NO REGRETS, NO REMORSE

In a new documentary disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong talks unapologetically about the doping scandal that ended his career

- CHARLEA SIBERHAGEN-GREY

IT’S been eight years since the doping scandal that stunned the world and made him the poster child for how ambition and the desire to win at all costs can torpedo a career. Has Lance Armstrong spent that time racked with guilt and regret?

“I’ve told you over and over I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” the disgraced cyclist snaps, visibly irritated by the question he faces as part of Lance – a new two-part documentary produced by American sports channel ESPN.

His hair is streaked with flecks of grey and there are deep frown lines on his forehead but the steely glint in those piercing blue eyes is still there and his tone is just as confident – some would say arrogant – as it’s ever been.

After almost a decade in the sporting wilderness, Lance (48) has nothing to lose. In the astonishingly frank doccie, he opens up about the doping scandal, revealing how it ruined friendships and relationships and how strangers still regularly come up to him in the street and swear at him.

Yet despite all this, he shows not one crumb of remorse. If he had to go back to the day when he started doping at age 21, during his first year in professional cycling, he’d do it all again, Lance says.

In another bizarre moment in the documentary he says if his 20-year-old son, Luke, who’s a talented American footballer, decided to use performance-enhancing drugs he might not try to talk him out of it.

At times in the documentary, which is now available on DStv Catch Up, interviewer and director Marina Zenovich can’t hide her amazement at his breathtaking arrogance.