What’s next for Lance Armstrong?

It was all true. After over a decade of emphatic denials Lance Armstrong admitted to Oprah Winfrey last week that he has been doping throughout his career.

All of the cyclist’s seven Tour de France titles were won with the help of banned substances even though he repeatedly denied any wrong doing. As recently as June 2012 Armstrong said: “I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”

Armstrong’s defence seems to be that he did it because everyone else did and using banned substances was the only way for him to compete on a level playing field. The thing that irritates me about his defence is that he was the leader in the cycling world, someone that other cyclists looked up to and he had the power the expose doping and restore the sport’s integrity. If he really wanted to change the sport, he could have.

I’m sure people would be a lot more forgiving towards Armstrong if it seemed like he was a victim in all of this but he wasn’t; he was an instigator and turned on people who didn’t want to play by his rules. He branded Betsy Andreu, the wife of his former team-mate Frankie Andreu, as “crazy” when she tried to expose him. Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond spoke out against doping and saw his business falter as Armstrong’s sponsors, Trek, took legal action against him.

Masseuse Emma O’Reilly, who worked for the United States Postal Service cycling team, spoke out in 2003 about what she had been witness to and was branded a prostitute with a drinking problem by Armstrong. Armstrong had the power to ruin people’s lives, and he did it.

So what can the disgraced cyclist do now? His reputation is in tatters and all of the impressive charity work that he has done has been tainted. It is thought that he could face a bill of up to $50m in potential lawsuits over the coming years, but with a net worth of $125 million I’m sure he’ll be able to manage.

A few years ago, a biopic of Armstrong was on the cards with Jake Gyllenhaal taking the lead role, but now the ending of the story looks very different and a new film is being developed based on the book Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by New York Times reporter Juliet Macur.

It seems impossible that Armstrong will be able to rise from the ashes and become a respected athlete again but I will definitely be taking an interest in his next career move.