Will Lance Armstrong Confess To Doping? David Walsh Interview Pt. 2 — Transcript

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1. 0:05We have already touched briefly on your legendary interview with Lance Armstrong back in 2001
2. 0:09in that hotel can you just expand on that a little bit more for us.
3. 0:14Yer the 2001 interview with Lance was actually funny almost but it's only funny in hindsight
4. 0:20at the time I didn't think it was funny because erm as I wrote a line in the book
5. 0:26which is you know I was high on the ecstasy of sanctimony you know Philip Roth's line
6. 0:32and I was going there all sanctimonious asking Lance all these doping questions and talk
7. 0:37about you know questions being hit with a dead bat I would say to Lance ehm, Lance what
8. 0:43do you know about cycling history and doping, and he'd say "not very much" and I said
9. 0:48well you've surely heard the name Tom Simpson he said yer yer yer kind of vaguely you know
10. 0:54I said well Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux you know in, in controversial circumstances
11. 1:00and I hadn't that sentence uttered and Lance jumped in and said but he never tested positive
12. 1:05and I thought hold on here now, there was amphetamines found in Tom Simpsons pocket
13. 1:12there was amphetamines found in his blood stream there was amphetamines found in his
14. 1:14suitcase back at the hotel but Lance says he never tested positive. Now why would Lance
15. 1:20say that and it was absolutely clear to me Lance said that because as long as you didn't
16. 1:25test positive nobody could prove you used drugs and that was going to be the mantra
17. 1:29that would govern his entire cycling life, I passed the tests you believe me, you have
18. 1:34no right to ask questions beyond that, obviously I came from a different place but the interview
19. 1:39that day in eastern France was, was almost ridiculous because I was asking questions
20. 1:46which I thought were perfectly normal and Lance was giving me ridiculous answers, but
21. 1:51they weren't answers that proved he doped. For example I would say, well your best friend
22. 1:55at the time Kevin Livingston he is part of a criminal investigation in Italy with Michele
23. 2:02Ferrari have you discussed this with Kevin? And Lance would look at me and say no actually
24. 2:08I haven't discussed it I said he's your best friend you share rooms with him you go
25. 2:12out on 6 hour training rides with him he's involved in a criminal investigation and you
26. 2:16haven't said Hey Kev what's all this about you and Ferrari, you've never said that?
27. 2:21No, no I've never said that, he said there's lots of things we don't talk about. And
28. 2:26I mean it was just ridiculous I mean as I said it wasn't proof that he doped but it
29. 2:31sure was proof that he could lie because pretty much every answer he gave me I felt was a
30. 2:36lie you know he, he was telling me that I know nothing about doping but basically that
31. 2:40was for 2 hours maybe an hour and a half hours of an interview and I kind of, I banged my
32. 2:45head, I banged my head off the stone wall and at the end of it all I had was a sore
33. 2:51head you know because I didn't, I didn't get any honesty from him at all. Maybe I went
34. 2:57away with a sense of you know what you're going to have to keep digging here because
35. 3:00this guy isn't going to give up anything voluntarily.
36. 3:03Can you ever see Lance Armstrong giving a kind of Frost Nixon interview and admitting
37. 3:08all that he's done over the years?
38. 3:10Lots of people wonder about whether Lance is going to do a tell all interview you know
39. 3:15turn up on Opera Winfrey or where ever you know Letterman or Jay Leno you know and do
40. 3:22his tell all interview. I feel he has to do that to kind of rebuild his life because he's
41. 3:30in a really bad place now but the kind of practical difficulty he's got is that once
42. 3:35he admits that he did dope well then the people are going after him to get money back that
43. 3:42they paid to him SCA Insurance company, Sunday Times newspaper, US postal all their sponsorship.
44. 3:51If he admits he doped those cases are all immediately lost he then has no defence so
45. 3:58I believe his lawyers are telling him now, sit tight Lance, you can not do that tell
46. 4:02all interview but his life remains in a kind of a purgatory you know that, you know telling
47. 4:10all might be hell for a certain amount of time but it gives him a chance to start climbing
48. 4:15upwards out of there and where he is now he's stuck and uh I hope that he's, he's getting
49. 4:22his financial stuff dealt with and he's going to do the tell all interview and admit
50. 4:27to all the sins of the past because until he does that I don't think he has any kind
51. 4:32of future worth having.