Lance Armstrong doped (update 2013 - lose ? add !)

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Floyd Landis was the rider who was chucked out of the Tour de France a few years ago on allegations of doping.
It's hardly surprising that tests came back positive - on one day he lost over ten minutes on a mountain stage and looked a broken man...On the next he stormed to the front, eyes bulging, and rode off into the distance to win the stage by a ridiculous margin.

Anyway he's always proclaimed his innocence - cycling knows that it has doping problems and always gives a 2 year ban. Sometimes a rider (like David Millar) accepts it, apologises, talks about their mistakes and then comes back as a changed man and respected member of the sport. Some (like Basso and Vinokourov) do their time and come back clean and that's fine. Some (like Ricco) never apologise and are generally disliked afterwards. Some (like Ullrich) just vanish off the stage forever...
....and there are some like Valverde who gets a partial ban in Italy but somehow continues to cycle around the rest of the world events, winning races despite his implication in the Puerto scandal and that's frankly apalling and most people are up in arms about it.

Floyd Landis protested his innocence, like many others, and has done for four years. Now he's decided to release a letter written at the time which implicates some HUGE names from his time at US Postal team - those names being team manager Johan Bruynee, David Zabriskie, Levi Leipheimer...and "squeaky clean" Lance Armstrong. He even says that the team paid of the UCI to ignore an Armstrong failed test.
These are of course HUGELY suspect claims from a man who is, no doubt, bitter and who has just changed his mind on his position (from declaring innocence to admitting a LOT of drug use).
However there are race results to back it up and there has always been a lot of fog surrounding Armstrong's cleanliness. US Postal at that time were a really strong team, crazily so, and Armstrong was at the peak of his power.


Personally, I think these claims may hold a small amount of truth. Landis has nothing to lose now and will have perceived that he's had no support at all from his former teammates who have deserted him and distanced themselves from him. However if these claims ARE true, then it's the biggest news in the history of cycling, and probably the best news ever for French cycling fans.

[EddieG]

Hasn't it already been proven before that Armstrong used doping?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Actually no, strangely enough.

[Adam]

I hope it isn't true, I've always liked Zabriskie, Leipheimer and Armstrong, but obviously like you say Landis has absolutely nothing to lose anymore, so there could be some truth in it.

Not the best time for all this, halfway through the Giro and the Tour de France is coming up soon.

[Blaze09]

I just can't believe someone who has lied for so long and has no documents to support it...I just can't

[GhostMachine]

I just can't believe someone who has lied for so long and has no documents to support it...I just can't

Yep. Landis should have little, if any, credibility. And if he has no definite proof to back up his claims, Armstrong should sue the hell out of him for slander.

Edited May 20, 2010 by GhostMachine

[Colossus]

If that is true, there will be riots in the streets fo France...

[Crybaby Bunting]

I think he might be onto something, and if he has evidence it would make a load of sense.

But maybe it's just because the Lance Armstrong fairytale seems too good to be true that I'm starting to doubt him :/

[sahyder1]

I just can't believe someone who has lied for so long and has no documents to support it...I just can't

Meet Jose Canseco. He did the exact same thing with baseball. Lied about his own usage for a long time but pretty much everything he has written in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060746416?ie=UTF8&tag=twatm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060746416">Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=twatm-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060746416" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416593519?ie=UTF8&tag=twatm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416593519">Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=twatm-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1416593519" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> has been true.

[Meacon Keaton]

Lance responds. Says he has nothing to hide.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=5204726

[JStarr]

I still find it odd that in a sport teeming with cheaters, one of the (apparently) few clean guys spent 7 years beating the hell out of the cheaters, especially after cancer therapy.

If I'm one of the doping teams, I'm trying to find a new connection after a year or two. "All the money we're paying you, and you can't get us stuff that'll beat a cancer patient? Fuck off."

[DMN in the House]

I hope its not true, but it wouldn't surprise me. Cycling is a dirty sport, and has been for quite some time.

Although, to be fair to cycling, it wouldn't surprise me if ANY athlete in ANY sport, outside of Ken Griffey Jr., was dirty, so...

