DISGRACED CYCLING STAR LANCE ARMSTRONG SAYS CYCLING CHIEFS HELPED HIM TO CHEAT

LANCE & EMMA

It was the story he had denied. The story Emma O'Reilly went some way to telling when she exposed Lance Armstrong as a drug cheat. But when the conversation moved to the subject of that positive test in 1999, he not only agreed with her that she had been right but went a stage further. 

O'Reilly always believed there was a bigger conspiracy and with her sitting before him he finally revealed the full scale of the cover-up, naming Hein Verbruggen as a central figure in his escape from punishment. 

Certainly, Armstrong used this opportunity to his full advantage. He wants his life ban reduced and he wants to work with cycling's UCI governing body to achieve this. They will surely see his latest bombshell as a chance to open further discussions with him at their proposed truth and reconciliation committee hearing.

In his Sportsmail interview, Armstrong claims the former head of world cycling knew about his drug abuse and encouraged him to cover up his doping. He says the then president of the UCI,  Verbruggen, was complicit in the skulduggery that allowed him to continue in the 1999 Tour de France despite a positive drugs test. 

And he goes into greater detail than ever before about the backdated prescription provided by the US Postal medical  staff which allowed him to escape punishment. 

VERBRUGGEN - NAMED BY LANCE ARMSTRONG

Today's allegations contradict Verbruggen's insistence that he has never been involved in doping cover-ups. Armstrong has no desire to protect senior UCI officials if he appears before the independent inquiry that has been called for by Englishman Brian Cookson, world cycling's new president.

It has been made clear to Armstrong that his cooperation could be rewarded with a reduction of his lifetime ban to eight years. And he told Sportsmail: '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.' 

Despite Sportsmail's repeated attempts to contact Verbruggen, he was unavailable for comment. However, in a letter to the national cycling federations earlier this month to mark his departure from the UCI, where he had been serving as honorary president, Verbruggen defended himself.

'I have never acted inappropriately and my conscience is absolutely clean,' he said. 'With the benefit of hindsight, however, I admit that I could have done some things differently, but I do not accept that my integrity is in doubt.'

In February, Verbruggen personally delivered a letter to the most important 15 Olympic officials at the Lausanne  Palace Hotel, attacking the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and denying  he had aided any cover-up of Armstrong's doping. 

Verbruggen wrote: 'I have been frequently accused that, in my UCI presidency, my federation would not have been too serious in its anti-doping policy and that - in particular the Lance Armstrong case - the UCI and myself have been involved in covering up positive tests. 

'Cover-ups never took place. Not only would this never have been allowed, but there simply was nothing to cover up. Armstrong, nor his team-mates, never tested positive.'

Verbruggen was also deeply critical of Wada, and anti-doping officials in the US and France, for their failure to expose Armstrong during his career. 

In September, Verbruggen and his successor Pat McQuaid faced allegations of inappropriate behaviour during the heated battle for the presidency of  the UCI. A leaked 54-page dossier accused McQuaid and Verbruggen of corruption. They were alleged to have solicited a bribe from a team owner in 2012, of manipulating the drug-testing rules for Armstrong and of attempting to cover up Alberto Contador's positive drugs test in 2010. 

Cookson responded to the allegations by calling for an investigation, with McQuaid accusing his opponents of 'gangster politics'. Cookson called the allegations 'very serious', adding: 'For the good of the UCI and cycling, they should be immediately and thoroughly investigated by the authorities.'