Wednesday Roundup

News
Reuters via News24 reports on the event in DC/Arlington VA:

"I'm sure this will get resolved in the right way."

The money collected during the tour will be used by Landis's defence team. Auctions were held for signed posters, signed jerseys and even a signed bottle of whisky.

Cyclingpost.com finally catches up with the Pound vs Landis dust up, as does the Jamaica Gleaner News with a reprint of the Reuters piece from yesterday.

VeloNews letter wonders about Mr. Pound.

Blogs
Cyclocosm has many of the same question that others have posed about the idiocy of Mr. Pound and Mr McQuaid.

Dugard thinks Landis is learning his PR lessons, witnessed by the pick-up of his reaction to Mr. Pound's "virgin" comment.

Rant riffs on Landis' response, Lawyers, guns and money, and thinks Mr. Pound should go on the Colbert Report to demonstrate "factiness"; In a later post, he considers Baker's fairness suggestions at the FFF (sumarized here), and thinks them good. He's especially enlightened by Baker's observation that the athlete can be placed under multiple jeopardy.

VeloChimp demurely offers that McQuaid is an idiot and should resign.

The Spokesmen podcast produces a nice collection of bloggers and topics, among them the Landis/Pound controversy of the past few days.

Notorious Byronious feels Landis may have been a victim of contempt prior to the investigation.

The Standard of China summarizes the Landis/Pound controvery with the headline: "Tainted idol angered by `defamatory' comments" Dugard should call up Mark Burnett and pitch a new adventure/reality show, "Tainted Idol." Send royalty checks here, please.

Sportspod notes that Landis is annoyed with Mr. Pound of WADA.

A Bloke thinks Mr. Pound got it very wrong:

floyd llandis has every right to be outraged. it’s obvious dick pound knows absolutely nothing about motorcycles. if he did, he’d have said llandis was on a ducati.

Llawdy, he isn't sure if a Ha-Harley can get up a h-hill.

Gwadzilla wonders if we will ever really know the "truth" and does so in a style that is almost lyric poetry.
He notes the DC event, hopes he is innocent, thinks he might be guilty, and is going to keep his hand out of his wallet. It's TBV's guess that the vast majority of people have similar inclinations -- those who are informed enough to really think GUILTY! or INNOCENT! are in small in number, really, and those who are inclined to pony up a subset of those. Probably a lot of folks who think he is guilty want him to be innocent but are sour enough on the sport to think it unlikely.

Sportacular picks up The Solution to doping which we mentioned before, but which seems not to have found traction: Hypnosis. You will not dope. You will not dope. You will not dope.

Three O'clock in the Morning pumps you up with some rather radical conspiracy theories. On reading the NYT Magazine article, he comes out all in favor of genetic doping:

The technology will eventually be used to create a race of super soldiers, kind of like Kurt Russel in that movie Soldier.

Which is really okay. I mean, we're going to need somebody to fight the machines when the great robot revolution begins.

Let's get this straight: on one hand we have WADA, on the side of the robots in their revolution, and on the other, we have the dopers who will build the Ubermen that will save us from the robots (before putting everyone else under their benevolent rule). That's all clear, right everybody?

Remember, there are only two sides, so choose wisely.

[end]

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More Lawyers for Landis

Email from Michael Henson

LANDIS RETAINS ADDITIONAL COUNSEL

Tour de France Champion Hires Maurice Suh, Former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

[more]

New York, January 9, 2007 ­ 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis has retained Maurice Suh, partner at the law-firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (Gibson Dunn) in Los Angeles, as legal counsel in his case to fight unsubstantiated doping allegations following his victory in the 2006 Tour de France. Mr. Suh was retained last December and joins Howard Jacobs in representing Landis.

Mr. Suh¹s expertise in complex litigation proceedings and experience in prosecuting public corruption and official misconduct cases against federal and state law enforcement officials allows him to bring significant prosecutorial strength to the complexities of a multi-jurisdictional case in which the various anti-doping organizations and sports federations have acted with gross misconduct, denying Landis the basic right to due process while violating their own charters and rules.

Mr. Suh is a member of Gibson Dunn¹s Litigation Department and its Business Crimes and Investigations and Crisis Management Practice Groups. He focuses his practice on complex business litigation and the representation of clients in conjunction with governmental compliance and enforcement actions.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn in October 2006, Mr. Suh served as Deputy Mayor of Homeland Security and Public Safety for the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In that capacity, Mr. Suh had oversight over all homeland security and public safety issues for the Cityof Los Angeles, including the Port of Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports. In addition, Mr. Suh has served as a Deputy Chief of the Public Corruption and Government Fraud Section of the United States Attorney¹s Office of the Central District of California. While there, he prosecuted and supervised a number of public corruption and official misconduct cases against federal and state law enforcement officials, as well as a wide variety of fraud and environmental crimes cases.

