Lance Armstrong, on Eve of Fraud Trial, Looks Back at the Tumultuous End of His Career

Lance Armstrong. Remember him? The once-everywhere cyclist, who famously won the Tour de France seven consecutive times, is now starting up a different hill.

As Outside magazine reports, in November, Armstrong will be on trial for defrauding the U.S. Postal Service via wins won by using performance-enhancing drugs. He stands to lose just shy of $100 million—or his reported net worth.

Remember: He’s already told the world that he’s a cheat. On Oprah, no less.

Outside caught up with Armstrong on his “new narrative,” and tried to figure out whether he was truly sorry for all his misdeeds. RealClearLife has filled your coffers with the most surprising quotes, facts, and details from their feature.

-On the day the revelation of his doping came out via the USADA report, Armstrong reportedly lost $75 million.

-Said his friend and business manager Bart Knaggs of Armstrong’s sorry-not-sorry confession on Oprah: “If you go to Oprah, what you do is cry and crumble and get picked up and hugged. And so, if Oprah loves you, the rest of us can love you, too. But if you miss steps one and two, she can’t do step three. It doesn’t work.”

-Says Armstrong of his Oprah confession: “When I did Oprah, my attitude was, fucking get over it. My feeling was, look at what we did. Look how the sport grew, look how the industry grew, and look how many people were affected because of Livestrong’s cancer work. Get over it. That was my attitude in 2013. I now understand that ‘get over it’ was not an option. People were upset, hurt, livid.”

-Writes Outside‘s S.C. Gwynne: “The doping statistics are indeed staggering: from 1998 to 2011, which frames the bulk of Armstrong’s professional career, 12 of 14 Tour de France winners and more than 40 percent of the event’s top-ten finishers either admitted to or were officially linked to doping.” Despite this fact, Armstrong was banned for life and stripped of his titles.

-Armstrong’s goal after being banned from the cycling world was to recast himself as a world-class triathlete. But he’s since been barred from doing that professionally as well.

-This year, Armstrong has competed in unsanctioned races in Arizona, Nevada, and California.

-Armstrong has tried to bury the past behind him via his business venture WeDu and podcast, Forward, which has a sizable listener base and massive social following.

-Armstrong and his family have been in therapy for two years.

-In some ways, Armstrong seems remorseful. He seems to have accepted his lot. “With all of that [controversy], as a husband, father, friend, interviewer, whatever I am on a daily basis, I am better. I really believe that. Most people would say, ‘I hate to have lost all that money, I hate it that I got sued, I hate it that people talk shit about me.’ But sitting here today, they did me a favor. I have a great wife-to-be. I have great children. I have a lot of time to spend with them. Also incredibly important is that I know who my friends are. How many people in the world know who their friends really are?”