Behind Lance Armstrong's Decision to Talk

Beleaguered cyclist Lance Armstrong is expected to confess to doping during his cycling career in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which many see as Armstrong's attempt to reset his public image. WSJ's Reed Albergotti reports. Photo: AP Images.

Last month, Lance Armstrong boarded a plane for Denver to do something several of his lawyers had advised against: sitting down for a private conversation with the head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. 

Travis Tygart had given the star cyclist no reason to believe that USADA would soften the lifetime ban from elite competition for what the agency called the "most sophisticated doping program on the planet." But Mr. Armstrong hoped he could change that.

At the meeting near the Denver airport, Mr. Armstrong talked openly about doping, arguing that cheating was rampant in all pro sports, including the National Football League, according to someone familiar with the meeting. He complained that he was being singled out for punishment. As the discussion wound down without Mr. Tygart budging, the seven-time Tour de France winner seemed ready to walk out. 

 You don't hold the keys to my redemption," he said, according to the person familiar with the meeting. "There's one person who holds the keys to my redemption," he went on, pointing at himself, "and that's me."

This week, Mr. Armstrong is launching a public campaign to restore his image. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey taped Monday and scheduled for broadcast Thursday, Mr. Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.

He also met Monday with the staff of the Livestrong Foundation, the charity he founded to help cancer patients, and apologized for the damaging impact of the doping scandal on their morale.

One of Mr. Armstrong's goals is to lay the groundwork for USADA to consider allowing him to compete in elite triathlons, the three-discipline sport he had taken up after retiring from cycling in 2011.

Mr. Armstrong's legal team had been divided about a possible confession, with some expressing concern about its potential effect on continuing litigation.

Several people who have spoken to Mr. Armstrong recently said that the retired cyclist has expressed regret about his prior tactics of denials and public attacks on his accusers. While that approach may have protected him from criminal prosecution, it didn't shield him from severe sanctions from sports antidoping authorities.

Former teammate Floyd Landis's allegations against Mr. Armstrong in 2010, first reported in The Wall Street Journal, kicked off the USADA investigation and a separate federal fraud probe into whether Mr. Armstrong's U.S. Postal cycling team had defrauded sponsors by using performance-enhancing drugs.

Mr. Armstrong's legal team came to include Robert Luskin and Patrick Slevin at Patton Boggs, John Keker and Elliot Peters at Keker & Van Nest, and lawyers from Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. In addition, he has been regularly consulting Tim Herman, his longtime local counsel in Austin, Texas. In February 2012, the team scored a win when federal prosecutors decided to drop the criminal investigation.

But USADA, which is charged with enforcing antidoping rules in American sports, pressed on with its own investigation, conducting interviews with roughly a dozen of Mr. Armstrong's former teammates.

In exchange for their cooperation, USADA agreed to give them minimal punishments for their admitted doping. In some cases, they received six-month bans from competition, compared with the two-year ban that is standard for doping.

Last May, USADA's lawyers reached out to Mark Levinstein of Williams & Connolly, a lawyer on Mr. Armstrong's team who had represented athletes and was most familiar with the process, according to someone knowledgeable about the overture. They told him they wanted Mr. Armstrong to have the opportunity to come forward to tell the truth—but that he had a limited time to respond, this person said. Mr. Levinstein didn't return calls seeking comment.

Mr. Levinstein referred USADA to Mr. Herman, Mr. Armstrong's Austin lawyer, who set up a conference call between USADA and Mr. Armstrong's legal team, this person said. Mr. Armstrong's attorneys took the offensive, accusing USADA of improperly using grand jury information from the criminal investigation and questioning USADA's authority in the matter, recalled this person. By the end of the call, it became clear the Mr. Armstrong wouldn't be talking—or getting any deals.

In October, after Mr. Armstrong refused to engage in the USADA investigation process or challenge its findings, the agency stripped him of his Tour de France titles and gave him a lifetime ban.

Mr. Armstrong kept up his public-relations battle against the agency, calling its investigation a "witch hunt" and a "vendetta." USADA then did something that dismayed Mr. Armstrong's legal team: It released thousands of pages of documents from the investigation on its website, including affidavits from about a dozen former teammates, all of whom accused him of doping.

Shortly after the documents were released, Nike NKE +0.84% dropped its sponsorship of Mr. Armstrong. Within a day, all of his other major sponsors had done the same. Mr. Armstrong's cancer charity, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, cut ties with Mr. Armstrong and later changed its name to The Livestrong Foundation.

In October, Mr. Armstrong huddled with friends and advisers and told them he was considering coming clean about doping. One person who was there said he laid out several options, ranging from a newspaper interview to incorporating a confession into a Lance Armstrong documentary. He also thought about producing a book, and began reading a biography of Steve Jobs.

One of Mr. Armstrong's concerns, said the person who was there, was the potential effect of any confession on his longtime friend and former U.S. Postal team director, Johan Bruyneel, who had elected to fight USADA's allegations against him in a forthcoming arbitration proceeding. The consensus, this person said, was that the situation was tricky because Mr. Armstrong had denied doping for so long. 

It is unclear what kind of financial effect his problems are having on Mr. Armstrong, whose net worth has been estimated to exceed $100 million. Last fall, he took out a $1.85 million line of credit, secured by his home in central Austin, which is valued at more than $3 million, public records indicate.

With the holidays approaching, Mr. Armstrong retreated to Kailua-Kona on Hawaii's Big Island, with his partner, Anna Hansen, and his young children and friends—a place considered the spiritual home of the triathlon. He directed his lawyers to focus on figuring out how he could get back to competing in sanctioned triathlons, which he saw as his most reliable source of future income, according to one person familiar with that effort.

Mr. Armstrong had begun making overtures to USADA about striking some kind of deal—admit to past doping in exchange for a reduction in his lifetime ban, according to two people familiar with the effort.

Under the World Anti-Doping Code, athletes can get as much as a 75% reduction of a ban if they provide the kind of substantial help to antidoping authorities that enables them to build cases against others.

Mr. Armstrong's Austin lawyer, Mr. Herman, called Mr. Tygart and offered to dispatch Mr. Armstrong's legal team to Colorado to meet with him. Mr. Tygart said he wanted Mr. Armstrong to come. When Mr. Herman pushed back, Mr. Tygart called the meeting off.

At least one of Mr. Armstrong's lawyers, Mr. Luskin, was opposed to the meeting, according to one person familiar with the effort. In December, Mr. Armstrong told Mr. Herman he would meet with Mr. Tygart anyway, this person said. Mr. Luskin declined to comment.

The meeting, which was tense, took place at a conference room near the Denver airport. Mr. Tygart told Mr. Armstrong that he had already had his chance to come clean, and that, at best, if he gave full cooperation, the ban would be eight years.

Mr. Tygart told Mr. Armstrong he stood accused of offenses that stretched beyond doping to a coverup marked by nearly 15 years of denials, threats and actions against anyone who told the truth about doping on the team.

When Mr. Armstrong told Mr. Tygart that he held the keys to his own redemption, said one person with knowledge of the meeting, Mr. Tygart responded: "That's b—." He told Mr. Armstrong that all he wanted to do was figure out a way to compete again.

Mr. Armstrong shot back that he would compete in unsanctioned races, hurled a profanity, and walked out.

While in Hawaii, Mr. Armstrong spent time with Ms. Winfrey. She had interviewed him on previous occasions and had been supportive of him.

He decided to do the interview. Mr. Armstrong told friends and relatives he would not talk about others, only himself, and he would not get into specifics.

In a text message to the Journal last week about the impending interview, Mr. Armstrong wrote: "I hope she hits me hard."