[Meacon Keaton]

If Griffey ever admits to doing HGH or something, I will have lost all faith in humanity.

[Blaze09]

If Griffey ever admits to doing HGH or something, I will have lost all faith in humanity.

add Pujols to the list for me and that really sums it up.

[sahyder1]

If Griffey ever admits to doing HGH or something, I will have lost all faith in humanity.

add Pujols to the list for me and that really sums it up.

But there's always been steroids talk around Pujols. There hasn't been any talk regarding Griffey as far as I can recall. Griffey has been a legitimately good guy. Took significantly less money to go home and play in Cincy when he could have opened up a ridiculous bidding war.

[Blaze09]

If Griffey ever admits to doing HGH or something, I will have lost all faith in humanity.

add Pujols to the list for me and that really sums it up.

But there's always been steroids talk around Pujols.

Say what....I haven't ever heard anything about Pujols and PEDs

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Armstrong crashed in the Tour of California today after answering loads of questions before the stage about doping allegations. He quit the race "fearing" a broken elbow which came back negative.

He hasn't racing to win in California (it's too early in the season for him to be on top form) so I wouldn't be surprised if he'd just taken the first opportunity to drop out and avoid being in the public eye for a few days while things progress.

Landis also implicates big George Hincapie who is approaching Griffey territory for me.

Basically if any of Cavendish, Wiggins, Cunego, Cancellara, Jens Voigt, Frank Schleck or Andy Schleck are doping then my faith in sport is destroyed.

I'd say that many other sports have as many drug problems as cycling, it's just that cycling has proper drug testing in place and it's heavily scrutinised. Athletics is the other sport with loads of drug testing and lots of athletes are caught too.

[sahyder1]

If Griffey ever admits to doing HGH or something, I will have lost all faith in humanity.

add Pujols to the list for me and that really sums it up.

But there's always been steroids talk around Pujols.

Say what....I haven't ever heard anything about Pujols and PEDs

There has been plenty of stuff on him. I'm sure if you Google it you will find it. Especially around the time the Mitchell Report came out. A TV station in St.Louis actually reported that Pujols was going to be part of of the Mitchell Report. When his name didn't pop up on that list it led a lot of people to speculate whether he was on "the list of 103" and whoever was leaking stuff to the media had screwed up between the two lists. That's just one big one that popped up in my head. There have been more.

[livid]

That's actually been the only one I've heard about.

People have speculated about it since he's so good but that incident regarding the Mitchell Report (which was actually by a New York station, not St. Louis) has been the only thing that hasn't been just pure speculation. And that speculation only arises because most sports fans are jaded at this point because of the players before him (who could blame them really?) and just don't trust any major leaguer that puts up great stats.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

A very interesting report from CyclingNews.com

McQuaid defends UCI's position

Irish journalist Paul Kimmage has described Floyd Landis’s allegations of widespread doping at the US Postal team as an issue that “that will decide the future of the sport”. Speaking on Irish radio sports programme Off the Ball, Kimmage said of Landis’s allegations as “He’s not saying, ‘I doped to win the Tour de France.’ Or at least he’s not just saying that. He’s pointing his finger pretty much everywhere. The picture he paints is pretty bleak to say the least.”

Kimmage added: “For me the most damaging element of it is the relationship between Armstrong and the governing body, and the allegation that Armstrong tested positive in 01 or 02 and went to the UCI, to UCI president Hein Verbruggen, and gave him some money to cover it up. That is the most devastating revelation of all because the relationship between Armstrong and the governing body is something that we’ve had reservations about.

“It’s been no surprise that Pat McQuaid, the now president of the UCI has come out and rubbished it as he’s done in the time-honoured tradition of the UCI, depicting Landis as someone with a grudge, which is exactly what he said about me, and someone who’s got no love for the sport.”

Kimmage then suggested that Armstrong’s participation at this year’s Tour de France must now be in doubt. “The allegations are so grave that Armstrong is going to have trouble with this… I really cannot see him going to the Tour de France. My understanding is that there is now a federal investigation under way, and you don’t mess with those people. I think this could be the end of him, to be honest.”

