PARIS • Disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong has revealed he first started doping from the age of 21, during his first season as a professional, and wondered if that resulted in his testicular cancer.
"Wow, straight to the point, probably 21," he replied when asked how old he was when he first doped as part of an ESPN documentary.
The exchange with US journalist Marina Zenovich appeared in a 90-second trailer released on Monday for a two-part documentary called Lance, which will be broadcast by ESPN on May 24 and 31.
During the clip, in which former US Postal Service teammates Tyler Hamilton and George Hincapie responded to the same question about performance-enhancing drugs, Armstrong, 48, said there are "a bunch of ways to define doping".
"The easiest way to define it is breaking the rules. Were we getting injections of vitamins and other things like that at an earlier age? Yes, but they weren't illegal. I always asked (what I was being given). I always knew, and I always made the decision on my own," he said.
The American was also asked whether he feels that his testicular cancer - which he was diagnosed with in 1996 - could have been as a result of doping.
"I don't know if it's yes or no, but I certainly wouldn't say no," he said.
"The only thing I will tell you is, the only time in my life that I ever did growth hormone was the 1996 season."
He dominated professional cycling in the 2000s and won the Tour de France seven years in a row from 1999 to 2005. He was later stripped of those titles and received a lifetime ban from the sport in 2012 after the US Anti-Doping Agency determined he was the key figure in a doping programme on the US Postal team. In 2013, he confessed to doping starting in 1996 in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
His latest admission could also cast doubt over his world road race title won in Oslo in 1993, having turned professional the previous season.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE