Cycling: Lance Armstrong - I'd cheat again

Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his award in the Legion of Honor, the best-known recognition in France. Photo / Getty Images.

Disgraced cycling Lance Armstrong has admitted that he wouldn't change anything if he had a chance to redo his career.

Armstrong was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and banned from sport for life by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) in 2012.

He later confessed to American television host Oprah Winfrey in 2013.

Armstrong, talking to the BBC is his first television interview since the Oprah Winfrey confession, said he wouldn't do anything different in what he did to win the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005.

"If I was racing in 2015, no, I wouldn't do it again because I don't think you have to," he said.

"If you take me back to 1995, when doping was completely pervasive, I would probably do it again."

Armstrong said it was 'imperfect time' in the sport of cycling.

"When I made the decision, when my team made that decision, when the whole peloton made that decision, it was a bad decision and an imperfect time," he told the BBC.

"But it happened. And I know what happened because of that. I know what happened to the sport, I saw its growth."

Armstrong also told the BBC that the "fallout" since his confession has been "heavy" but feels that he will be accepted by the public soon.

"Selfishly, I would say 'yeah, we're getting close to that time'.

"But that's me, my word doesn't matter any more. What matters is what people collectively think, whether that's the cycling community, the cancer community.

"Listen, of course I want to be out of timeout, what kid doesn't?"

Armstrong also said in the BBC interview that he raced clean during his second Tour de France comeback in 2009 and 2010 and that he still feels like he won the seven Tour titles he was stripped of.