In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that was first taped on Monday but aired on Friday, disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong said he did not think he deserved a lifetime ban from competitive sporting events.
“I deserve to be punished,” Armstrong said. “Not sure I deserve a death penalty.”
Armstrong said his admission to having used performance-enhancing drugs had cost him nearly $75 million. He is currently banned from participating in any sporting event sanctioned by anti-doping governing bodies. This means he cannot even participate in marathon races or triathlons.
He said his “ultimate crimes” was “the betrayal of these people who support me and believed in me and they got lied to.”
“There’s another moral to this story. For me, I think it was about that ride and about losing myself and getting caught up in that and doing all those things along the way,” Armstrong said. “And then the ultimate crime is the betrayal of these people who support me and believed in me and they got lied to.”
He added: “I can look at what I did, cheating to win bike races, lying about it, bullying people, of course you’re not supposed to do those things–that’s what we teach our children. That’s the easy thing.”
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