Lance, Emma and Hein... who to believe?

“Man, I’m that busy talking to lawyers and going over things that have happened, I can’t remember what I have and haven’t said. You spend a day in a room with a team of lawyers. It’s like 24-hour root canal.”

That was Lance Armstrong in his ‘explosive’ interview with his former masseuse Emma O’Reilly and journalist Matt Lawton from UK Paper, The Daily Mail.

It’s a comment that says everything about Lance Armstrong and this cycling soap opera that seems to have no end.

The interview came about after O’Reilly who worked for Lance on the US Postal Team from 1999 to 2000, finally accepted the disgraced Texan’s long-standing invitation to talk.

Armstrong tried to contact her way back in January, just before his partial doping confession to Oprah Winfrey.

“It was too big a situation to just have a chat about it on the phone,’ O’Reilly told Matt Lawton.

“I wanted to eyeball him. You can’t keep kicking an injured dog. I wasn’t here to humiliate him. But I wanted closure.”

Rather strangely, O’Reilly chose a noisy bar for the meeting, which somewhat detracted from the gravitas of the situation.

Why not a conference room in a hotel?

The big revelation from the interview was that former UCI President Hein Verbruggen allegedly helped concoct the backdated prescription for saddle sores that covered up a positive test for cortisone.

Verbruggen, of course, has flatly denied any involvement, but Armstrong has clearly decided it’s time to reveal a little more about who else helped him avoid testing positive throughout his career.

We all know that Armstrong didn’t act alone, and I can even see why the UCI didn’t want him to fail after his return from cancer.

The UCI was trying to globalise cycling and American money was key to that happening, so there was no way Lance would be allowed to fail a drugs test.

But after all we’ve been through with Lance, how much can we believe?

As he told Matt Lawton, he owes nothing to the UCI now.

“To think I am protecting any of these guys after the way they treated me, that is ludicrous. I’m not protecting them at all. I have no loyalty towards them.

“I’m not going to lie to protect these guys. I hate them. They threw me under the bus. I’m done with them.”

But at the same time, Armstrong says he can’t really remember the details of the failed test back at the 1999 Tour de France.

“What I remember was there being a problem. I’m not sure if it was a positive but there were traces found. I don’t know if it technically crossed the line.

“But anyway, it didn’t matter. I can’t remember exactly who was in the room. But Emma has a better memory than I do.”

You said it, Lance.

Yet he says he can remember exactly what Hein Verbruggen allegedly had to say when the positive result surfaced.

“This is a real problem for me, this is the knockout punch for our sport, the year after Festina, so we’ve got to come up with something.”

Funny things, memories.

Especially when you revisit that opening quote from my story.

“Man, I’m that busy talking to lawyers and going over things that have happened, I can’t remember what I have and haven’t said. You spend a day in a room with a team of lawyers. It’s like 24-hour root canal.”

That was Armstrong’s response to Matt Lawton after his comments regarding Verbruggen’s alleged complicity in the 1999 cortisone cover-up.

Seriously, could you just drop a bombshell like that without really thinking about what you’re about to say?!

Especially someone like Armstrong, who has been so controlling throughout his career.

Or was it a deliberate plant to try and garner some sympathy ahead of a possible appearance before a formal UCI investigation?

Of course, he could have easily mentioned all this to Oprah in January.

I’m glad for Emma O’Reilly that she finally has the closure that underpinned her journey to Florida, even though she says Armstrong never actually said 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,” she told Matt Lawson.

But I’m mystified as to what this meeting with O’Reilly does for Lance’s case?

He may not initially have known Lawton was going to be there, but once confronted with the fact the meeting would be recorded, he decided to drop Verbruggen’s name and some tasty quotes

And then proceeded to cloud it with hazy recollections of the same issue.

As a cycling fan, I couldn’t wait to read about the meeting, but after all that we’ve been through with Lance, I don’t know what to think about the latest chapter.

Regardless of the rumoured truth and reconciliation commission that may finally drag Armstrong before a cycling judiciary, it may now be just too late for anyone to believe him no matter what he says.

There may be some truth, but there may be some embellishment as well.

That doesn’t mean though that other people shouldn’t take the opportunity to clear their conscience.

Brian Cookson, I wish you well in sorting out this mess.