Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong finally came face-to-face with the woman whose accusations of illegal drug use brought him down.
Emma O’Reilly – who worked with the US Post cycling team when Armstrong won the first six of his Tour de France titles – flew from England to Florida to confront the cheating biker, according to The Daily Mail.
”It was too big a situation to just have a chat about it on the phone,” the Dubliner said. “I wanted to eyeball him. I wasn’t here to humiliate him. But I wanted closure.”
Before blowing the whistle on Armstrong, O’Reilly worked closely with him as a trainer – even covering up his needle marks with her makeup kit.
In response to her charges of rampant drug use, Armstrong later branded her a liar, a drunk and a whore.
But when he finally came clean – or at least partially admitted his guilt – he said he owed her an apology during his infamous appearance on Oprah to deliver a lame mea culpa.
So he flew from his native Texas to Orlando, where the pair met over dinner with a Daily Mail reporter in tow.
“I took what you said about me on the chin but what upset me more was the way it hurt my boyfriend at the time, Mike [Carlisle],” who is fighting multiple sclerosis, O’Reilly told Armstrong. “You’re a lad’s lad, Lance, and if someone had said that about your girlfriend you’d be very upset.”
Armstrong told the paper O’Reilly deserved the apology.
“I never expected to see Emma,” he said of their recent encounter. “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.”
He called his comments about O’Reilly “inexcusable” and “embarrassing,” and “ totally humiliating for Emma.”
O’Reilly, meanwhile, reiterated her justification for spilling the beans on rampant doping in the world of competitive cycling.
“I implicated other riders as well as the management of the team. But it became about Lance when I felt I was trying to help clean up cycling and protect these young lads who were being pressured into taking drugs,” she said.
“The doctors were allowing riders to seriously mess with their health and my silence was enabling it to continue. It was almost like I’d be lying if I didn’t tell the truth.”
And despite their earlier war of words, O’Reilly still defended Armstrong.
“Lance is taking the blame for everyone and I just don’t feel that is right,” she said. “He is serving a lifetime ban when other riders on the team have served six-month suspensions. Why are they only going after Lance? Why are they not going after all the owners of the team?”