Retired Cooke lances the boil

CYCLIST cheat Lance Armstrong choked back crocodile tears last night as he admitted for the first time that he used banned drugs and blood doping to win all seven of his Tour de France titles.

The 41-year-old Texan made the confession to television host Oprah Winfrey on her OWN network in a two-and-a-half-hour interview which was also streamed worldwide through her website.

"I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times. I made those decisions, they were my mistake and I'm here to say sorry," Armstrong said.

However, Armstrong also revealed that he had considered doping as simply part of the process required to win Le Tour, comparing it to having "air in our tyres or water in our bottles".

Moreover, when asked by Winfrey if he considered what he was doing was "wrong" or "cheating", Armstrong answered that he did not, adding: "The definition of a cheat is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe.

"I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field. I didn't understand the magnitude of that. The important thing is that I'm beginning to understand it."

In fairness to Armstrong for a moment, it is easy to see why he was forced into thinking like that, given the context of the times.

He won his seven Tour de France titles consecutively between 1999 and 2005, and the first of those triumphs came just a year after the Festina affair when a huge haul of doping products was found in a car of the Festina cycling team.

The 1998 scandal had huge implications for Festina and its riders, team soigneur Willy Voet and doctor Eric Rijkaert were ejected from the race and arrested. Seven of the riders admitted doping, and they were suspended and fined.

Meanwhile, some of the other teams threatened to withdraw from the race, protesting the decision to treat the riders as criminals - but the move did little more than to cast suspicion upon themselves. Basically, it seemed like everyone was at it.

Ultimately, though, it was not just a level playing field which Armstrong had hoped to achieve. Indeed, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) accused him and the US Postal Service team of operating "the most sophisticated, professional and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen".

But it was not difficult to see why Armstrong was willing to push the doping boundaries so hard. In 1996, he  had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had also spread to his brain and his lungs.

Following brain surgery and extensive chemotherapy, he was given the all-clear in February 1997, and the narrative of his life made his victories all the more extraordinary, cultivating an image of him winning brilliantly against all the odds.

Furthermore, Armstrong used his powerful positive message to set up the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which has raised $325m (£203m) through the sale of its yellow Livestrong bracelets.

That is all well and good outside of the sport - but, within it, the American had gained the reputation as a bully with an almost dictatorial cult of personality within his team.

And, while he denied his fellow team-mates were forced to comply with the doping programme, he did admit last night that the strength of his personality could have implied that.

He said: "Yes, I was a bully. I was a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative and if I didn't like what someone said I turned on them. We felt like we had our backs against the wall and I was a fighter."

Most relevantly, Armstrong continually strenuously denied using performance-enhancing drugs to anyone who dared suggested that he had, and even went as far as reversing his 2005 retirement decision to return to the sport between 2008 and 2011.

He backed up his denials with a crack team of lawyers who would come down hard on accusers in the courts, suing - among many others - the Sunday Times.

The newspaper paid £1m damages in its settlement outside of court but it has now counter-sued, and is just one of a whole slew of interested parties which Armstrong's lawyers will have to deal with.

Former team-mate Floyd Landis - who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping - has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit accusing Armstrong of defrauding the US Postal Service, which paid more than £18.7m to sponsor the team Armstrong competed for.

And the US Department of Justice is reportedly considering whether to join the lawsuit against him

Finally, having lied under oath in 2005, Armstrong could also face criminal charges of perjury - and he surely cannot expect all of this to go away because of a cosy chat show apology to Oprah.

Certainly, USADA would have much preferred him to have made his admission under oath, and it may yet still force him to do so.

For, rather than the sponsors and the newspapers, Armstrong has done most damage to the sport itself and its competitors.

That much was clear earlier this week when British Olympic gold medallist Nicole Cooke announced her retirement.

Cooke bowed out with a parting shot, saying she had been "robbed" of more success by drugs cheats, and the Beijing Olympics road race champion clearly had little sympathy for Armstrong.

She said: "When Lance cries on Oprah later this week and she passes him the tissue, spare a thought for all those genuine people who walked away with no rewards - just shattered dreams. Each one of them is worth a thousand Lances."

Indeed, and it is fair to say that this dark episode in the sport of cycling will never be forgotten. After all, the official Tour de France record simply now states: 1999-2005 - no winner.

See also: Lance Armstrong & Oprah Winfrey - the transcript.