Anybody still think Floyd Landis is an innocent victim?

[Russ Smith]

For those that missed it Landis is having a hearing right now over the accuracy of the french lab tests that found he used steroids during the TDF last year. His team spent days attacking French lab assistants and then yesterday Greg LeMond was asked to come and testify. LeMond has had his runins over the years with Lance Armstrong so it was assumed by the Landis camp he was there to trash Landis who is friends with Lance.

So LeMond starts talking and blows the doors off everyone by revealing that as a 6 year old he'd been sexually molested. Why was he disclosing it? Because the night before someone from the Landis camp had called him and
essentially threatened to out his secret if he spoke at the hearing the next day. The caller apparently said I'm your uncle (the one who apparently had molested him) and then went into some detail before basically saying this can all come out tomorrow and hanging up. Lemond called him back and got the voicemail of Landis' manager. He eventually got the guy who denied he'd made the call.

During the hearing, the manager admitted he'd made the call, and he was subsequently fired by Landis' attorney. Why does this make Landis the bad guy? Because the only person in Landis' camp that knew about LeMonds past was... Floyd Landis.

After Floyd tested positive, LeMond had pulled him aside and told him if you are guilty, I urge you to come clean, don't fight this if you did it, don't try to hide a deep secret it will eat you up. He then told Landis the story of having been molested as an example of a deep secret.

So while Landis himself didn't make the call, he clearly was the source of his manager knowing the story.

Landis' team tried to undo the damage by hammering on LeMond about Lance armstrong, but Greg refused to talk about Lance saying he came here today to discuss the Landis case, not Lance Armstrong. Landis' team attacked that saying it was not fair that he refused to talk about LA. Their beef was simple, they wanted to show he had a bias by saying he accused LA of cheating, and now he accuses Floyd of it.

I almost don't care if he cheated or not now, what a despicable person to take a piece of information that was told to him in confidence, and use it to try and threaten LeMond.

And how dumb is the manager to make the call from a phone that's not blocked so LeMond couldn't call him back?

 

[devilfan02]

That's as low as it gets.

I stopped believing Landis after I saw his piece on Real Sports with Bryant Gummbel. You could clearly tell that he was lying, he looked like a pathetic 12 year old. No doubt in my mind that he doped. However, cycling as a long way to go to clean up their mess

 

[Mulli]

 

[Russ Smith]

That's as low as it gets.

I stopped believing Landis after I saw his piece on Real Sports with Bryant Gummbel. You could clearly tell that he was lying, he looked like a pathetic 12 year old. No doubt in my mind that he doped. However, cycling as a long way to go to clean up their mess

I never did believe him because I think basically everyone in cycling is doping and has been for ages.

But that's so low. He's trying to act like hey I fired the guy, I didn't make the call don't blame me but who told the manager that story, you did, so you're a despicable person.

 

[devilfan02]

He didn't even have the balls to fire him, his lawyer did. He's a disgrace

 

[Scott MS]

I don't think Landis is innocent, but I don't think anybody else is either. Cycling has been filled with doping like baseball. The riders know it, but nobody talks about it.

Do you know who finished second in the 2006 Tour de France? Oscar Periero. He's faced with his own doping scandal.

___________________


Cycling: Tour de France runner-up denies doping charge

The Associated Press
Friday, January 19, 2007

Oscar Pereiro, the Tour de France runner-up, has denied doping allegations, saying he will send French authorities documentation of his waiver to take an asthma medication during last year's race and then wait for someone to "apologize" to him.
Pereiro was responding to a report Thursday in Le Monde that Pereiro had twice tested positive for salbutamol during the race. It also said the International Cycling Union had granted him a waiver for the asthma medication and was not pursuing sanctions against him.
French anti-doping officials, however, said they were not convinced the waiver was medically justified.
"Tomorrow morning — Friday — I'll send a fax with the paperwork requested by the French anti-doping agency and then a certified letter, and once this is cleared up I'll wait for whoever needs to, to apologize to me," Pereiro said.
Pereiro, from Spain, spoke at a hastily convened news conference in the northwestern town of Vigo, accompanied by his personal allergy adviser, Dr. Luis Arenas.
"Deep down I'm calm," Pereiro said.
Pereiro could inherit the Tour title if Floyd Landis is stripped of the crown. A doping test showed that Landis had elevated ratios of testosterone to epitestosterone. If Landis's appeal fails, he could be banned from cycling for two years.
Calls to the president of the French anti-doping agency, Pierre Bordry, were not immediately returned, but he was quoted on the Web site of the French sports daily L'Équipe.
"He won't answer us, even though we've told him that he is required to do so," Bordry said of Pereiro. "It seems Pereiro has lost track of the doctor who filled out his forms. Pereiro must prove his innocence. The fact he is unwilling to do so, at this moment, is inadmissible."
Pereiro said he had been cleared by the cycling union to use Ventolin, an inhaler prescribed to ease asthma.
Arenas said Pereiro suffered from "light to moderate" asthma, a "very common illness."
"With the dose recommended in his case, and in the manner it has been prescribed to him, it's impossible that it could have given a positive reading," Arenas said. "Oscar has a sensitivity in his bronchioles which is greater than that of the average of the population, and that causes him to have to take medication if he presents symptoms that might justify it."