For more information on Floyd¹s case, please visit www.floydfairnessfund.org.

About the Floyd Fairness Fund:

The Floyd Fairness Fund was established to support Floyd Landis against unsubstantiated doping allegations, provide the means to attain fairness for Floyd and bring justice to those responsible for misconduct in this case.
[end]

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Quotations from Chairman Pound

Maclean's collects a batch of 'em under the title, "A Pound of Foolishness?"
Reference for the tykes. A Tip o' the hat to Kitty on Wheels at DPF for the link.
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Tuesday Roundup

Lyric of the Day

I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan

- Warren Zevon

News
Landis gets more legal help. Guess that's where the FFF money is going. This apparently happened in December, being announced now. The timing would also explain why the FFF was created when it was. Here's a older video profile of Maurice Suh when he was with city hall.

Landis' shot back at Mr. Pound is all over the place, mostly wire stories reprinted.

FoxSports has the best headline of the day; Eurosport notes that Landis blasts Pound, BBC Sport notes how angry Landis is at the lastest Pound remarks. CNNInternational publishes the Reuters, The San Diego Union Tribune. There's a least a couple of dozen of 'em. We won't pick up more unless there's something novel in them. A comment to this post observes that many of the articles omit the 'violating virgins' quote, making Landis' reaction seem less justified. MSNBC gets in on the fun as well.

USA Today Sport Scope discusses Pound and Landis, and gives TBV a plug.

Vancouver Sun has an article titled, "Free Floyd, send cash", but you need a subscription to read it.

CyclingNews poll rates the Tour as the #1 event; of the top 10 shown, Landis won 4, which CN doesn't mention.

PodCasts
The FredCast 50th anniversary show talks about Mr. Pound, Landis's reaction, and the FFF.

Blogs
Rant looks at AAF rates and sanctions vs Mr. Pound's hyperbole, and comes up scratching his head the same way we did way back when.

Velochimp has problems not only with the things Dick Pound has to say, but also with Pat McQuaid's statements, and thinks Mr McQuaid should just give it up.

UltraRob askes the race promoter of the Leadville 100 whether Landis could race there this summer if he loses the case, and is suspended. His answer is highly entertaining:

I asked if he was concerned that NORBA wouldn't allow Landis to compete. Wrong question. I mean, really wrong question. I found out that Ken "doesn't give a flyin' f**k what NORBA thinks, it's his d**n race and if Landis wants to ride, he's in." (I guess the lottery thing isn't 100% for everybody huh?) Then, and I quote, "And one more thing. If NORBA's supposed to be connected with USA cycling, then why the hell wasn't the people in charge of USA cycling standing by a USA cyclist who was being framed by the f****n' French? Bunch of pissant p**sies."

Then he got warmed up, and it goes on...

CyclingLogue notices that Dick Pound has once again lashed out at Landis:

Whatever you might think about the whole Landis affair, one would hope that the guy in charge of policing the riders would show a wee bit of professionalism around the whole thing.

Cycling Commentary's TDarling notes that Landis is "pissed at Pound", finally looks at the slide show, and thinks maybe Landis has a case.

Tom Skinner will NOT be a contributor to the FFF.

French La Flamme Rouge says (translated by Marc),

4 - Probably convinced by Tyler Hamilton’s experiment, Floyd Landis gets twice as smart. He has created a foundation modestly called the Floyd Fairness Fund whose goal is to collect small change to help him prove his innocence.

Are you going to strike the blow, or should I take care of it? It is strictly forbidden to donate to the Landis fund--never mind the tax credit--if you participate in the Red Flame.

5 - More pleasant to our ears, recent remarks from Dick Pound, who has not lost anything of his liveliness: [quotations in English]: "He" (editor's note [that is, Red Flame's note]: Floyd Landis) "was 11 minutes behind or something, and all of the sudden there’s this Herculean effort, where he’s going up mountains like he’s on a goddamn Harley."

The best:

[Quotations in English] "I mean, it was 11 to 1!" (editor's note [that is, Red Flame's note]: he is speaking about the ratio of testosterone-épitestostérone found in Landis' urine) "You’d think he’d be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?"

Do you need a translation? It is, in any case, some great Pound!

