Armstrong: 'Impossible' to Win Tour Without Doping

With the 100th Tour de France set to begin, Lance Armstrong as good as called every previous winner a cheater. "It's impossible to win the Tour de France without doping because the tour is an endurance event where oxygen is decisive," he told France's La Monde, reports AFP via Business Insider. "To take one example, EPO (erythropoetin) will not help a sprinter to win a 100-meter, but it will be decisive for a 10,000-meter runner. It's obvious."

Not surprisingly, fellow cyclists aren't taking too kindly to his words. "We've got to stop thinking that all cycle racers are thugs and druggies," says five-time winner Bernard Hinault. Adds 2011 winner Cadel Evans in a separate AFP story, "I am proof that this isn't true." Armstrong later walked back the statement a bit and said he was referring to riders in his own era. He also gave the French newspaper a taste of his daily life, notes the Guardian:

• "I get up, I drink coffee, I read the paper, I have breakfast, I go out on my bike and train. I come home, I have lunch with the kids, then I spend the rest of the day in meetings, playing golf, or in the park with the kids. And about 5pm, I open a nice cold beer and I think."

(More Lance Armstrong stories.)