Emma O'Reilly - Whistleblower on doping in cycling extratime

appointment. He says he is trying to hang on to

his job. Now, it is time for extratime.

Today, extratime has come to the north of England to meet Emma

O'Reilly whose role was pivotal in bringing down the seven time Tour de

France winner Lance Armstrong. She was in Lance Armstrong's Postal

team, taking care of his hotel rooms, massages, his meals and other

tasks which eventually led her to understand the full extent of his

use of performance enhancing drugs. She observed the team's code of

silence on this until asked by a journalist to blow the whistle which

she did. What followed were years of personal torment. She was verbally

attacked by Armstrong and said she felt abandoned by those who used to

implement knowledge of US Postal for their own agenda. Recently, she met

Armstrong and said that Schieffer gave him. Does he deserve her

forgiveness? `` said that she forgave him.

Emma O'Reilly, welcome to this edition of extratime. You have just

heard me say in the introduction that you have forgiven Lance

Armstrong. Why? I guess because... Do you know what, no one has asked

me that before. I don't know why. It took me a while. I think because he

is genuine. Genuine white? Genuinely sorry for what he has done. It took

me a long time to recognise that. `` genuine what. He said you were an

alcoholic and a hall. Is that the giver will? `` hore. `` forgiveable.

Given what I had done to him, it makes it understandable, though

inexcusable. What you have done to him? By talking about against the

drugs in sport... You were telling the truth. From what cycling has

been, telling the truth is the biggest crime. It was bigger than

taking performance enhancing drugs. Telling the truth is a crime? That

is what cycling used to be. This is moral relativity in the extreme. I

guess, yes. What we will go back to those days. I want to take it back

now to last November in Florida when, finally, you and Lance

Armstrong came together in a meeting. Just the two of you. What

was it like? It was weird. When we left the hotel together I thought it

would be awkward. The walk was one minute to the restaurant. Over time

we got there, it was back comfortable again. We used to get on

well. That was weird in itself. It is still weird how we clicked back

into an easy relationship. It took us 10` 11 months. He got in touch in

January before the Oprah show and at the time I was still angry. This was

the full confessional with Oprah Winfrey. Yes. He called me and left

me a text message. I thought, the nerve of this toerag, this piece of

dirt, to think that he can call me and leave me a text and I will

answer before he goes on Oprah. Over my dead body will I be a soundbite

for him. That was my attitude. It wasn't until March when I got back

in touch with him and said, if you are genuine, let's try do something.

If you are genuine about apologising. Let's be clear, you

haven't seen him for how long? 13`14 years. It must have been about that,

yes. There was a lot of water under the bridge since then. At what point

you ever feel during that meeting that he was fully contrite? That he

offered you a full, unreserved apology. For what he said. Let's

refer to these words, alcoholic hore. That is serious stuff. It is

terrible, sexist, crude, unsophisticated terms to use it

against a woman. He is a large's lad. He never treated me in a sexist

manner `` lad's lad. On a working level, there was never any sexism.

To come out with crude and childish lies. He had apologised several

times. I wouldn't have gone to Florida if I thought he wasn't

sincere but I still didn't trust him. Let's go back to 1994. By then,

you were born into a cycling family and it was part of your life. You

end up with the Montgomery professional cycling team, which

became US Postal and you write that your job was 24/7. You referred to

it as a match of the world. How were you treating. `` treated? I thought

I was treated quite well. I never tried to be too much one of the

lads. I felt I was treated fairly. If I felt I wasn't, I would say to

them. Before that I was an electricity and a donor if it is

true but I was told I was the first female electrician in Ireland so

came from an environment where there were 50 lads and then may. You could

look after yourself. If you are fair with the lads, they will look after

you. One of my things was, don't curse and tell dirty jokes because

if I don't do that, they can't do the same. Armstrong joins the team

in 1998. You immediately form a bond, a friendship. How deep was

that friendship? You can't form a deep friendship with some of these

writers `` you can. You are sending up to 18 hours with them. You see

them in their highs and lows. `` spending. You see the sacrifices

that they make. They also see you through your highs and lows so it

creates a lifelong bond. You have enormous respect for them. Complete

and utter respect for their dedication and hard work. They have

to go out when it is knowing, during hailstorms, they are freezing. There

was a special relationship with him. We clicked early on. We don't

skirt around things. Something I liked was that if he asked for

something and you can't do it, you have to eyeball him and tell him

that you can't do it and why it isn't happening and he could always

take that on`board. He was an easy person to look after. It was like a

brother`sister relationship. Definitely. Out of that comes

loyalty. Yes. He was good to me when I had a hard time on the road and

that creates a lot of loyalty. You always remember when people are good

to you when you are down. You have described the business of when you

have to say no to him. When he asks you to perform tasks that began to

indicate he was using performance enhancing drugs, you didn't say no.

