Emma O'Reilly has remainded in contact with Lance Armstrong and says he has grown as a person and is genuinely sorry.
Almost six months on from the publication on her book on Lance Armstrong, Irish soigneur Emma O’Reilly said she believes the American is sorry for what he did and has matured and learned from falling from grace.
She said the reaction to the book had been “really, really positive, there’s been very little negativity”.
She believed most people appreciated the book because it was nuanced and did not seek to present events or the decisions of key people in the Armstrong doping ring as black and white.
“I think that’s been one of the things about Lance; all of the stories have been black and white,” she told The Telegraph’s cycling blog.
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“But none of us are black and white; there’s shades of grey in everything.”
Asked if being one of the first people to come out and tell the truth about Armstrong was a lonely place to be at the time, she said: “Yeah it was really.
“What made it lonely was being sued and all the stress... being sued; you had brought so much trouble to your doorstep.
“And really (I felt) nothing good would come of it so it meant I questioned everything I did. I tried to do something right and no good had come out of it. It wasn’t a good time.”
One of the first to speak out about Lance Armstrong's drug taking, O'Reilly said it was a lonely place to be at the time.
Having met Armstrong, who wrote the foreword to her book, face to face last year after his fall she felt he had matured.
“He definitely matured and was learning; still in the process of learning from the experience,” she suggested.
“In other ways it was the old Lance. But the Lance I met who had just come back from cancer was quite a humble human being; a decent fella you’d sit and have a coffee with.
“That was the Lance I met again a year ago; the one that life had been hard on him and brought him back to reality.”
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Asked if she felt there was genuine contrition on Armstrong’s part, she said: “Yeah, I wouldn’t have went over (to the US) if I thought he was just being.... And even still, the trust wasn’t there which was why I took a journalist with me, just in case.
“I thought, ‘if he’s being genuine well then let’s get it out there, but if he’s not being genuine I’m going to slaughter him’.
“I think he was genuine but it took us 10 or 11 months before we got to that stage. So we had been through a bit of a process.”
O'Reilly was the subject of a significant amount of media coverage long before her book was published, such was her influence in bringing about his downfall.
She said she had since stayed in touch with him, the latest contact coming in the past week.
“It’s just by email and text and stuff like that; no more plans to meet up. But in a sense our lives; yeah we get on and there’ll always be a connection and shared history.
“But our lives in other ways have nothing in common. I want a nice quiet, simple life.”
She still loved the sport and believed there were no other athletes like cyclists, saying despite the sport’s bad name the sacrifices the athletes put in were huge.
“These lads have got to train out in the rain, they suffer. It’s a great sport.
“But if you asked me that question two, maybe three years ago; no I wasn’t watching bike racing.
“I had just been sickened. But (now) I’ve just got a bike and all that, so I’ve really done the full circle. I’ve reconnected.”
However, she did not think she would work in cycling again.
“Those long days and slapping bags around and checking in and standing in the cold with feed bags; no. It doesn’t appeal.”
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