Lance Armstrong, the former professional cyclist whose career came to an abrupt end after admitting to doping, is opening up about the "10,000 lies" he told to keep his name clean throughout his career.
The 48-year-old is now revisiting his past and the secrets he kept and the lies he told in a new two-part ESPN documentary, 'Lance.'
"Nobody dopes and is honest. You’re not," he said during the film, according to USA Today. "The only way you can dope and be honest is if nobody ever asks you, which is not realistic. The second somebody asks you, you lie. It might be one lie because you answer it once. Or in my case it might be 10,000 lies because you answer it 10,000 times."
Armstrong earned seven Tour de France titles between 1999 to 2005. What made his story a sensation was that he beat testicular cancer three years before clinching a number of wins on the saddle of his bike. However, in 2013 he was stripped of all accolades and banned from the sport after admitting to being guilty of doping.
In an interview with Oprah at the time, Armstrong said he was a bully that needed to win at all costs and did not see himself as a cheat.
"I didn’t view [doping] that way. I viewed it as a level playing field," he said in the interview, according to The Washington Post.
"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he added.
'Lance' film director Marina Zenovich said the athlete’s story was intriguing, which is why they decided to make a documentary about him.
"He’s utterly fascinating, and he’s likable, and he’s light on his feet, and he’s funny," Zenovich told USA Today. "But he also did horrible things to people, so it’s kind of like you’re trying to understand someone. It’s like a perfect documentary subject. For me to be able to have the access to him to try to kind of uncover all of this was like a dream job."