Why not? No. At the time, the drugs were so entrenched in cycling and I

had gotten away with being headed soigneur at US Postal and never

administered anything, never actively part of it. When land is

asked something of me, I knew he would be desperate. I was the last

resort `` Lance. What I was doing was so minute in comparison to what

was going on that I was treated very well by the team, either writers.

They left me out of it. That make by the riders. `` by the riders. I was

out of the sport 3`4 years. It took me that long to realise that I was

part of it, but I was a facilitator. Just because I turned a blind eye,

didn't mean I was clean. I wasn't. It was such a flawed

infrastructure. The system was so messed up. By me not administering

and turning a blind eye, I was a there were `` I was a clean

soigneur. There were three incidents. One was that Schiphol

Airport. As I was taking Lance's suitcase out of the car, he opens it

up and said, I didn't get rid of these, can you? I can't fly with

them. What were they? A bad with syringes in them. I said, yet, OK,

of course you can't. `` yes. I was being practical. Of course you can't

fly with them. It wasn't that I was thinking morally, I was thinking

that if he flew with them he couldn't. Did you see it as

cheating? I always saw it as cheating. Everyone was Keating. It

was destroying their lives. `` cheating. People were dying. You

were a courier. Yes. It was a time when Lance needed something after a

training camp and I was in France and arranged to meeting in Nice. I

had to pick up something from a Spanish doctor. I went to Spain,

picked up the products from Johann and said to Lance, I don't want to

know what it is. This is the team director. Yes. I spent the night in

France and gave it to Lance the following morning. In your book you

wrote that it felt like carrying kryptonite. It was terrifying. There

is never a lion or a queue at that border crossing. This Sunday, there

was `` line. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I thought, this

is it. I had done the Tour in 1998. I saw the police bring in the

riders. If you get 72 hours before a phone call, I thought, 72 hours

before I get a phone call. I was scared. We are talking about this

code of silence, this own are tough. We have spoken about this before ``

omerta. This affected the whole team. The whole cycling. From top to

bottom. How do you reflect on that 15 years later? It was the best of

times and the worst of times because we had great memories. In all

fairness, it has been stripped of it since, but that lad won the Tour de

France after coming back from cancer. That was great. I don't mean

the story from a commercial point of view, but it was a hopeful story

about dreams coming true. You paint a picture of a man with enormous

work ethic who has fought back from serious illness and who is therefore

not all bad. There is a relativity. That is another reason why I could

forgive him, because I have seen the good side of him, I have seen him

when he is tired, when he is exhilarated, when he is at in a good

and bad mood, the same with me too. I am not a lance apologist. Because

I have seen the bad of him and I have been victim of that `` Lance. I

don't believe people change. I have seen a good side to him. He asked

you to borrow make up to cover up needle last in his arm. Yes. I was

facilitating cheating. That is why the whole thing was messed up. I

wished I could think of a different word. It was bizarre, surreal. Here

is a guy going to be press conference with bruises and he is

asking me for my make up. I am going to say, you need more than

foundation. He is saying, whatever. I am a blow. We are in the toilet of

his bedroom and he is rubbing it, and I think it looks useless ``

bloke. The whole thing was absurd. It was building up. When did you

decide you have had enough of this? There was a breakdown in the

relationship with the director of the team, it wasn't there? When I

was 30, I said, I was done with this. I have seen how if you stay

too long, the sport owns you. I didn't want that. At this point, the

second part of the story develops and the second part of his

culpability in the cover`up, the lies, the bullion to potential

witnesses. `` bullying. Describe this monster. At his worst. You have

described him at his best. Let's describe him at his worst.

When David Walsh approached you, there were presumably doubts, you

are breaking the code of silence. What tipped it for you? What made

you decide to tell the story? I had been approached, journalists had

approached me, they thought I had been fired. I thought, if that is a

story, you should be looking into cycling to see how flawed it is. It

took me a few years to think, just because you were clean doesn't mean

you want a facilitator. Sometimes, by not telling the truth you are

telling a lie. They had already started that process, and spoken to

a couple of my friends who were in the business. When David came, he

came at a good time. I thought, this is a good journalist who writes for

a good newspaper, he has a brilliant reputation, and he will do a story.

He won't do scandal. I didn't want it to be about the scandal of riders

doing drugs, I want it to be about cycling, the culture of cycling.

Where they have to choose, if they don't cheat they go home. Did you

feel that you were guilty for portraying Armstrong, or did you

feel that you were on your own path for redemption? It wasn't that I was

betraying bands, I was betraying the team `` Lance. I was in a good

position to do that, because I was out of the sport, so I wasn't making

my livelihood out of it. It didn't owe me anything, I didn't have any

into it. Then, what followed, is it went into the hands of the lawyers.

