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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 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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 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

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