Lance Armstrong... greatest doper there was or ever will be

That's an overly logical interpretation of his use of language, Ollie - who'd have thought that of you (is that the past conditional?)? Whatever the semantics, he just means he lied before and so we can't trust him now. You are giving him too much credit for his use of English. The past tense can mean many things...

I did imply that it was probably just because he doesn't understand English tenses ... :)