Fink: Armstrong deserves no chances

So let's get this straight.

Looking to wriggle his way out of a lifetime ban from competitive sport, Lance Armstrong decides to come clean and confess he lied, cheated and basically duped everybody about what really went on when he won those seven Tours de France.

Big opportunity for a chronic bulls*** artist. Gives him a chance to remake his image. Own up to his mistakes. Then pray the good people of America (and any other part of the world that gives two hoots about cycling) will forgive him for taking their faith in him and their donations to his charity on what amounted to false pretences if not fraud on a gross scale.

When you've got no credibility left, and right now Armstrong has none, the only option is to make full and frank admissions.

The Texan could get to the top of mountain in the Tour de France. But restoring his reputation was going to be the toughest climb of all.

To do that, there really was no choice in the matter: tell the truth.

Yet the chief executive officer of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, and the winner of the 2012 Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins, have made it plain they believe Armstrong did the very opposite.

They accuse him of lying again.

Tygart claims an Armstrong lackey tried to make a US$250,000 donation to USADA in 2004. This claim has been corroborated by former USADA boss Terry Madden.

In the interview Armstrong said this did not happen.

Just as he denied doping after his final Tour de France victory in 2005, even though USADA tests conducted during Armstrong's comeback with Astana in 2009 and Team RadioShack in 2010 led the agency to conclude they were "fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions".

A conclusion echoed by Wiggins, who watched the interview: "I thought, 'You lying bastard.' I can still remember going toe to toe with him [in 2009] and watching the man I saw on the top of Verbier in 2009 to the man I saw on the top of Ventoux a week later when we were in doping control together. It wasn't the same bike rider. You only have to watch the videos of how the guy was riding. I don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth anymore."

Wiggins smashed Armstrong by 29 seconds on Verbier. Armstrong got back 22 seconds on Ventoux. The American beat the Briton to a podium finish.

So we have the head of USADA and the current Tour de France champion accusing Armstrong of lying once again.

These two men aren't exactly nobodies. Alarmed yet?

If that's not enough, Betsy Andreu, the woman Armstrong bullied after she said he had admitted to doping, has slammed Armstrong for "cherrypicking the truth".

Armstrong refused to answer a question from Winfrey about whether that alleged admission took place.

"Uh-uh, I'm just gonna take that on. I'm laying down on that one," he said.

Yet this same man says he should have the right to compete again.

"I think I deserve it."

If your accusers are right, Mr Armstrong - and why should we not believe them when you have lied so pathologically for years? - the only thing you deserve is to be denied the one thing you want back but will never have again.

Our respect.