 

[Russ Smith]

To update, the former manager, the one who tried to blackmail LeMond, has now entered rehab(not kidding)! Landis has admitted that he was in the room with the manager when he made the calls to LeMond. And I read a story this morning that says in November on a cycling website Landis posted a very clear threat to LeMond that if he didn't stop talking about the Landis case "I will make public some very revealing information regarding him." So it's pretty clear where the manager got the idea, directly from Floyd Landis.

It sounds like they might wipe out LeMond's testimony entirely because some of it's hearsay. One of Landis' lawyers is claiming he made very similar claims regarding Lance Armstrong and then later recanted them, LeMond says he never recanted anything.

Big story in my local paper this morning about how Landis' entire plan is backfiring. He demanded the hearing be public because he thought it was going to lead to a sympathy vote for him because he mistakenly assumed people would support him they way they did Armstrong. But he's come off so poorly in the hearing that it's now backfiring to the point that the writer said at least one person involved in the case claims Landis' lawyers are considering asking they bar the public now.

Reap what you sew Floyd.

 

[slinslin]

These guys are all doping, Lance Armstrong did it as well.

The whole sport is all about doping.

 

[Scott MS]

Have you read the stories lately how several of the Telekom/T-Mobiile riders have admitted doping, including 1996 Tour winner Riis?

Cycling is going to turn into what baseball has turned into. Riis admits, as does Dietz, Zabel, and Aldag. Further, two German doctors have admitted giving drugs to the T-Mobile team.

It's only going to get worse from here.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2882380

 

[BACH]

Watched the Riis press conference. Talk about being cool.

He clearly stated that he cheated by taking drugs. It was wrong and he is embarrassed now, but he only acting within the enviroment of the sport at that moment.

While he clearly hinted that mostly everyone did it, he refused to name other riders eventhough the press pressed hard for it (mainly Ullrich, since he was Ullrich's mentor).

 

[CaptTurbo]

every winner since the early 90's has doped. SO why does Landis get special attention? PErhaps because its a french sport dominated by americans?

Never saw this much attention with non american winners.

 

[BACH]

every winner since the early 90's has doped. SO why does Landis get special attention? PErhaps because its a french sport dominated by americans?

Never saw this much attention with non american winners.

WTF???


You don't know what your taking about...

1. You live in American and therefore YOU only hear about the Americans. The Americans gets equal if not less attention in Europe.

2. Americans DO NOT dominate the sport. Lance Armstrong has won the biggest tour on the circuit 7 times in a row. Apart from that Americans haven't done much

 

[Matt L]

7 years in a row you say? If that isn't dominance, than we should look into redefining the word "dominance"

 

[BACH]

7 years in a row you say? If that isn't dominance, than we should look into redefining the word "dominance"

Yep, no doubt he dominated the tour de france. What about the 10 other major races?

If Tiger Woods only played one tournament every year, would you consider him dominating the sport?

 

[CaptTurbo]

Yep, no doubt he dominated the tour de france. What about the 10 other major races?

If Tiger Woods only played one tournament every year, would you consider him dominating the sport?

If it was the masters? Yes.

 

[BACH]

If it was the masters? Yes.

Okay, we just define that diferently then.

But my original point was, that Lance Armstrong is an American riding the Tour. So naturally that's what the American media focus on. There's MUCH more to cycling than the Tour de France and the Americans getting tested.

How much media exposure did any of the classics this spring get in the American media? Or the Vuelta? Or the Giro?

 

[Russ Smith]

every winner since the early 90's has doped. SO why does Landis get special attention? PErhaps because its a french sport dominated by americans?

Never saw this much attention with non american winners.

Because Landis is the first TDF winner in history to test positive?

 

[Russ Smith]

Have you read the stories lately how several of the Telekom/T-Mobiile riders have admitted doping, including 1996 Tour winner Riis?

Cycling is going to turn into what baseball has turned into. Riis admits, as does Dietz, Zabel, and Aldag. Further, two German doctors have admitted giving drugs to the T-Mobile team.

It's only going to get worse from here.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2882380

What i suspect is happening now is guys are coming out and admitting it before someone else "outs" them so they can control the spin on the story?

