Lance Armstrong said he finally cracked after hesaw his son defending him against allegations from anti-doping authorities.
Authorities and disillusioned fans might have wanted itdifferently -- perhaps while expressing deep remorse or regrets, though therewas plenty of that in last night's second part of Armstrong's interview withOprah Winfrey.
Armstrong didn't break over the USD 75 million in lostsponsorship deals, or after being forced to walk away from the Livestrongcancer charity he founded and called his "sixth child."
He didn't crack after his lifetime ban from competition.
It was another bit of collateral damage that Armstrong saidhe wasn't prepared to deal with.
"I saw my son defending me and saying, 'That's nottrue.
What you're saying about my dad is not true,'"Armstrong recalled.
"That's when I knew I had to tell him."
Armstrong was near tears at that point, referring to13-year-old Luke, the oldest of his five children. He blinked, looked away fromWinfrey, and with his lip trembling, struggled to compose himself.
It came just past the midpoint of the hourlong program onWinfrey's OWN network. In the first part, broadcast Thursday, the disgracedcycling champion admitted using performance-enhancing drugs when he won sevenstraight Tour de France titles.
Critics said he hadn't been contrite enough in the firsthalf of the interview, which was taped Monday in Austin, but Armstrong seemedto lose his composure when Winfrey zeroed in on the emotional drama involvinghis personal life.
"What did you say?" Winfrey asked.
"I said, 'Listen, there's been a lot of questions aboutyour dad. My career. Whether I doped or did not dope. I've always denied thatand I've always been ruthless and defiant about that. You guys have seen that.That's probably why you trusted me on it.' Which makes it even sicker,"Armstrong said.
"And uh, I told Luke, I said," and here Armstrongpaused for a long time to collect himself, "I said, 'Don't defend meanymore. Don't.'
"He said OK. He just said, 'Look, I love you. You're mydad. This won't change that."
Winfrey also drew Armstrong out on his ex-wife, Kristin,whom he claimed knew just enough about both the doping and lying to ask him tostop.
He credited her with making him promise that his comeback in2009 would be drug-free.
"She said to me, 'You can do it under one condition:That you never cross that line again,'" Armstrong recalled.
"The line of drugs?" Winfrey asked.
"Yes. And I said, 'You've got a deal,'" hereplied. "And I never would have betrayed that with her."
Armstrong said in the first part of the interview that hehad stayed clean in the comeback, a claim that runs counter to the U.S.Anti-Doping Agency report.
And that wasn't the only portion of the interview likely torile anti-doping officials.
Winfrey asked Armstrong about an interview in which USADAchief executive Travis Tygart said a representative of the cyclist had offereda donation that the agency turned down.
"Were you trying to pay off USADA?" she asked.
"No, that's not true," he replied, repeating,"That is not true."
Winfrey asks the question three more times, in differentforms.
"That is not true," he insisted.