January 13, 2013 – Speculation is mounting in advance of the Oprah interview with former pro cyclist Lance Armstrong to be broadcast this Thursday, Jan. 17, that the world will finally hear his confession about doping. Meanwhile, David Walsh, chief sports writer for the British-based Sunday Times has penned an open letter host, Oprah Winfrey, with the questions he would like to see posed to Armstrong. The Times paid for the letter to run as an ad in today’s Chicago Tribune newspaper.

Walsh, co-author of the book L.A. Confidentiel and author of Lanced, the Shaming of Lance Armstrong, is the foremost anglophone journalist that has denounced Armstrong as a doper. As reported previously, his newspaper was sued by Armstrong in 2006 and is now seeking to recoup $1.6 million from the cyclist.

In the letter, Walsh lays out 10 questions which he suggests Winfrey should ask Armstrong at his home where the interview will take place:

1. Did you tell doctors at the Indiana University Hospital on October 27, 1996 that you had taken EPO, human growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone?

2. After returning from cancer, how did you justify putting banned drugs in your body?

3. Did you have any sympathy for those rivals determined to race clean?

4. Do you regret how you treated Betsy Andreu, your former masseuse Emma O’Reilly and Greg LeMond?

5. Do you admit that your friend Dr Michele Ferrari fully supported your team’s doping?

6. Is it your intention to return the prize money you earned from September 1998 to July 2010?

7. Did you sue The Sunday Times to shut us up?

8. Was your failure to understand Floyd Landis the key to your downfall?

9. Do you accept lying to the cancer community was the greatest deception of all?

10. Why have you chosen Oprah Winfrey for your first interview as a banned athlete?

It seems unlikely Armstrong would face perjury charges for a doping confession; his sworn testimony “never to have doped” is now beyond the statute of limitations reports USA Today. Also the subject of considerable speculation is Armstrong’s motivation for a possible confession now.

Presumably he would do so for strategic purposes – this could lead to a lightening of his lifetime ban from sports competitions. But what is in this for authorities? There are suggestions that anti-doping authorities want Armstrong to lead them to a bigger fish – those at the UCI who might have enabled or aided Armstrong’s doping ring.

Chicago Tribue HERE.
USA Today HERE.