*Following a taping Monday with disgraced U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey discussed the interview today on “CBS: This Morning,” saying she got so much from her 2 1/2 hour talk that she plans to present it in two shows. [Scroll down to watch clips from Oprah's "CBS: This Morning" appearance.]
“Emotional doesn’t begin to describe the intensity or difficulty (for Armstrong) in talking about these things,” Winfrey said today on “CBS This Morning.” “All these people wondering if he goes there and answers things … I think you will come away, too, that he brought it. He really did.”
Winfrey confirmed that Armstrong finally admitted during the interview that he used performance-enhancing drugs through his celebrated championship career.
In a few clips shown briefly from the interview done in Armstrong’s hometown of Austin, Texas, Armstrong looked nervous. Winfrey and Armstrong sat simply in chairs, facing one another, glasses of water with straws sitting on a small table for each. As Armstrong enters the interview area, Winfrey gets up to greet him.
Winfrey, wearing a bright lime-colored dress today, spoke from the set of Harpo studios in Chicago to the CBS anchors in New York – including her best friend Gayle King – about what she considers her “biggest” interview.
She told CBS she got to ask most of her “112″ questions. “I would say he did not come clean in the manner I expected,” Winfrey said. “It was surprising to me … for myself, my team, all of us in the room, we were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers.”
Winfrey said she and Armstrong had agreed to terms of the interview that included what was said “would be left for people to make their own judgments about. And by the time I left Austin and landed in Chicago, you all already had confirmed it. … So I’m sitting here now because it’s already been confirmed.”
The International Cycling Union (UCI) is aware of the Winfrey interview and said “if these reports are true” that Armstrong confessed, “We would strongly urge Lance Armstrong to testify to the independent commission established to investigate the allegations made against the UCI” in the recent U.S. Anti-Doping Agency decision on the cyclist and his former United States Postal Service team.
The UCI’s independent panel looked into claims the sport federation covered up suspicious samples from Armstrong, accepted financial donations from him and helped him avoid detection in doping tests.
The special episode of “Oprah’s Next Chapter” will air Thursday, January 17 from 9-10:30 p.m. ET/PT (as previously announced) and Friday, January 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The interview will be simultaneously streamed LIVE worldwide both nights on Oprah.com.
Watch Winfrey’s appearance on “CBS: This Morning” below.
Sorry I have to say this but in my eyes he is’nt a great sportsman. He’s a gangster a criminal who took year after year drugs to win the most prestigeous cycling tour off the world. For him it was just the money. His place is in jail.
Roland Van Landeghem (Belgium)
If anyone needs some positive PR atm, it is Lance Armstrong, and Oprah is the best at giving her guests great PR. How do you think the interview went down? Here is a preview at http://sorrysods.com
When this happened to Marion Jones, they hung her like a runaway slave. She had no criminal record and 2 small children at home but yet they sent her to prison for 3 years in a maximum security federal prison for women. Had she been white, blonde hair with blue eyes, she would have gotten probation and a reality TV show. She did nothing to warrant getting a 3 year prison term. Probation and a fine, should have been her sentence. It didn’t take rocket science to know this guy was doping the whole time he was riding those damn bicycles. He obviously got full immunity because there is NO way he’d go on national TV and admit, OK, I lied. He should be hung just like Marion…he lied to the feds as well. No matter how far we’ve come in modern civilized society, racism is just as bad as it was 30+ years ago…it just modernizes with the times.
Marion Jones should definitely not have gone to jail. The reality is that in the grand screme of things it’s really not important at all. It’s just sports which is all about the money so of course people are going cheat. Anyone who believes differently must have their head stuck in the 1950s.