STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- "This was a guy who used to be my friend, he decimated me," accuser says
- "I was a bully," he says about retaliating against people who accused him of doping
- Armstrong says he regrets fighting the USADA, when the agency claimed he had doped
- "I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize," Armstrong says
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(CNN) -- After years of tenacious spin that he was innocent, Lance Armstrong has gone in reverse in a confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey.
But his critics say he is still spinning the story.
Armstrong has, in the past, persistently and angrily denied -- even under oath -- having used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.
He has persecuted former close associates who went public with doping allegations against him. "We sued so many people," Armstrong told Winfrey -- people who were telling the truth.
In the interview, he confessed to the drug use unequivocally.
12 telling quotes over the years from Armstrong
Did he use the blood enhancing hormone EPO? Testosterone? Cortisone? Human growth hormone? Illegal blood transfusions and other blood doping?
Armstrong answered "yes" on all counts in the first installment of a two-part interview that aired Thursday night. Part two airs Friday on Winfrey's OWN channel and online.
The disgraced cyclist, who has been stripped of his Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal, blamed no one but himself for his doping decisions, careful not to implicate others.
Armstrong: I was "a bully"
Armstrong described himself as "deeply flawed" and "arrogant," and spoke often of how so much was his "fault."
"I was a bully," he told Winfrey of how he treated others who might expose him.
But Armstrong was not telling the whole story, author David Coyle, who wrote a book about doping and the Tour de France, told CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday night.
"A partial confession is sort of the pattern here," he said. "Maybe this is Armstrong's partial, and more will come out later."
iReport: Tell us your take on the first part of the interview
The cyclist denied pushing teammates to dope, an assertion Coyle countered.
"Tyler Hamilton gets a phone call: be on a plane tomorrow. We're flying to Valencia to do a blood transfusion. That's what happens," Coyle said.
But Bill Strickland, an editor for Bicycling Magazine, praised Armstrong for the confessions he did make.
"I think it's clear what we're seeing here is someone learning to tell the truth," he said.
Both men described the interview as a "therapy session."
Appearing tense but sometimes relieved, Armstrong told Winfrey it was a happy day for him to be there with her.
He described his years of denial as "one big lie that I repeated a lot of times." He had races to win and a fairy tale image to keep up.
Armstrong reminisced on his storied past of being a hero who overcame cancer winning the Tour repeatedly, having a happy marriage, children. "It's just this mythic, perfect story, and it isn't true," he said.
It was impossible to live up to it, he said, and it fell apart.
Bleacher Report: Twitter erupts Thursday night
The lies and aggressive pursuit of those debunking them was about controlling the narrative. "If I didn't like what somebody said...I tried to control that and said that's a lie; they're liars," Armstrong said. It's a tactic he has followed his entire life, he said.
"Now the story is so bad and so toxic, and a lot of it is true," Armstrong said.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which tests Olympic athletes for performing enhancing drugs, praised the interview as a "small step in the right direction."
But it seemed to share Coyle's skepticism that Armstrong was exposing the whole truth.
"If he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities," said USADA CEO Travis Tygart.
Years of success and defiance, then a rapid fall
The scandal has tarred the cancer charity Livestrong that he founded, as well as tarnished his once-glowing reputation as a sports hero.
Those who spoke out against Armstrong at the height of his power and popularity not only felt his wrath but the wrath of an adoring public.
Now, with Armstrong stripped of endorsement deals and his titles, those who did speak out are feeling vindicated.
They include Betsy Andreu, wife of fellow cyclist Frankie Andreu, who said she overheard Armstrong acknowledge to a doctor treating him for cancer in 1996 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.
She later testified about the incident and began cooperating with a reporter working on a book about doping allegations against Armstrong.
Armstrong subsequently ripped her, among others. More recently, he said he'd reached out to her to apologize -- in what Andreu called "a very emotional phone call."
"This was a guy who used to be my friend, who decimated me," Andreu told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. "He could have come clean. He owed it to me. He owes it to the sport that he destroyed."
In his interview with Winfrey, Armstrong said he understands why many might be upset that it took him so long to speak out, especially after going on the offensive for so long.
The former athletic icon also conceded he'd let down many fans "who believed in me and supported me" by being adamant, sometimes hurtful and consistently wrong in his doping denials.
"They have every right to feel betrayed, and it's my fault," he said. "I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize to people."
The Texas-born Armstrong grew up to become an established athlete, including winning several Tour de France stages. But his sporting career ground to a halt in 1996 when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 25.
He returned to the cycling world, however. His breakthrough came in 1999, and he didn't stop as he reeled off seven straight wins in his sport's most prestigious race. Allegations of doping began during this time, as did Armstrong's defiance, including investigations and a lawsuit against the author of a book accusing him of taking performance enhancing drugs.
He left the sport after his last win, in 2005, only to return to the tour in 2009.
Armstrong insisted he was clean when he finished third that year, but that comeback led to his downfall.
"We wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't come back," he told Winfrey.
In 2011, Armstrong retired once more from cycling. But his fight to maintain his clean reputation wasn't over, including a criminal investigation launched by federal prosecutors.
That case was dropped in February. But in April, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency notified Armstrong of an investigation into new doping charges. In response, the cyclist accused the organization of trying to "dredge up discredited" doping allegations and, a few months later, filed a lawsuit in federal court trying to halt the case.
In retrospect, Armstrong told Winfrey he "would do anything to go back to that day."
"Because I wouldn't fight, I wouldn't sue them, I'd listen," he said, offering to speak out about doping in the future.
The USADA found "overwhelming" evidence that Armstrong was involved in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program."
Armstrong objected to the claim to Winfrey, saying that although it was "professional," it did not compare to doping programs in former communist East Germany.
In August, Armstrong said he wouldn't fight the charges, though he didn't admit guilt either.
In October, the International Cycling Union stripped him of all his Tour de France titles. Even then, he remained publicly defiant, tweeting a photo of himself a few weeks later lying on a sofa in his lounge beneath the seven framed yellow jerseys from those victories.
Then the International Olympic Committee stripped him of the bronze medal he won in the men's individual time trial at the 2000 Olympic Games and asked him to return the award, an IOC spokesman said Thursday.
The USOC was notified Wednesday that the IOC wants the medal back, USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said.
"We will shortly be asking Mr. Armstrong to return his medal to us, so that we can return it to the IOC."
Armstrong told Winfrey that the unraveling of his career is the second time in his life that he could not control his life's narrative -- the last time was when he had cancer.
Livestrong: Tell the truth about doping
CNN's Carol Cratty, Joseph Netto and George Howell contributed to this report.
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