Thursday Roundup

News
Cyclingnews' Sue George writes about last night's appearance in Arlington,VA providing information not found in the Reuters piece, noting that this may be the first in a series of "town hall" like appearances:

A silent auction and a raffle raised money for the Floyd Fairness Fund. One signed bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey went for $350 while a jersey auctioned for $700. All total, the evening raised about $5,000 to $6,000 as estimated by the evening's volunteer moderator and local cyclist Scott Scudamore.

The Guardian posts the Reuters piece from last night on Landis' FFF appearance in Arlington, VA after which Landis took questions. When asked about his upcoming arbitration hearing he stated:

"The best case scenario would be if it ended in the next few weeks, we had a hearing and it was over, and I could race the tour this year," he said.

"But I don't really see that as a possibility, 2008 is much more likely."

Eurosport publishes the same Reuters piece cited above (and in the Wednesday Roundup.) As does SI.Com and MSNBC.com.

PezCycling Eurotrash Thursday mentions the Pound/Landis war of words from earlier this week.

Blogs
FloydLandis.com has a 3 month update on the hip resurfacing, by Dr. Kay, on the 4th anniversary of the accident that broke it, retelling some of the history of the injury:

He has regained full strength, power and range of motion and is completely pain free. His one leg power tests now show that the new hip is actually stronger than the other side. With normal length restored to his femur and the elimination of his chronic pain, Floyd is riding uninhibited for the first time in nearly 4 years.

Blacknell.net has a great write up of the event in Arlington, VA last night, here is one notable (paraphrased by the blogger) quote among many (thanks for mentioning TbV!):

If he were a rider who wasn’t implicated, he’d be afraid to speak out on the doping control issue. He doesn’t think that anyone can take his side without putting himself at risk from retribution by a very closed system

PodiumCafe talks about Arlington event, and there are a few pix here.

Old School Cycling talks about Arlington; unfortunately, the good link is broken, so we'll quote:

A quick note about America’s Champion, Floyd Landis. He’s snuck himself into the Nation’s Capitol for a bakesale fundraising raid. One can only wonder how his personal hovercraft evaded the radar of D.C. journos, but lucky for Floyd his unadvertised event was a whopping $5000 success. That cover the first 60 seconds of his trial before the American arbitrators–which has yet to be scheduled. He did pawn autographed bottles of Jack Daniels, which of course will get you extra fucked up and double your VO2 max for 24 hours. Floyd has scheduled a series of unannounced visits around the country to raise money for his defense.

To Readers in the Landis Entourage: as a Communications Professional, I must say that actually telling people in the public about an event in advance will somewhat increase the amount of attendees you host, and is likely to increase the amount you raise. I can’t imagine $5000 even covers the cost of cocaine and hookers for your entourage in D.C.: HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET AHEAD?

Velo Pas Terrain drops his New Year's resolution to stop snarkin' so much on Landis, just this one last time.

Rant talks about Arlington and a forthcoming series of Town Hall meetings like it.

Forums
DPF thread on NYT article has diverged into a discussion whether and when Landis should have had reason to believe low doses of T are useful for recovery, and how that should affect interpretation of his remarks the T doping makes no sense.

Misc.
At Amazon.com you can pre-order the book,"Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France" by Floyd Landis.

Simon & Schuster are the publishers and you can pre order the book on their site as well.

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