The Race to Truth Blowing the Whistle on Lance Armstrong and Cycling's Doping Culture Synopsis
When Emma O'Reilly joined the US Postal cycling team in 1996, she could have had no idea how she would become a central figure in the biggest doping scandal in sporting history. Yet when Lance Armstrong, starting his comeback from cancer, signed for US Postal, it was Emma, the only woman on the team, who became his personal soigneur. This is the definitive inside story of that time, and of the enormous repercussions that resonate to this day for Emma, Lance and the whole sport. Emma had the strength to break cycling's omerta by speaking out against the culture of doping. She thought she would be one of many whistleblowers, doing what she believed was right. Isolated and shunned by the sport she loved, however, her reputation was systematically destroyed. And yet she had the courage to bounce back, and remarkably, to forgive those who made her existence a living hell. This is the ultimate memoir of truth and its many consequences.
Emma O'Reilly was born in 1970 in the working-class Dublin suburb of Tallaght and brought up by her father after her mother died when she was eight. She trained to be an electrician - Ireland's first woman electrician, it was said - before becoming interested in sports massage and therapy. Emma worked for the Irish national cycling team for three years and then for professional teams in the United States, before joining US Postal in 1996. Confronted by a doping culture she despised, she resigned her position in 2000 and blew the whistle on the sport in David Walsh's book LA Confidentiel. She now runs The Body Clinic in Hale, Cheshire, treating Olympic athletes and professional sportspeople.