Kimmage did offer praise for the UCI’s recent efforts in fighting doping, but argued they must look more closely at Armstrong’s past performances. “As much as they’ve tried to clean up the sport over the last three years, I’ve always been particularly uncomfortable with the way they’ve treated Armstrong. I don’t know of any other sport where an athlete would say, ‘Here’s a few quid, now look after that.’ They needed to take one further step and that was to investigate Lance Armstrong’s performances since 1998 and they have never done that.”

Asked what he hoped what happen now given that Landis has already said that he cannot prove a lot of what he is saying, Kimmage responded: “How it moves forward now is that Floyd has named a number of witnesses to what he saw. What needs to happen now is for those people to corroborate what Landis has said. That will take a lot of courage and I don’t know if there is that much courage out there in terms of tackling Lance Armstrong.

“If you look at US Postal and look at the number of riders who tested positive after they left that team… What Landis is saying is not coming in isolation… We need people to stand up and be counted and say, ‘Yes, I was there, what Landis says is true.’

“It brings into question Armstrong’s attitude with regard to dopers. I had a go at Armstrong at California a year ago and I mentioned Floyd Landis to him and how pleased that he seemed to be that the sport was allowing cheats like Landis and Ivan Basso back in with open arms. Armstrong’s attitude to dopers has always been a very curious thing to me. While some people might want to believe him, when you examine how he has treated some people who have stood up about doping, then you’ve got to wonder, ‘This doesn’t stand up. This is not normal.’”

UCI president Pat McQuaid had been listening to Kimmage’s comments and was then given the chance to respond. “Let me say it was the UCI who caught Floyd Landis,” he pointed out straight off, adding: “I’m going to tell you something now because I’ve never said this before publicly. I did something that was very unorthodox. Four days after his positive test, I picked up the phone and I called Floyd Landis and spoke to him about it. I said to him, ‘Floyd, please, come clean, do not go into the usual train of denial, denial, denial.’ He refused to listen to that.

“The UCI, WADA, the USADA spent a lot of money prosecuting Floyd Landis and all the time he was living a lie. Now he comes out with this statement and we’re supposed to act accordingly.”

Asked what he thought Landis’s agenda might be, the UCI president said: “I don’t know what his agenda is. To go back to the allegation that Paul Kimmage pointed up as the most important allegation that Lance Armstrong paid the UCI to cover up a positive doping test. That is absolutely, completely untrue.”

After pointing out that Armstrong did not ride the 2002 Tour of Switzerland, as had been suggested, McQuaid responded to the alleged cover-up of a positive test by saying: “The results of any tests that came out of the Tour of Switzerland in 2001 would have been sent to the international ruling body, which is the UCI, and the International Olympic Committee, so the IOC would have been aware of any positive tests on the Tour of Switzerland in 2001. There’s no way the UCI could have covered up something like that. It’s a complete fabrication.”

He did acknowledge that the UCI had received money from Armstrong. “The UCI received $100,000 from Lance Armstrong in 2005, four years after this incident was supposed to have taken place.” McQuaid then explained: “The UCI would accept donations from anyone who’s prepared to give. We’re a non-profit-making organisation so we’re prepared to accept money from anyone who’s prepared to assist us in developing the sport.”

He also insisted that the UCI will take action if an USADA investigation into Landis’s allegations suggested other riders had cheated. “If they can come up with enough proof from these allegations against any of the riders involved, the UCI will support them 100 per cent in going forwards with that process. But even Floyd Landis has said that he has no proof to back up the statements he’s made.

McQuaid concluded by saying: “Floyd should have met with USADA directly and I was involved in trying to get him to do that. But instead he’s gone to the media. I know one thing that could be playing a role in this. He wanted to ride the Tour of California, but the organisers wouldn’t take him into the race. He tried to blackmail the organisers of the Tour of California and if they didn’t take him in he was going to come loose with a big story, and this is exactly what he’s done.”