Lance Armstrong comes clean with Oprah. “The biggest interview I’ve ever done.”

Update: The NY Times’ review of Lance’s not-quite-apology.

The Oprah Winfrey Network has posted some video highlights from the interview on the broadcaster’s YouTube channel.

“He met the moment.”

“He did not come clean in the manner I expected.”

“He was so forthcoming.”

More detail, context, commentary: Blow-by-blow coverage.

 

A two-and-a-half hour interview (which airs starting Thursday).

Preview:

Backed into a corner by his own lies and his wish to protect the organization his inspiring comeback from cancer built, Lance finally comes clean.

“They all do it. Some of them get caught. Lance isn’t the hero we all wanted him to be, nor is he the demon he is painted as now. He did what he needed to win.”

But he took others down to protect his “innocence,” including for-real hero Greg LeMond’s bicycle business:

Excerpt: read the rest, here.

It was a public stance that ultimately cost LeMond his bicycle business, and pitted him against a legion of Armstrong supporters, many of whom painted the three-time Tour winner as bitter, or jealous.

“[LeMond] said, ‘If Lance’s story is true, it’s the greatest comeback in the history of sport, if it’s not, it’s the greatest fraud,’ and of course that was just raising the question that it might be a fraud,” Walsh told GCN’s Daniel Lloyd. “Armstrong, of course, went insane with anger, and Greg then was vilified by Armstrong, [he] was put under unbelievable pressure.”

Armstrong’s influence led to his bike sponsor, Trek, dropping its support of the LeMond brand it had licensed for 13 years from the three-time Tour winner.

In 2008, Trek president John Burke told the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, “Had all the stars aligned with Lance and Greg, if [LeMond] had kept a positive relationship, [the LeMond brand] would have ended up a $30 [million] to $35 million brand.”

Instead, it wound up a memory.

“Armstrong could exercise unbelievable influence if he wanted to — to damage your business interests, or destroy your character,” Walsh said. “He was a formidable and very dangerous enemy, Lance, and he didn’t mind using his power to destroy other people.”

 

Excerpt: read the rest, here.

We’ll always see him, in our mind’s eye, in yellow.

He was a champion who beat cancer, and attracted millions to the sport—and everyday activity—of cycling. Our debt to his leadership, magnetism and exertion will never be repaid.

He was a champion who beat cancer, but could not beat the USADA’s “witchhunt.”

Competing in a time when everyone doped, it’s likely he did so. Cyclists have told me he did so, and that everyone did so, and he had to compete, but that he would eventually be busted.

For more: Why we should all keep Supporting Livestrong.