That is when the unpleasant allegations from Armstrong came out.

The book was eventually released, LA Confidential. How did Armstrong

react to what you said in the book? Like a nuclear missile, having a bad

day, the way he react. Talk about over react. One of the big mistakes

he made was making it about himself. It wasn't about him, it was

about drugs in cycling. He made it all personal. Has a seven time Tour

de France winner, that was going to happen. I think it was only for five

at the time. The thing with him is it always has to be about him, it

wasn't always about him. In hindsight, that took a bit away from

the fact that we were trying to look after him. When he came out to me, I

felt somewhat deserved it, because I had broken the code of silence.

David has had to listen to me give him loads, because I didn't expect

the ferocity of the attack. I was very naive. Is that my fault? Was at

up to the media to train me, or was it up to me to find out? Ditty

effectively cut you loose? No, he never fully cut loose, no. What did

he do that was wrong? What I felt was wrong was that he said there

were other people who would talk, that I wasn't on my own. And it

turned out that yes, there were others, but a few of us were the

only idiots who were prepared to give our names and stand by what we

said. The impression he gave was that there was a big gang of us and

we were in it together. Your life was entirely taken over by it.

Absolutely. You sigh, the look on your face. It was a horrible time,

because all they seemed to do was to go to work, and then come

deal with lawyers, right things down, have them on the phone. It was

this constant pressure. And all the time I felt bad for having spoken

out, even though my instincts said I had done the right thing, but my

logic was asking how I could have done it. I was tormented. And yet,

finally, Armstrong goes on to the Oprah Winfrey show and confesses.

That must have lifted a weight off your shoulders. It before he went to

Oprah, it had been shown that what I was saying was true, because ASADA

report came out, and a couple of other riders said. When he said on

Oprah that the others were telling the truth, it was physical relief I

felt. That was when I realise how much I had been carrying it. It had

affected my confidence over the years, and I had become more

introverted and quiet. I definitely changed over that period of time. I

suppose we are always up to the present `` almost up to the present,

in a sense. Since that interview with Oprah Winfrey, which was early

last year, January 2013, how is your relationship with Armstrong and with

cycling, how has it developed? There was the meeting in Florida, do you

still have contact with him? Yes, to me, the meeting was just the start

of it. Things have got better and stronger since then, we speak on the

phone and e`mail and text regularly. Now, it is nice. Now it is nicer

than it was in Florida, because then we were just trying to meet up and

develop, to see if there was any trust. I have fallen back in love

with the bike a bit, I have even got a bike. Betsy Andre, another key

witness against Armstrong, she is critical of your situation. She

suggest that Lance Armstrong is using new as a character witness in

his rehabilitation. How do you respond to that? People will always

say that. We are all at different places in our lives, and I met a

place where I don't feel used. I am in a place where I can move on by

forgiving Lance and by the two of us talking. It has been the best step

for putting all that nonsense behind me and trying to learn from what it

is. That is where Ray, and people will always say I am being used.

People say I have battered wife syndrome, Stockholm syndrome,

whatever. I am happy I have forgiven months, and I'm happy we are

talking. That is all that matters, really. I'm trying to get a sense of

the debt of his apology to you. The close, he hasn't apologised to

others, has he? To some people. Just because it worked for me doesn't

mean it will work for others. For other people, he has done worst

things than call them a few names. We know now that Armstrong has

talked to the UCI. You have anything to say to them? Nothing that hasn't

already been said. Your story is complete? Yes, because now I want to

move on with my life, get on with things. Naturally, lawyers will have

been crawling all over the book, and will probably need to review this

interview itself. I wonder, you talk about moving on, and I entirely

understand that. Maybe, as I look at you now, there are some seek it in

there that you will never reveal. There probably are few that I will

never reveal. Because you will get pain from them or they will land

other people in trouble? Probably both. Sometimes, things are just

best left. Because of the pain I have been through and the pain it

has caused others, sometimes you need to let sleeping dogs lie.

However deeply the UCI investigates the doping culture among the sport,

you may not be unique in holding back information, we will probably

never know the full story, will be? I don't think we will. A big part of

the story is emotional. Some people aren't going to go to places. It is

not just about saying, in this race I did that, and in this race I did

this, it is emotional as well. Some people aren't, because sometimes

your stories... All of your stories involve other people, so it is out

of loyalty to other people that... And also emotion, that you don't

want to go back to the dark place. We will never know everything.

Investigative journalists will always exist, and they will always

be calling your number and knocking on your door. I don't think so.

Don't you. Now they know that you have some secrets hidden away that

you won't tell. I won't tell. That's right. Thank you very much.

If it wasn't for the fact that the sun feels quite warm when it comes

out, you would think it was April,