Lance Armstrong: I Would Dope Again

"I want to be out of time out," the disgraced cyclist told the BBC.

Lance Armstrong would choose to dope again if he were faced with the same drug culture he says existed in cycling in the 1990s, the disgraced cyclist told the BBC.

In his first television interview since publicly admitting to Oprah Winfrey in Jan. 2013 that he used performance enhancing drugs extensively during his career, Armstrong told the BBC that he would change his combative behavior at the time, but not his decision to dope.

"If I was racing in 2015, no, I wouldn't do it again because I don't think you have to," Armstrong said. "If you take me back to 1995, when doping was completely pervasive, I would probably do it again."

"When I made that decision, when my teammates made that decision, when the whole peloton made that decision... It was a bad decision at an imperfect time, but it happened," he said.

In 2012, the drug cheat was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and banned from competitive cycling by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Armstrong, 43, told the broadcaster that his decision to return to competitive cycling was the "biggest mistake" of his life, saying it built a "bridge" for anti-doping agents to investigate his past doping.

However, he also said he thinks it's time for people to forgive him for cheating.

"I'm not going to lie to you. Selfishly, I'd say yeah we're getting close to that time. But that's me," he said. "Listen, of course I want to be out of time out. What kid doesn't? "

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