donrhummy

Print Version: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/sp...hLD/snfZmoGuKw

Non Print Version: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/sp...tml?ref=sports

Don't want to give it away but has some very interesting comments from Landis on Lemond and that whole affair and his thoughts on Lance as well as other stuff. it's a very fair/unbiased article that doesn't pick a side but gives both points of view and some insight into Floyd and his current situation. I'd say he's a bit of a broken man right now.

Ritterview

1+ on the article.

Professional cycling would have about a hundred-fold more interest for me if Floyd was back in it.

roadwarrior

Good article...

Make a decision.

patentcad

I just don't get the Floyd doping affair. It simply doesn't add up, never has. That's underscored by the preposterous amount of stalling on the final decision on his guilt or innocence. I really think the French lab screwed the pooch hardcore on this, and there is so much compelling evidence to that effect that they're having a helluva time convicting Floyd.

Utterly baffling and disturbing.

roadwarrior

Unless you are Doc Ray...then it's clear.

stonecrd

I guess the question for me would be if you are guilty and know you are guilty would you spend $2m (if the article is accurate) on your defense. Especially when even if you win you probably will have a tough time getting to the level of making back that kind of money. I know if it was me and I was guilty I would just walk away keep my money and find something else to do. If I'm not guilty then I might be more inclined to spend the dough to get back my credibility. Of course who knows what he is thinking.

dutret

And that predisposition to give up and accept defeat is exactly why you are not a tour de france winner.

wfrogge

He will get off because the case against him is flawed. Not saying he didnt do it though....

classic1

Of course, there is the remote possiblity that Flandis was doping........

patentcad

Of course there is a possibility Floyd was doping. But it still doesn't really make sense. It's not consistent with HOW you would dope to win the Tour, and Floyd's conduct afterwards isn't particularly consistent with somebody who's guilty in my view.

classic1

You guys rationalise too much. The obvious and simple explanation is he doped. The problem was they f'ed it up.

timmhaan

i cannot believe the 2007 tour is over and done with and there has not been a decision on 2006 yet. something smells fishy.

calhoun1

Because if I was gonna dope, i would use testosterone that takes a long time to work and not something that is instantaneous.

And if it takes a long time, how come it didn't show up prior to that test? Or after? Why was it only one test that was positive? And why would it be something that is not effective as an instantaneous effect?

dutret

Yeah T definitely is never used to boost recovery in GC riders and his repeated lying and all around disgusting behaviour is obviously just an innocent man trying to come to terms with being framed by those dastardly french.

Hamilton was innocent too right? I mean blood doping is simply unheard of and he said he was, didn't back down and even provided a far fetched explanation.

patentcad

It is this particular brand of insightful analysis that brings me back to BF time and again. F Sam Abt and the NYTimes.

patentcad

I made no observation on Tyler's case, just Floyd's. And I never said Floyd is clearly innocent. I said the case against him is bizarre on a number of counts. I'll repeat my earlier statement (since repetition is the mother of comprehension, sometimes even on BF) that the case is utterly baffling and disturbing. And part of that 'disturbing' is that Floyd may indeed be guilty. But I do confess to having a hard time condenming him based on what I've seen so far.

Snicklefritz

+100

Especially when they say they are going to make an announcement and then nothing happens. Then they make another announcement and so on ad nauseum

Snicklefritz

Maybe he had a blood transfusion (from stored bags of his own stuff) that wasn't properly "scrubbed" of anything he might have been taking when the blood was drawn.

stonecrd

I think if you are guilty it is more about accepting reality. In any event there are many more reasons than that for me not be wining the TdF.

roadgator

Exhibit A: Tyler Hamilton. Mounting a defense has no connection to actual guilt or innocence. Flip this argument around and they could be mounting a defense to either present an innocent image or hope to get off on a technicality, when they know they did dope.

CyLowe97

Floyd told his mother he is innocent.

Isn't that good enough for you people??

