Listen to the full interview above via the podcast player
Without the likes of Emma O'Reilly, Lance Armstrong may never have been proved to have cheated during what was once regarded as a stellar cycling career.
O'Reilly, who was his former soigneur and would later reveal some of the inner workings of Armstrong's mechanisms, enduring personal insults from the disgraced cyclist as he tried to fend off doping allegations.
She has written a new book called The Race to Truth: Blowing the whistle on Lance Armstrong and cycling's doping culture and joined us in studio tonight to talk about her experience and how she is dealing with the fallout from the Armstrong revelations.
"To me nothing good had come from [blowing the whistle]. All it had done was that I got sued, David [Walsh] had got sued. His life was made hell, my life was made hell. Until the USADA report came out, the whole experience had only been negative. Now if I was to do it again I would make sure that I could do it anonymously - not that I agree with doing stuff anonymously - I would only come out and put my name to it if other people are also putting there's. I'd ask more pertinent questions now that I didn't before," who also said that she "wouldn't like to fall out with" journalist David Walsh, who penned LA Confidential, the book in which O'Reilly spoke about elements of the doping culture involving Armstrong.
"Definitely, David, in all fairness has had to take a few narky phonecalls from me during that time when I did get dropped in it and when I was the only person getting sued. He was as stunned as me at the level of aggression of Lance's attack. We were all just floundering."
And despite the fact that Armstrong made her life hell after she blew the whistle, he was the one who wrote the foreword to her book.
"The single person who put all of my whole life at risk was me! I'm the one who spoke to David. So I brought all that on myself," O'Reilly told Ger during the interview, although she also explained why she and Armstrong never fell out personally despite the former rider being a "megalomaniac bully" during the period while he tried to discredit her.
O'Reilly also explained why she thinks Armstrong did the Oprah interview too soon and why she took a Daily Mail journalist to a meeting with the Texan last year.
"I'm not justifying his behaviour in any way, shape or form. I brought a lot of trouble to his door. He did deserve it, he was cheating. But what I want to do is bring trouble to the system's door, to the UCI, to the doctors and the infrastructure behind the riders. But Lance took it personally. Again, he brought more trouble to my door."
She also spoke about the way she and Armstrong forged such a strong bond during their time working together and explained why she fallen back in love with the sport of cycling.
"It took 11 months from when he first got back in touch with me to him and I sitting down. It took us 10 months before we even spoke. It was a big long process for both of us," said O'Reilly, who also explained how she came to a point where she can trust him to an extent.
The Dubliner also revealed why she accepted Armstrong to write the foreword and why they are on friendly terms.
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