that urge to dominate,

is what ended up

bringing him down.

Lance tried to

dominate my film, too.

He had lied to me, straight to

my face, all throughout 2009.

When the truth

came out, I told him

he owed me

an explanation on camera.

Whether he wanted to try

to make things right

or whether he still wanted

to influence my story,

he agreed to sit

down one more time.

You vigorously

defended your reputation.

Do you feel,

in retrospect, that you were

protecting that too assiduously?

Had the lie become too big? Did

it get out of control for you?

Yeah, that's

the biggest regret of my life.

Um, I'm a fighter.

I grew up a fighter.

I was a fighter on the bike.

I was a fighter off the bike.

And if you were in the race, I was

competitive and I was fighting.

I forgot to turn that...

I'd get off the bike, and whether

it's in a press conference,

whether it's in a team setting,

whether it's in

a personal relationship,

I continued to fight.

And I wanted to defend myself,

and I wanted to defend the

sport, the team, my foundation.

I was defending

all of these things,

and I was

prepared to say anything.

The gift that he has that gets

overlooked is his gift as a storyteller,

his gift as a manager

of his own storyline.

A guy at death's door comes back

to win the toughest

event on the planet.

The story brought more money,

brought more attention,

brought more sponsorship,

brought more inspiration.

Lance became this

international cultural icon.

And he had to

keep the story going.

He could've ridden around the

world to raise money for cancer.

There were a lot of

things he could've done,

but the best story is

to go back to the Tour.

By racing the bicycle

all over the world,

beginning in Australia,

ending in France,

it is the best way to

promote this initiative.

It's the best way

to get the word out.

He understood the power of

that story, and he used it.

The disease, testicular

cancer, travels up a young man's body,

so next stop is the abdomen.

Next stop is the lungs.

And the last stop is the brain.

My dumb ass just

ignored symptoms,

obvious, glaring, dirty

symptoms, for a long time.

And it traveled all the way up.

Severe headaches.

Blurry vision.

Coughing up of blood.

Extreme pain downstairs.

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