DocRay

It's clear for several reasons, the facts and the science. Facts are he lied, repeatedly.
Science is fine, there was some messy book keeping, but no more messy than a typical lab, and the ultimate test of any lab is the reproducibility outside that lab. 11:1 was reproduced outside, with FL observers.

Many people will learn and hopefully change some procedures about reporting and testing, but those are secondary to the heart of the matter: he juiced.

It's hard to remain objective when you read places like this forum (and ONLY this forum), where only one point of view is ever discussed, and misinformation from the Landis camp is discussed.

Proof of this: the positive result for steroids by Vinokourov. When Landis was positive, there were hundreds of opinions of why it was not possible because steroids were not beneficial. Yet, Vinokourov gets the same result, and he's guilty. No discussion.
" two much blood in my thighs" was stupid, but "two shots, four beers" was not.

A year later, OP and more testing, and it is now painfully obvious that the GC top ten all doped, and doping is a part of this sport at the pro levels -proven not just by WADA, but by independent investigations in Italy and Spain. ALL of the deniers have been proven to have lied, and many have just stepped up and admitted they lied. Look what it took for people to finally believe Hamilton was a doper.

We've heard sworn court testimony of the US Postal doping program, we've seen the fact that riders are slowing down, we've seen Discovery embrace Basso. Now, in an ultra-clean era when the doping gets tough, the tough got going (bye Armstrong and Bruyneel).

Thus, in the last 14 months, Landis supporters have gone from faithful (where 'faith' means just shut up and believe it), to gullible ($250K raised on his website) to now just plain stupid.

Vinokourov's problem? He's not American.

...and Barry Bonds gets the awards heaped on him.

Some people know what time it is, even if its the time they don't want to hear.

Bacciagalupe

*If* he did in fact dope: then he would have 2 choices with 3 outcomes:

1) Plead guilty, get humiliated, lose Tour winnings, career over, likely no way to earn money from cycling-related activities ever again.
2) Contest the findings, lose the case, be in the same state as 1)
3) Contest the findings, win the case, try to get back on a team and possibly even ride TdF in 08

Since he almost certainly did not realize how much the defense was going to cost when he started, and is obviously (regardless of his innocence or guilt) rather bull-headed, I'm sure that even if he was guilty, he felt he had nothing to lose and a tremendous amount to gain by contesting the findings.


The isotope tests that were run later (spring 2007 iirc) allegedly indicate that he was using T on several days of the tour. They don't normally run the isotope tests on "A" samples, because it's rather expensive compared to just checking your T/E ratio. They only ran it because he failed a test.

Also, *if* he was using T it's not like he could stop right before, or during, the tour. It is my understanding that if you stop using T, you crash pretty hard. (When you are using synthetic testosterone, your body stops producing it naturally, so when you withdraw the synth your body basically has no T.)

Believe it or not, it really does make a lot of sense for a rider in his 30s to take T (and other PED's) in order to perform better during a grand tour, since you can recover at a super-human level. And if you manipulate the T/E ratio properly, chances are you may not get caught....

CyLowe97

What wrong with coming clean (no pun intended)?

We all crab and moan what a bunch of liars they all are when they deny, but then people crab and moan the same when David Millar get back on a team after he does his two years without dragging it all out like Hamilton did.

Yeah, people can still suspect Millar all they want, but admitting guilt should be step one in reacceptance into the fold. Trust? That comes much much later.

There is forgiveness out there, but perhaps not a podium spot in a UCI event.

donrhummy

Actually, if you look at the lab's numbers, they didn't reproduce the 11:1 ratio even on the same sample. When they tested his sample the first time, they did two tests (this is normal) and got the following results:

Test 1: 61.37 T, 5.2 Epi
Test 2: 172.23 T, 17.59 Epi

By their own rules, that large of an error margin meant the tests were invalid and likely there was contamination or miscalibration of the equipment. Even in high school science class, if you'd gotten such widely varied results, you'd know you did something wrong.

WOW, that's wrong. Vino never tested positive for steroids! He tested positive for using someone else's blood. Jeez, please don't draw conclusions on events for which you've not even gotten the facts.