Lance Armstrong comes face-to-face with whistleblower Emma O'Reilly; claims head of cycling helped him cheat

LANCE Armstrong comes face-to-face with the woman who blew the whistle on his doping. He tried to ruin her life. Did he apologise?

LANCE Armstrong has finally looked the woman who brought him down in the eyes.

Emma O'Reilly was a masseuse and assistant with the US Postal Service cycling team Armstrong represented in six of his seven Tour de France winning titles. She was the first person to blow the whistle on the cyclist's secret doping.

In the 2004 book LA Confidentiel, written by sports journalists Pierre Ballester and David Walsh, Ms O'Reilly alleged the cancer survivor doped on the 1999 tour.

She said she would pick up and drop off what she believed were doping products and provided him with make-up to hide his needle marks.

Ms O'Reilly spoke out because she was determined to end a culture where cyclists were dying from a drug-fuelled culture. But she paid a serious price for telling her story.

Armstrong branded his favourite masseuse a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic whore" on television. He lodged a lawsuit she feared would leave her destitute.

Now almost a year since he confessed his cheating to Oprah Winfrey Armstrong has looked Ms O'Reilly in the eye in a meeting at a bar in Florida with The Daily Mail.

Emma O'Reilly tends to Lance Armstrong in July 1999. O'Reilly, an Irish woman, claimed he asked her to dispose of used syringes and lend him makeup to conceal needle marks on his arms. Picture: AP

"I never expected to see Emma," he said. "I wanted to talk to her. I felt it was necessary to have a conversation because there were definitely people that got caught up in this story who deserved an apology from me.

"When I reached out in January it was to talk. Emma, I appreciate, wasn't ready for that. But it's good that, tonight, we are doing this in person.

The disgraced former cyclist admitted what he had done to her was unacceptable.

"At the time, when I said what I said about her, I was fighting to protect a lot of positions. But it was inexcusable. It's embarrassing.

"I was in a conference room, giving a legal deposition, and I had no idea it was going to get out. But that doesn't excuse it. I guess you should always assume that, in that setting, the whole world will watch it the next day. It was totally humiliating for Emma. And if I saw my son do that, there would be a f----ing war in our house."

The cyclist also made the explosive allegation the head of world cycling knew he was a drug cheat helped him to cover up his doping.

He says the then president of the UCI, Verbruggen, was complicit in the skulduggery that allowed him to continue in the 1999 Tour de France despite a positive drugs test.

While he was repentant to Ms O'Reilly, she noted he did not say "sorry".

"I was thinking, he never actually used the word sorry. But I wasn't looking for an insincere apology. There are different ways of saying sorry and I felt what he did say was genuine.

"Now people might think I'm under Lance's spell but I'm not. I wasn't when I said what I did about him in 2004 and I'm not now. He was a jerk. He was a bully.

"But there are wider issues here and I wanted to address those, too. That said, I wanted closure with him and today I feel I have it. This part, for me, is over."

Armstrong has launched a media offensive of late which has included interviews with the BBC World Service and CyclingNews.com.

Read more at The Daily Mail

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