Lance Armstrong’s father, Terry Armstrong, confessed that it was emotional for him to watch the first part of his son’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, ‘Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive Part.’ While talking to Celebuzz, Terry said “It was rather tough to watch. It was very emotional for me because I still remember the little boy.”
During the interview with Winfrey, which aired on Thursday on OWN, the cyclist finally admitted that he was trying to win at all costs. Terry is still trying to come to terms with his son’s admission that he took performance-enhancing drugs for years, which helped make him the most decorated champion in cycling history.
“The thing that was hardest for me when I was coaching him in Little League and football, is I instilled in him the foundation of winning,” Terry said. His son’s admission comes after a decade of adamant denials. He admitted to not only using blood-enhancing hormone EPO, but also testosterone, cortisone, human growth hormone, illegal blood transfusions and other blood doping since the mid-1990s.
Terry, who adopted Lance when he was three, has been estrange from the cyclist for years, since he divorced his mother Linda. He hoped to see his son’s genuine side come through in the first part of the exclusive interview, which drew in a record 4.3 million viewers to the OWN network.
Terry added that he fears that people will probably look at his son and see nothing sincere within him. He added that it will be hard for his son to appear humble, since “his persona is so high in his head.”
“If you’re controlling everything you want to control, your answers and not come across as vulnerable. But I think people were hoping for vulnerability and they’re not going to get it,” Terry added.
But Lance called himself “deeply flawed,” and explained his decade-long deceit by saying he and his mother grew up as fighters. “We always felt like we had our backs against the walls,” the cyclist said. The explanation took Terry by surprise.
“When I heard that I thought of the word ‘spin.’ If someone just looks at the things he was afforded growing up, the conditions he lived in, the houses, that’s not surviving,” Terry said. “He never did without anything, but that doesn’t sell well.” He added that his son and Linda have spun the story for so long. “The spin is that they were single and had to scrounge around for money. That’s not true.”
Terry added that he’s proud that his son at least confessed the truth. In a previous interview with Celebuzz, he said “I wanted him to answer the facts. He did answer the facts. He just didn’t do it the way people wanted him to. I think the public is trying to sense how they would do it and it’s hard for a public figure to do that.”
But Terry said he’s waiting to see the second part of the interview until he makes any conclusions. “It will be interesting to see how the second part comes across,” he also said. ‘Oprah and Lance Armstrong: The Worldwide Exclusive Part 2′ is set to air on Friday at 9pm on OWN.
Written by: Karen Benardello
