BBC Learning English
Words in the News
Armstrong s confession
18 January 2013
Lance Armstrong, the former cycling champion, has admitted to using drugs to
improve his performance for the first time. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey
on her OWN Network, Armstrong said he had used drugs during all seven of his
Tour de France wins, from 1999 to 2005. From Washington, here's the BBC's
correspondent Ben Wright:
The confession took a long time to come. Despite being stripped of his Tour de
France titles last year following a doping investigation, Lance Armstrong always
denied cheating.
But he had been lying. The 41-year-old American cyclist told Oprah Winfrey he
used performance enhancing drugs in every Tour de France contest he won.
He took banned substances and used blood transfusions to boost his
performance. Without them, he said, it wouldn't have been possible to win.
Armstrong said he kept repeating "one big lie" and conceded that his
admission would be "too late" for most people. "All the fault and all the blame
lies with me," Lance Armstrong said.
But he claimed his actions had not felt like cheating at the time and denied
having pressurised other members of his team to dope.
Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2013
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bbclearningenglish.com
Vocabulary and definitions
confession admission of guilt
stripped of had taken away
doping using drugs in sport
performance enhancing drugs substances used illegally to improve a sportsperson's
ability
blood transfusions adding blood to a person's body
conceded accepted as true
admission acceptance of the truth
blame responsibility for a bad or wrong act
cheating winning by dishonest means
pressurised strongly tried to influence
Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2013/01/130118_witn_armstrong.shtml
Related News story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/21066354
Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2013
Page 2 of 2
bbclearningenglish.com