His one-time team manager, Johan Bruyneel, is now also ready to come clean. Bruyneel, who was Armstrong’s manager during all of his seven Tour de France victories, last week announced his readiness to co-operate with investigations into doping being conducted by the Royal Belgian Cycling Federation.

State prosecutor Jaak Fransen said that Bruyneel, born in West Flanders, “has now agreed to co-operate with the investigation” but admitted that it had been impossible to schedule a meeting, mostly because Bruyneel spends so much time abroad – indeed, he currently lives in London. “We will have to wait and see whether he will actually confess,” the prosecutor cautioned.

Bruyneel’s website still proclaims him as “9x Winning Tour de France Sports Director”, although the seven editions won by Armstrong, from 1999 to 2005, now have the winner’s name left empty. The other two wins relate to Spaniard Alberto Contador in 2007 and 2009, but he, too, has been stripped of those after positive drugs tests.

Armstrong’s interview with Oprah was tinged with a defiance at odds with his apologies, and Bruyneel seems to be showing a similar cynicism: He is said to be working on a book detailing his side of the story at Armstrong’s US Postal Service, Astana and RadioShack teams.

Armstrong has also lost the support of Flemish cycling legend Eddy Merckx, a one-time confidant, who said he was “extremely disappointed” with the doping revelations. “I was quite close to him,” said the five-time Tour winner, “and he often looked me right in the eyes when we discussed doping – and obviously he said ‘no’.”

Merckx added that the scandal had wider implications for cycling. “It’s a disaster for the other riders. It’s so easy and so hypocritical.”. And he was also scathing about Armstrong’s claim that it was impossible to win the Tour de France without doping today. “When the riders hear that, they’re really going to be happy,” he said, sarcastically.

It’s an understandable rage: It will be a long time before cycling wins back its credibility.