Love him or hate him, Lance Armstrong is still making headlines.
The seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor told BBC Sports for an upcoming documentary that, if put in the same circumstances as he was in 1995, he would use performance-enhancing drugs again.
"If I was racing in 2015? No, I wouldn't do it again," Armstrong told BBC Sports. "Because I don't think you have to do it again. If you take me back to 1995, when it was completely and totally pervasive? I'd probably do it again."
Armstrong was a professional cyclist from1992 to 2011, winning the Tour de France every year from 1999 to 2005.
The 41-year-old American, who helped create the largest athlete-founded charity in the US, was banned from competing in Olympic-level sports for life and was stripped of his seven titles in 2012.
A US Anti-Doping Agency investigation published a 1,000-page report that stated it found proof Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs — namely erythropoietin (EPO) and blood transfusions.
EPO is a hormone produced by the kidneys that increases red blood cells in the blood. Taken in large doses, it can boost athletic performance.
Traditionally, blood transfusions are done to replace blood lost during surgery or due to a serious injury by putting the blood of another person into the patient. A transfusion also may be done if your body can’t make blood properly because of an illness.
But blood transfusions can also be used to enhance sports performance because they can also increase the number of red blood cells a person has.
Blood transfusions became popular in the 1970s among elite endurance athletes and declined at the end of the 1980s with the introduction of EPO. Cyclists have used both methods to gain an advantage over competitors.
Armstrong and some sports officials maintain that cycling was riddled with performance-enhancing drugs at the time Armstrong was using them.
“I look at everything when I made that decision — when the whole [group] made that decision," Armstrong said to BBC Sports. "We get it, it was a bad decision in an imperfect time, but it happened."
Armstrong faced allegations of performance-enhancing drug use throughout his career — denying it at every instance. Armstrong finally came clean in January 2013 in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Both Armstrong and his charity Livestrong suffered financially and in the public eye from his announcement.