At least 3 former teammates of Lance's have now admitted it and that's just one team, it doesn't go back to his US postal team days when essentially the entire team has admitted doping except for Lance(and several teammates said he did).

 

[BACH]

What i suspect is happening now is guys are coming out and admitting it before someone else "outs" them so they can control the spin on the story?

At least 3 former teammates of Lance's have now admitted it and that's just one team, it doesn't go back to his US postal team days when essentially the entire team has admitted doping except for Lance(and several teammates said he did).

One of my best friend works for one of the premier TV-stations covering cycling.

He says that EVERY cycling journalist in the world knows that Lance Armstrong used doping. The problem with Lance was that in order to keep his testicular cancer in check, he had to get hormon/steriod treatment in the first couple of years after his cancer (otherwise the cancer could return).

Lance just kept taking them after he really had any reason to, and no journalist in the world ever had the guts to question that, because it could backfire bigtime.

And this is nothing against Lance, because he only did what EVERYONE else did.
But IMO believing that he's totally clean is very ignorant, if you just follow the sport a little bit.

And that's the problem now with Riis. Everyone saying that Riis should return his yellow jersey and the victory given to "the rightful winner" is nuts and taking a doublestand IMO. Because who is the rightful winner? No. 10? No. 20? No. 50?

 

[kps0001]

What i suspect is happening now is guys are coming out and admitting it before someone else "outs" them so they can control the spin on the story?

At least 3 former teammates of Lance's have now admitted it and that's just one team, it doesn't go back to his US postal team days when essentially the entire team has admitted doping except for Lance(and several teammates said he did).

One of my best friends was on US Postal team with Lance and was his best friend for quite a while before they had a falling out. While I can't say for sure, as I was not always around him, I would say he never doped and I believe him when he told me this. I have also had several conversations with him about Lance and other Postal Service team members and while he didn't outright say Lance doped he didn't deny it. He did tell me that not very many people on that team did, however he did give me a few names that were doping but it was far from essentially the entire team. I am not sure where you got that info.

I think Landis is guilty though.

 

[BACH]

One of my best friends was on US Postal team with Lance and was his best friend for quite a while before they had a falling out. While I can't say for sure, as I was not always around him, I would say he never doped and I believe him when he told me this. I have also had several conversations with him about Lance and other Postal Service team members and while he didn't outright say Lance doped he didn't deny it. He did tell me that not very many people on that team did, however he did give me a few names that were doping but it was far from essentially the entire team. I am not sure where you got that info.

I think Landis is guilty though.

But that the grey area I'm talking about. As a professional athlete, is it doping to take testotorone in connection with cancer treatment and continue taking it "to be on the safe side"?

 

[kps0001]

But that the grey area I'm talking about. As a professional athlete, is it doping to take testotorone in connection with cancer treatment and continue taking it "to be on the safe side"?

If the testosterone levels are within the limits of what is allowable than I don't see how it is doping in order to enhance performance. It is a grey area though and I don't know much about it. In Lance's case I believe he was taking testosterone to replace what his body was no longer able to take care of by itself. I know that when they test for certain banned substances they aren't just testing to see if they exist in your system but they are testing to see if they are over the allowable limit set forth. I don't follow the sport or Lance closely enough anymore to really comment much more. I pretty much go by what my friend has told me rather than journalists however.

 

[Russ Smith]

One of my best friends was on US Postal team with Lance and was his best friend for quite a while before they had a falling out. While I can't say for sure, as I was not always around him, I would say he never doped and I believe him when he told me this. I have also had several conversations with him about Lance and other Postal Service team members and while he didn't outright say Lance doped he didn't deny it. He did tell me that not very many people on that team did, however he did give me a few names that were doping but it was far from essentially the entire team. I am not sure where you got that info.

I think Landis is guilty though.

It was years ago now but there was a Dateline NBC or similar show where they had a group of guys who had been on that team with Lance. They were talking about a specific doctor that injected them all with shots that they at the time were not sure what was in the shot. They of course assumed it was doping and they all said the whole team got the shots, including Lance.

it was weird because at the time several members of that team had suffered from very serious health problems at an abnormally young age. And this pre-dated Lance having cancer so at the time you watched this, you didn't know that LA would get something like that too. Could be coincidence of course but it sure sounded like whatever they were doing doping wise was somehow connected to the medical issues.

 

[kps0001]

Wow, that is pretty interesting. Thanks

 

[slinslin]

These guys are all dopers, it's not even worth discussing anymore.

Ullrich, Zabel, Riis, Landis, Armstrong, Pantani etc

If anyone believed Armstrong was clean, that's ridiculous if you want to tell me a guy like Armstrong could win 7 straight Tour de France after having testicle cancer all that while competing against other top athletes that even admitted to doping?

People just don't want to believe it in Armstrongs case because they like this feel-good story.