Irish journalist who brought down Lance Armstrong is vindicated at last

Tour De France doper was first exposed by David Walsh in London Sunday Times

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Irish journalist David Walsh is vindicated with Lance Armstrong's admitting to doping during his cycling career

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Lance Armstrong has apparently confessed his dope use and has made a public apology in an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, but this confession comes after Irish journalist David Walsh spent 13 years working to expose the world’s greatest cyclist’s drug use.

If not for Walsh, Armstrong might never have been exposed and now after 13 years the Kilkenny-born journalist is vindicated.

Read More: Irish woman Emma O’Reilly blew the lid on Lance Armstrong’s doping

Walsh was just named Sports Journalist of the Year in Britain and has become the man of the moment there. He told the Irish Post he is glad the truth has come out.

“I think the Armstrong story resonated with people. I think that people felt that Armstrong had cheated them in a way that no sports man had ever done to them before. Not only did he say, ‘I’m a great sportsman,’ he also said, ‘I’m a great human being, I’m a great humanitarian, I’m the sportsman who goes beyond his sport to bring comfort to the afflicted with cancer.’

“And people bought into that. They gave him a respect that they would never give a normal sportsman. And to realise then that this guy has cynically used that to enrich himself, that was very difficult for people and that’s why I ended up being the recipient of a ridiculous amount of praise, because I don’t deserve anything like the praise I’ve got.”

Read more: Lance Armstrong officially stripped of his seven titles including Tour de France wins after doping scandal

Walsh told the Huffington Post that authorities and other journalists deliberately looked the wrong way for years

“People gave Armstrong a latitude that they don’t give their best friends. Why? Because he’s powerful. Because he’s rich. Because he’s cool to know. In those days I was a bit of a crusader, I couldn’t meet anybody without trying to convince them that Armstrong was a fraud. It didn’t matter if it was someone in a queue for an X-ray machine at an airport or somebody in a coffee shop I ended up sitting beside, I’d notice their yellow wristband [Armstrong’s Livestrong charity] and I couldn’t leave it. I wouldn’t say I was deranged but I was on a mission.”

Walsh first had his doubts about Armstrong’s drug denial after watching him race in the 1990s and has said that even back then Armstrong, who finished well down the field in the Tour before he began drugging, had the classic profile of a doper.

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