Disgraced American cycling star Lance Armstrong is finding it difficult to accept his lifetime ban. This became clear once again when he met with his former manager, Emma O'Reilly. She had already accused him of doping and covering up positive tests in her 2004 book, LA Confidential . Armstrong addressed the allegations personally for the first time at the meeting.
He began by apologizing to O'Reilly for the way he had treated her and others who had accused him of doping over the past few years. As the conversation deepened, Armstrong eventually implicated former UCI president Hein Verbruggen and the controversial doctor Michele Ferrari. He had remained silent on these matters when he made a media-friendly confession to Oprah Winfrey earlier this year. "I'm not going to protect them ," Armstrong now declared in a much harsher tone. "I don't have to be loyal to these people anymore. In the right setting, I'm going to tell everyone what they want to know."
According to Armstrong, he had 1999, while already wearing the yellow jersey, submitted a suspicious sample. Traces of cortisone were reportedly found in it. "I can't remember exactly whether I was above the permitted values", the Texan continues, "but Hey [Verbruggen] said the rehearsal was a personal issue for him in the first year after the Festina scandal. So we had to think about something and then backdated the recipe without further ado.”
He then explained that before the 2000 Tour de France, Ferrari warned the US-Postal team to continue using EPO as before. According to Armstrong's statements, references to an EPO test procedure are said to have startled the Italian doctor, with whom Armstrong is still in contact.
At the end of the conversation with O'Reilly, the Texan confirmed that he would like to become an Ironman world champion one day. He would dare to do this, even without doping, if his life ban were to be shortened. Whether this will happen remains open and probably depends on what Armstrong reports to the commission of inquiry, which is supposed to take a closer look at the Armstrong-Verbruggen case.