The year before his seventh and final Tour de France victory, Lance Armstrong offered to donate “in excess of $150,000″ to the antidoping agency in charge of keeping American athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs, according to the organization’s chief executive. In October, Usada stripped Armstrong of all of his titles and barred him from competition for life following the release of a 202-page report into what the agency called “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” 
 
 As my colleague Juliet Macur reported, Armstrong, who has so far denied all allegations of cheating, “has told associates and antidoping officials that he is considering publicly admitting that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career.” Late Tuesday, Oprah Winfrey announced that she “will speak exclusively with Lance Armstrong in his first no-holds-barred interview,” to be broadcast next week on her network. BREAKING NEWS: Looking forward to this conversation with @lancearmstrong: http://t.co/GwSmBhdW #NextChapter — Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) 9 Jan 13 
 
 As the cycling journalist Lionel Birnie notes, the Oprah Winfrey Network is a joint venture with Discovery Communications, the broadcaster that sponsored Armstrong’s team in 2005.
– Lance Armstrong is rumored to be ready to confess to drug use—and it could happen on Oprah's show. The disgraced cyclist will give a "no-holds-barred" interview to Oprah Winfrey that will air on her network next week, CNN reports. In his first formal interview since he was banned from the sport and stripped of his titles for doping, Armstrong will "address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating, and charges of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career," the network says in a statement. In a 60 Minutes Sports interview to be aired tonight, the chief of the US Anti-Doping Agency says an Armstrong representative offered to donate around $250,000 to the agency, reports the New York Times. Travis Tygart, who accuses Armstrong of trying to intimidate former teammates, says the 2004 offer represented a clear conflict of interest. "We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer," he says. Tygart says he received death threats during his organization's investigation of Armstrong.