Lance Armstrong talks about doping once again, just a day before the start of the 100th Tour de France race, and surprises fans with his candidness.

Last year, Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive title wins after US cycling authorities revealed his extensive use of performance-enhancing drugs, France 24 reports.

He told the French daily Le Monde that it is "impossible" to win the Tour de France without doping.

"It's impossible to win the Tour de France without doping," he said in an interview published on Friday. "It's an endurance test in which oxygen is a decisive factor. Just to give you one example - EPO [the doping agent erythropoietin] won't help a sprinter win the 100 metres, but it will make all the difference for a runner doing the 10,000 metres. It's obvious."

It's important to put his quotes in context. He was speaking about his own era, rather than the Tour today, AP reports. Le Monde asked him: "When you raced, was it possible to perform without doping?"

Lance responded: "That depends on which races you wanted to win. The Tour de France? No. Impossible to win without doping. Because the Tour is a test of endurance where oxygen is decisive," Le Monde wrote in French.

Armstrong also notably told talk-show host Oprah Winfrey in January that doping was just "part of the job" of being a pro-cyclist.

The banned hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, wasn't detectable until 2001, and was widely abused, giving a big performance boost to endurance athletes, AP reports.

According to AP, Armstrong told Le Monde that he still considers himself the record-holder for Tour victories, despite his lifetime ban from professional cycling and US Anti-Doping Agency calling his act "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that the sport has ever seen."