Wednesday Roundup

News
The Toronto Globeandmail.com reports that the CBC "National" ( the nightly nation wide news program in Canada) will do an extensive 22 minute piece on doping in cycling to be aired tonight. While the majority of the report focuses on Lance Armstrong, featuring exclusive interviews with Frankie Andreu and his wife, there is also an interview with Floyd Landis. Here is the National's web page, they provide video of past reports so this may be viewable later this eveing. Also mentioned in PedalMag, "Canada's cycling magazine".

CBC has some of it online, including what seems to be an extensive transcript of a November interview with Landis that is very good -- perhaps the best rundown he's made. READ IT. Also, sidebar about the Vaughters/Andreu instant message.

In comment below, ORG writes of the show:

The National's segment on doping and cycling is now available [here] Along the right is a link for the show. It runs 23 minutes. The first half is about Landis, the second half is about Armstrong. A seperate link has six minutes of Landis interview comments. I watched both. My intital comment is mainly about Dick Pound. I just about fell off my chair when he said 1) "I was speechless when I heard Floyd tested positive" (when has Pound every been speechless during waking hours?) and 2) "I have never accused Armstrong of doping" Either the producers of this show did not do their homework or they decided to present the lone Canadian in a positive light. Frankia Andreu is also interviewed at length. In the first part he expressed shock at Landis positive tests. He said at first he did not believe it. In the second half, he was somewhat more critical of Armstrong. Lots of deposition footage is shown in the second half. The show left the viewer with no real conclusion about Landis. But it definetely left the viewer with the conclusion that cycling is dirty and guily by association is the way most people are going to leave this show (in my opinion). Finally, I thought Floyd came off really well in his comments. Appeared reasonable, well-spoken and had good answers for difficult questions.

VeloNews mail today is 2:0 with one abstention in favor of Landis' selection as North American Cyclist of the Year.

LancasterOnline.com talks about hope springing eternal, or not (and still gets the PED wrong!):

When 2006 ended Landis was still trying to clear his name after being stripped of the Tour de France title following a failed steroids test.

Blogs
Dugard is back from vacation, notes Lance's problem with Leadville, and smells poultry.

The NashvilleCyclist.com's Daily Dose comments on yesterday's FL interview with Cathy Mehl of the Daily Peloton, noting that posting on internet forums might not be adviseable.

Rant reviews his year of blogging (mostly about Landis).

Mccouture notes Landis as the second best loser of the year, after Zidane.

Digg observes some law students at Wake Forest trying to see if a wiki can produce good legal analysis, triggered by Landis' "wiki defense" idea.

Sport and Eroticism (french, of course), talks about Landis, kind of. Even translated I can't tell what it's about, but with a blog name like that, I had to make the link.

Forums
At rec.bicycles.racing, either in imposter stole the identity, or a momentary lapse of normal personality struck the poster known as "MagillaGorilla", usually a doping/Landis basher of the most entertaining sort. He seems to have written:

Actually, since the Landaluze case, I'm thinking Landis actually got a decent chance of beating this rap. Much better than if the Landaluze case wasn't overturned - that was also for a T:E test from the LNDD, you know. It's almost as if the CAS wanted to send a shot across the bow of the Frnech lab in preparation for geting the Landis appeal (regarldess of who wins in the Denver hearing next month, the Swiss CAS will definitely hear the Landis appeal). You gotta wonder how much of the Landaluze decision was due to Landis publishing all the errors and mistakes on his test on the Internet. Did the CAS arbitrators read that and just get pissed off and decide to send an early message to WADA?

Landis's defense is lookin' good right now. If Amish boy wins his case, he's gonna do Larry King and give some cool quotes about Pound and McQualude. And then iShares will come back into the game and Landis can go apeshit in the Tour again with his bionic hip, and continue the tradition of American Tour champions who have come back from the dead to win that race.

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