The suspicions were there from the start. And so were the convincing denials.

In an early ad for Nike, Lance Armstrong met insinuations of doping head-on.

“This is my body and I can do whatever I want to it,” he says in the commercial, inspirational at the time but hollowly ironic now.

“I can push it, and study it, tweak it, listen to it,” he continues. “Everybody wants to know what I’m on? I’m on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

Armstrong’s astounding post-cancer comeback was still in its infancy when suggestions that he might not be clean surfaced with a report of steroids in his urine during his first Tour de France victory in 1999.

He rejected them with what would become the hallmarks of his many denials: a flash of anger, a complaint of persecution, a pointed reference to his status as a survivor.

“They say stress causes cancer," Armstrong said when confronted with the test result. "So if you want to avoid cancer, don't come to the Tour de France and wear the yellow jersey."

His explanation -- that saddle-sore cream had caused the trace positive -- apparently satisfied the sport’s governing body. The early whiff of scandal did not stop him from crossing the line on the Champs-Elysees that year – or the next six.

With each victory, Armstrong’s riches and popularity grew until it seemed like half the country had a yellow Livestrong charity bracelet dangling from their wrists.

In 2005, a Gallup poll found 79 percent of people questioned had a favorable opinion of him. He made $17.5 million in endorsements that year and was engaged to singer Sheryl Crow.

Questions about whether he was using performance enhancers had been mounting by the year: a 2000 probe into a report that a team staffer was caught disposing of drugs, a 2004 French book that alleged Armstrong juiced, the 2006 confessions of former teammates who admitted doping.

Armstrong always responded the same way, with unequivocal denials and threats of legal action.

“I have never doped,” he told Larry King in 2005, sounding exasperated at having to repeat himself.

In a 2007 interview, he played the cancer card. “I was on my death bed. You think I’m going to come back into a sport and say, 'OK, doctor, give me everything you got. I just want to go fast.' No way.”

He didn't dodge the accusations, he used them. His voiceover for a Nike ad during a 2009 comeback: "The critics say I'm arrogant. A doper. Washed up. A fraud. That I couldn't let it go. They can say whatever they want. I'm not back on my bike for them."

There was no smoking-gun test result to refute him, and some of his critics were confessed liars.

A teammate’s wife who testified was dismissed as a harridan with a vendetta. Finger-pointing ex-teammate Floyd Landis was accused of “harassment.” Even a federal investigation was branded “un-American” by Armstrong’s lawyer.

The champion didn’t back down when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency charged and suspended him in June, boasting that he had “passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”

'Witch hunt'
Even his one act of surrender – his August announcement that he would not fight the agency's charges – was tinged with defiance. The probe was a “witch hunt,” the claims mere “nonsense” and “enough is enough,” he said.

Armstrong’s sponsors were abandoning him, but he still had ardent defenders. In a Newsweek cover story, sports writer Buzz Bissinger declared the cyclist “a hero, one of the few we have left in a country virtually bereft of them.”

Slideshow: Lance Armstrong’s controversial career

OWN via Getty Images

Lance Armstrong during his interview with Oprah Winfrey, which airs Thursday and Friday. The cyclist's historic run of Tour de France championships made headlines, as did his fall from grace after being stripped of the titles in 2012.

Launch slideshow

The tide of public opinion had clearly turned, though. A couple of weeks after USADA released its damning report on Oct. 10, a Seton Hall Sports Poll found only a third of the respondents had a positive opinion of Armstrong.

This week's confession to Oprah Winfrey may be a bid to recoup some of the goodwill he once enjoyed and salvage his legacy, but the Johnny-come-lately reversal could backfire. Those who continued to back Armstrong even as the evidence became harder to ignore are as likely to feel betrayal as sympathy.

Count Bissinger among them.

“He is an immoral, manipulative liar who doesn’t deserve a second more of anybody’s time,” he wrote on the Daily Beast this week, asking readers not to watch the interview that airs Thursday and Friday.

“Don’t continue to feed his insufferable ego. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Let him be what he has become: Unimportant and worthless.”

Tune in to TODAY Friday for an exclusive live interview with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman. 

Related:

Experts: Lance Armstrong confession could cost him tens of millions

Armstrong's cancer-fighter legacy still inspires

The players in the Lance Armstrong scandal

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Armstrong and ex-fiance Sheryl Crow arrive at the 2004 Billboard Music Awards on December 8, 2004 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lance Armstrong won seven Tour de France cycling titles in a career that made him a superstar. But he was dogged by allegations of doping, and last year he was stripped of his titles after a scathing report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Here are some of the key people in the Armstrong story:

Sheryl Crow

Singer Sheryl Crow, Armstrong’s ex-fiancé, was with him during two Tours. She was interviewed by federal agents in late 2011 and allegedly provided information to aid in the doping investigation, the New York Daily News reported. According to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported, Crow knew many details about doping on the team and was helpful in the USADA investigation, but didn’t give an affidavit to the organization.

