Lance Armstrong & Oprah Winfrey: cyclist sorry for doping Lance Armstrong has admitted using performance-enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins. The 41-year-old made the admission during an interview with Oprah Winfrey. "I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times," he said. I made those decisions, they were my mistake and I'm here to say sorry. However Armstrong denied it was "sport's biggest doping programme," saying "it was smart, but it was conservative, risk averse." After years of denials over drugs use, Armstrong told Winfrey: he took performance-enhancing drugs in each of his Tour wins from 1999-2005 doping was "part of the process required to win the Tour" he did not feel he was cheating at the time and viewed it as a "level playing field." he did not fear getting caught "all the fault and blame" should lie with him he was a bully who "turned on" people he did not like his cancer fight in the mid 1990s gave him a "win-at-all costs" attitude Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles last year after being labelled a "serial cheat" by the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada). The body said he led "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen." The American decided not to contest the charges, saying last year he was tired of fighting the allegations. He had always strongly denied doping. But Armstrong told Winfrey: "All the fault and blame is on me and a lot of that is momentum and I lost myself in all that. I couldn't handle it. The story is so bad and toxic and a lot of it is true. Asked if doping was part of the process required to win the Tour, he said: "That's like saying we have to have air in our tyres or water in our bottles. It was part of the job. I don't want to make any excuses, but that was my view and I made those decisions. On whether it was the biggest doping programme in sport he said: "I didn't have access to anything that anybody else didn't. Winning races mattered for me but to say that programme was bigger than the East German doping programme of 70s and 80s is wrong. Armstrong said his battle with cancer in the mid-1990s turned him into a "fighter." "Before my diagnosis I was a competitor but not a fierce competitor," he said. I took that ruthless win-at-all-costs attitude into cycling which was bad. Armstrong denied riders had to comply to a doping programme to compete for the team, but admitted his personality could imply that. He said: "Yes, I was a bully. I was a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative and if I didn't like what someone said I turned on them. We felt like we had our backs against the wall and I was a fighter. Born: Plano, Texas Tour de France: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (22 individual stage wins) World Championships road race: 1993 Battle with cancer: Diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996. The disease spreads through his body. Launches Lance Armstrong Foundation for Cancer. Declared cancer-free in 1997 after brain surgery and chemotherapy. Retirement: Announces he will retire after the 2005 Tour de France, which he wins. Angered by drug allegations against him, Armstrong announces in September 2008 he will return to professional cycling. In June 2010, he reveals via Twitter that the 2010 Tour de France will be his last. On 16 February 2011, Armstrong announces retirement again. Armstrong said he had not been not afraid of getting caught. Testing has evolved. Back then they didn't come to your house and there was no testing out of competition and for most of my career there wasn't that much out-of-competition testing so you're not going to get caught because you clean up for the races. He won the Tour de France in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Armstrong retired from cycling in 2005 but returned to the sport between 2009 and 2012. He told Winfrey that he did not use drugs after his return to the sport. "That's the only thing in that whole Usada report that really upset me," he said. Follow live updates of Armstrong's appearance through BBC Sport's live text commentary.