Doping is “part of the job” of being a pro cyclist says Armstrong

The dirty past of the Tour de France came back on Friday to haunt the 100th edition of cycling’s showcase race, with Lance Armstrong telling a newspaper he couldn’t have won without doping. In an interview with interview with Le Monde, Armstrong told Le Monde he still considers himself the record-holder for Tour victories, even though all seven of his titles were stripped from him last year for doping. He also said his life has been ruined by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation that exposed as lies his years of denials that he and his teammates doped. 


The interview was the latest blast from cycling’s doping-tainted recent history to rain on the 100th Tour. Not surprising in Armstrong’s interview was his claim that it was “impossible” to win the Tour without doping when he was racing. Armstrong already told U.S. television talk show host Oprah Winfrey when he finally confessed this January that doping was just “part of the job” of being a pro cyclist.

“When you raced, was it possible to perform without doping?” The Tour de France? No. Impossible to win without doping. Because the Tour is a test of endurance where oxygen is decisive,” The banned hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, wasn’t detectable by cycling’s doping controls until 2001 and so was widely abused because it prompts the body to produce oxygen-carrying red blood cells, giving a big performance boost to endurance athletes.