In an interview with Katie Couric after Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles, Crow said she still supported her ex-fiancé.

“I know how hard he worked to win those titles, and you know, it was hard to watch,” Crow said. “I felt bad. I felt bad for him, I felt bad for his family and I kinda felt like the rest of America. He is a hero that we watched and looked up to and admire.”

The New York Times via Redux Pictures

Emma O' Reilly, the former soigneur for the USPS cycling team, of which Lance Armstrong was once a member, at her home in Lymm, England, on Oct. 12, 2012.

Emma O’Reilly

Emma O’Reilly was the U.S. Postal cycling team’s soigneur, responsible for massaging the cyclists, laundering clothes, booking hotel rooms and preparing food. O’Reilly, an Irish woman, has said she became a regular player in the team’s doping program during the 1999 Tour de France, transporting doping materials across borders, disposing of drugs and syringes and distributing performance-enhancing substances to the team’s riders, she told The New York Times. Ultimately, she would provide key evidence to the USADA’s investigation into Armstrong’s doping.

O’Reilly said she was contacted by journalist David Walsh to be a source for his book about Armstrong, "LA Confidential," in which she described an incident when she heard the team worrying about Armstrong’s positive test for steroids during the Tour. She said, “They were in a panic, saying, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’”

According to O’Reilly, the solution was to get one of their doctors to issue a pre-dated prescription for a steroid-based ointment to combat saddle sores. O’Reilly said that Armstrong told her: “Now, Emma, you know enough to bring me down.” 

Francois Mori / AP file

Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Travis Tygart attends a symposium called "The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Fight against Doping : New Partnerships for Clean Sport" in Paris on Monday, Nov. 12, 2012.

Travis Tygart

Travis Tygart is the head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which accused Armstrong in June 2012 of doping, a charge that Armstrong said he was done contesting in August 2012.

"There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, 'Enough is enough.' For me, that time is now," Armstrong said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. He called the USADA investigation an "unconstitutional witch hunt."

His submission to the charges led the agency to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles. In an interview with CBC, Tygart said he was not surprised by Armstrong’s confession.

“We heard the evidence, we heard the stories from athletes,” Tygart said. “And it supported, without question, every allegation that … now has been shown to be true.”

In an interview with the French newspaper L'Équipe, Tygart said that he had received three death threats since the beginning of the Armstrong investigation and that security had been tightened around him by the FBI. Tygart was also previously involved in the investigation of Floyd Landis, a cyclist who accused Armstrong of doping. 

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Federal agent Jeff Novitzky arrives for former San Francisco Giants baseball player Barry Bonds' criminal trial at Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco on March 28, 2011.

Jeff Novitzky, an agent for the Food and Drug Administration, led a team of attorneys from 2010 to 2012 that investigated Armstrong for allegations of doping in his Tour de France wins. In May 2010, the New York Daily News reported that Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis was cooperating with the probe.

The investigation involved taking statements under oath from Armstrong and his former teammates and requesting blood samples from the French anti-doping agency. The probe was terminated in early February 2012 with no charges filed, the Associated Press reported.

In the past, Novitzky investigated alleged performance-enhancing drug use by other athletes, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Marion Jones.

Mike Powell / Getty Images file

Frankie Andreu of the U.S. Postal Service Team rides uphill during Stage 14, Draguignan to Briancon, France of the Tour de France on July 15, 2000.

Frankie Andreu was a captain of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team along with Lance Armstrong in 1998, 1999 and 2000. In 2006, Andreu and his wife, Betsy, who were close friends with the Armstrongs, testified in court that they heard Armstrong tell cancer doctors in 1996 that he had used EPO, growth hormones and steroids. Armstrong swore under oath that it didn’t happen.

The Andreus’ testimony was related to litigation between Armstrong and SCA Promotions, a Texas company attempting to withhold a $5 million bonus. Armstrong eventually won a settlement deal out of court in February 2006, and SCA paid him and Tailwind Sports $7.5 million to cover the bonus plus lawyers' fees.

He later told reporters that Betsy Andreu may have been confused by the possible mention of a post-operative treatment that included steroids and EPO, which can be taken to counteract the effects of chemotherapy.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2006, Andreu admitted that he had taken EPO to help prepare for the 1999 Tour de France.

