Lance Armstrong has revealed that he started doping back in 1992. The 48-year-old American says that in a new documentary by ESPN that appears next week.
“I was probably 21 when I started doping,” says Armstrong Cycling Weekly in the documentary, the first part of which can be seen on May 25. That means that he was already on the prohibited substances from his first professional year.
Armstrong says he started on cortisones in 1992, a stress hormone that has a performance-enhancing effect. As far as is known, the fallen cycling legend was not so specific about the moment when he started doping.
A year later, in 1993, Armstrong achieved the greatest success in his then still career by winning the world title on the road in Oslo. Later, as is known, he switched to using EPO and won the Tour de France seven times, titles that he all had to hand in when his doping use surfaced.
“Epo was a completely different level,” said Armstrong in the documentary about blood doping. “The cycling world was used to something a little different. The effect of epo on performance was so great that the sport switched to this rocket fuel with a much higher octane rating.”
In the documentary, Armstrong also makes a link between his doping use and testicular cancer, which was diagnosed in late 1996 and recovered from. “I don’t know if it had anything to do with each other. But I used growth hormones once in my life and that was back in 1996. Wouldn’t it make sense that if there was something bad in it, it would grow too?”
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