Armstrong says he 'left it all on the table' with Oprah
BY JIM LITKE & JIM VERTUNO Associated Press
Thursday, January 17, 2013
1/17/13 at 4:41 AM
Lance Armstrong said viewers can judge for themselves how candid he was in his interview with Oprah Winfrey.
"I left it all on the table with her and when it airs the people can decide," he said in a text message to The Associated Press.
Armstrong responded to a report in the New York Daily News, citing an unidentified source, that he was not contrite when he acknowledged during Monday's taping with Winfrey that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Livestrong, the cancer charity Armstrong founded in 1997 and was forced to walk away from last year, said in a statement Wednesday it expected him to be "completely truthful and forthcoming."
A day earlier, World Anti-Doping Agency general director David Howman said nothing short of a confession under oath could prompt a reconsideration of Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.
Armstrong has held conversations with officials from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, including a reportedly contentious face-to-face meeting with USADA chief executive Travis Tygart near the Denver airport.
It was USADA's 1,000-page report last year, including testimony from nearly a dozen former teammates, that portrayed Armstrong as the leader of a sophisticated doping ring on the way to title after title at the Tour de France. In addition to the lifetime ban, Armstrong was stripped of all seven wins, lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with Livestrong.
According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Armstrong has information that might lead to his ban being reduced to eight years. That would make him eligible to compete in elite triathlons in 2020, when Armstrong will be 49. He was a professional athlete in the three-discipline sport as a teenager, and returned to competition after retiring from cycling in 2011.
That person also said the bar for Armstrong's redemption is higher now than when the case was open, a time during which he refused to speak to investigators.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a confidential matter.
Original Print Headline: Armstrong 'left it all on the table' with Oprah
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