In 2012, the Andreus participated in the USADA investigation into Armstrong’s doping practices, testifying along with 24 other witnesses, including former teammates. In the USADA’s 200-page decision, the hospital room incident was covered in great detail. 

Getty Images file

Cyclist Floyd Landis is seen during the arbitration hearing of the 2006 Tour de France champion at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., on May 23, 2007.

Floyd Landis

Floyd Landis is a retired cyclist who was stripped of his own 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Landis admitted to doping in May 2010 and accused Armstrong of doping in 2002 and 2003. He also said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" that he witnessed Armstrong receive multiple blood transfusions and dispense testosterone patches to his teammates on the U.S. Postal Service team.

His confession and accusations were detailed in a series of emails he sent to senior cycling and anti-doping officials in 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into Landis’ claims soon after, which eventually led to the USADA investigation of Armstrong and the 2012 decision to strip him of his Tour de France titles.

In 2010, Landis filed a suit against the U.S. Postal Service team, alleging it defrauded the federal government by taking sponsorship money from the U.S. Postal Service while riders were doping, the Wall Street Journal reported. All whistleblower lawsuits are kept under seal, and neither the DOJ nor Landis have acknowledged the suit’s existence or allegations.

AP file

Of her sit-down with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey called it the "biggest" interview she has ever done.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey snagged what she has described as the “biggest” interview she has ever done: a sit-down with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Winfrey grilled Armstrong for two and a half hours over his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Oprah appeared on CBS Tuesday morning to talk about the interview. She said she thought “the entire interview was difficult” for Armstrong, but he that “was pretty forthcoming.” She would not say, however, what exactly Armstrong said ahead of the session’s airing on the OWN network.

Tune in to TODAY Friday for an exclusive live interview with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman. 

Related stories:
Oprah: Armstrong 'forthcoming' in interview about drug use

Slideshow: Lance Armstrong’s controversial career

Joel Saget / AFP - Getty Images

The cyclist's historic run of Tour de France championships made headlines, as did his fall from grace after being stripped of the titles in 2012.

Launch slideshow

Viewers who tune into Oprah Winfrey's interview with Lance Armstrong on Thursday will expect to see the disgraced cyclist offer some sort of admission to doping.

One can only imagine he'll talk about the incredible stress of such a demanding sport. He might suggest that his Tour de France wins still have some legitimacy since many competitors were also taking performance-enhancing drugs. If he really wants to make a play for sympathy, he could dwell on how much his cancer charity Livestrong has suffered.

But after a decade of indignant denials -- and legal threats and actions against his detractors -- that's not going to satisfy many of Armstrong's former fans. Here's what they'll really want to hear from the athlete, who promised to answer all of Winfrey's questions "honestly" before Monday's sitdown.

1. Did Armstrong dope before he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996? If so, did he tell his doctors? Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate, testified in 2006 that she heard Armstrong admit to his doctors that he had used human growth hormone, steroids, and other chemicals. He denied it and tried to discredit Andreu by claiming she was "vindictive and vengeful."

2. Does Armstrong have anything to say to whistle-blowers he reportedly denounced and bullied over the years? A report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency alleged Armstrong berated a loose-lipped competitor during the 18th stage of the 2004 Tour de France, tried to get an anti-doping doctor fired in 2005, and told an ex-teammate who testified two years ago, "I’m going to make your life a living…hell."

3. Was Armstrong, as the USADA report found, a mastermind of a sophisticated doping program who strong-armed other riders on the U.S. Postal Service team into juicing? In July 2010, Armstrong bristled at the suggestion he was a pusher. "There was absolutely no way I forced people, encouraged people, told people, helped people, facilitated," he said. "Absolutely not."

4. Will Armstrong give authorities any information he might have about others involved with doping? His friend, the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who has been banned by the USADA for life, claimed as recently as last month that he never saw Armstrong dope. Last week, the head of Switzerland's anti-doping laboratory denied the agency’s claims of helping Armstrong.  And there is an active investigation into Armstrong’s payments to the International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body.

5. Will Armstrong pay the price? The cyclist won more than $3 million in prize money with his seven Tour de France wins, plus $7.5 million in bonuses from the owner of the team. He's been asked to return both. The Sunday Times of London is suing him for $1.5 million over a libel settlement he scored in 2004.

6. Why now? Armstrong has never been anything but belligerent when faced with evidence of doping. Even after he was stripped of his Tour de France titles, he tweeted a photo of himself relaxing on a sofa below the framed yellow jerseys from those wins -- interpreted by many as a defiant and arrogant gesture. So if he reverses course now, what does he hope to gain? Is he bucking for reinstatement one day, preparing to launch a new athletic career, or is he actually sorry?