French Press: Late night in Paris, Thursday-Friday

This is all in the realm of "footnotes to history," since readers of TbV know far more about today's testimony than appears in any published story, especially any overseas story. But if you're interested in how the French press (nothing in the Italian yet) are covering today's hearing, the first European source to file on the LeMond testimony was Agence France Presse, appearing in FranceInfo and TF1:

Greg LeMond says he was threatened before testifying

Former American cyclist Greg LeMond stated Thursday that he had been threatened by the "Landis clan" Wednesday evening on the eve of his testimony in the trial of his compatriot, Floyd Landis, accused of doping during his victorious 2006 Tour de France

LeMond, triple victor of the Grande Boucle, explained that he received an anonymous telephone call Wednesday evening.

"He (the caller) said, 'It's your uncle' . . . I only have one uncle whom I haven't seen in 20 years. I then said, 'You want to stop that right now, it's irritating,' " LeMond began. The caller then added, "I will be there tomorrow [Thursday] and we will talk about the way you used to hide your 'dick,' " continued LeMond, who had revealed a few minutes earier that he had been "sexually abused" in his youth.

"I understood right away that this was a matter of intimidation," LeMond explained. He immediately filed a complaint with the police, after having obtained the number of the telephone making the call.

After having called some people close to Landis, LeMond revealed that the phone from which the call had come belonged to Will Geoghegan, one of Landis' friends and representatives, who was present at this hearing.

Several minutes after this revelation, the president of the hearing, Canadian Patrice Brunet, called for the suspension of the session.

When Landis' positive drug test was announced in August, Greg LeMond, winner of the Tour in 1986, 1989 and 1990, stated he was "blown away."

"Floyd (Landis) isn't a bad guy. He is the victim of a corrupt sport. I would have liked to believe that Floyd wasn't one of those, that he was clean. I hope now that he will have the courage to face up to this and tell the truth," LeMond commented at the time.

Then, apart from getting wrong whose witness Greg LeMond was, l'Equipe filed this story incorporating some more details of the testimony:

LeMond was threatened

What is the Landis defense's game? After they had called Greg LeMond to the witness stand Thursday in Malibu, LeMond created a sensation by revealing that he had been the victim of intimidation on the part of the Landis clan Wednesday, on the eve of his testimony.

"I am your uncle”

LeMond, triple victor of the Grande Boucle, explained Thursday during the third day of the Floyd Landis hearings (Landis tested positive for testosterone after the 17th stage of his victorious Tour) that he received an anonymous telephone from someone claiming to be his uncle. "I only have one uncle whom I haven't seen in 20 years. I then said, 'You want to stop that right now, it's irritating,' " the former racer explained. The caller told him that he would be there at the hearing, and that this would be the occasion "to talk about the way we used to hide your dick." That phrase rang a bell with LeMond insofar as--in a telephone conversation with Landis last August 6--he had shared with him a very personal story (one of sexual abuse, in fact) in order to show him how heavy a weight it was to keep a secret. "I said to him then [note from translator: that is, during the Aug. 6 call]," Greg LeMond continued, "that I don't know if you have taken prohibited substances or not, but if you have, you could be the person to save our sport. I said to him that I encouraged him to come clean. His response was: what good would that do?" Greg LeMond then indicated that he had traced the calling telephone's number and filed a complaint with the police. The [phone] from which the call was made was none other, according to him, than that of Will Geoghegan, one of Landis' friends and representatives, who was present during this hearing. This revelation led to the suspension of the session.