Sweets were served and liveried waiters discreetly offered coffee and digestifs. At dinner in the restaurant of the five-star hotel in Pontresina, I was seated at the same table as the most successful cyclist of all time, but at some distance. And then the opportunity I had been waiting for all evening arose. I quickly sat down on the newly myanmar rcs data vacated chair next to Lance Armstrong and began a casual conversation, slowly working my way towards the question that had been bothering me for a long time. When we got a little closer, the moment seemed right. "What was your biggest mistake, Lance?" I asked him. He looked me straight in the face and said: "There is no doubt that if I hadn't come back, I would still be the greatest cyclist in history. I would still have my titles as a seven-time winner of the Tour de France. Instead, I am considered the worst cheater of all time. That was my biggest mistake."
And really: He doesn't regret his lies over all those years or his long doping career. He does see these as mistakes, but rather venial ones, because all the other top riders had committed the same crimes, as he told me. And the fact that he was never caught because he was too clever and too ruthless makes him proud. And so, with the additional aura of the heroic victor over a horrific cancer, he became an unparalleled idol worldwide, a shining light who had also raised many millions of dollars for cancer patients with his foundation.