Racejunkie thought it was a slow news day, until he saw the Landis response to the Pound statements of Sunday:

Dick Pound, who joyously convicted Landis in a neat one-man guillotine routine in the pages of the rather oft-read Sunday New York Times magazine, completely ignoring the tactical contributions of the peloton on Landis' stage to Morzine for a cycling-ignorant public, and further managing to tar him as a presumptively pervy ball o' raging man-stud illicit hormones, claiming that with his testosterone levels, "you'd think he'd be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle." Floyd, if your !@#$%^ legal team can't get your case tossed over this crap, or at the very least a huge defamatory chunk o' change gouged out of this guy, I swear you'd be better off hiring the last moron to prevail without even a lawyer on "Judge Judy." Landis' camp, of course, has at least managed to smack back that his testosterone level was fine, his epi was low, and that boy does this look biased. A good start, to be sure, but for my money, until you've made him hire a $450 an hour attorney, you haven't made him cry. Pick it up Floyd!

Forums
At the Bicyling Magazine Forums, "Super Dave" supports Mr. Pound and claims to have found a reference to "Roid Floyd" pre-dating 27-July, so far unsubstantiated. The earliest Google hit I find is one calling him "No Roid Floyd", on 20-July -- after S17.

[end]

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Landis Letter on Two Pound Articles

Email from Michael Henson

Floyd Landis Responds to Dick Pound Comments in New York Times and Wired Magazines

New York / Murietta, Ca., January 8, 2007 ­ Dick Pound¹s recent defamatory and absurd public comments ­ in the midst of a process where the highest ethical standards should support a fair and just outcome ­ highlight the dramatic and systemic problems with global anti-doping enforcement and adjudication. The ³leader² of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) continually makes public comments that by any standard are inappropriate, clearly false and are truly bizarre attempts to obfuscate the truth. This chronic behavior by the head of WADA highlights a key reason for the type of disregard for basic standards of practice that encourages scientific misconduct at the Labaratoire National Depistage de Dopage (LNDD), which is accredited by WADA.

Floyd Landis commented, ³Mr. Pound¹s published reference to the testosterone in my system proves he has not even bothered to review the facts regarding the unsubstantiated allegations against me. My testosterone levels were tested as normal following Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France and this fact is clear to anyone who cares to review the lab data [link]. Absolute testosterone levels are not even part of the allegations. The LNDD tested a clearly contaminated sample of my urine (against WADA rules), and even then my testosterone levels fell into the normal to low range.²

Landis added, ³Mr. Pound should conduct himself in a manner consistent with the seriousness of the unsubstantiated allegations against me and the damage they have caused to a great number of people. My livelihood and family have already been unfairly and severely damaged, the Tour de France has been unnecessarily tainted by an incompetent WADA lab, and cyclists, fans and sponsors alike have been hurt by the LNDD and anti-doping agencies that routinely ignore their own rules without regard for fairness or ethics.²

For full text of the New York Times Magazine profile of Dick Pound, please visit [NYT]. To read the Wired article please visit [WIRED].


[end]

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Monday Roundup

Coy Site Note
While checking out the Fat Cyclist story below, we note there the is a deadline on Jan 10 for "Bloggy" award nominations. Not that we care or would suggest anything tacky to our discerning readership. The correct category would be "sports", and we haven't a chance.

News
CyclingNews Readers vote Stage 17/Morzine the #1 cycling moment of the year, CN bizarrely tries to spin it as about doping, clearly disappointed in the result.

Cyclingnews publishes the Pound comments from yesterday's The NYT Magazine in a feature story along with the Landis response under the headline: "Pound casts doubt on Landis; Tour winner hits back":

Applauded by some for his directness, criticised by others for blasting athletes prior to an official guilty judgement, Dick Pound furthered his outspoken and controversial reputation over the weekend. The WADA chairman was quoted extensively in a large feature in the New York Times, and has caused waves with a sceptical - and somewhat unusual - assessment of Floyd Landis's Tour de France ride.

It takes the axe-grinding CyclingNews to spin the start of the story as "Pound casts doubt on Landis", and make the tease part of the article about Mr Pound's comments, with no balance, and relegating the heart of the response to the click-through. No other media outlet has framed the story this way. We have two examples of CN's bias today -- the way they wrote their "cycling moment of the year" poll story, and the way they presented this story.

AFP via ChannelNewsAsia reports a Landis letter in response to the Wired NYT Magazine articles featuring examples of Mr. Pound's loose lips.

"Dick Pound's recent defamatory and absurd public comments - in the midst of a process where the highest ethical standards should support a fair and just outcome - highlight the dramatic and systematic problems with global anti-doping enforcement and adjudication", said Landis

German radio (auf Deutsch, audio) interviews Landis spokesman Henson. If anyone listens and can provide a summary of anything interesting, that would be appreciated.

Time reprints a kinda related cartoon.

Blogs
VeloChimp observes that Mr. Pound is NOT a diplomat, and that his comments are, "surreal."

Triple Crankset says he will pony up for the FFF on Wednesday night Jan. 10 in Arlington, VA and is planning on spending the evening at the Drafthouse with "Bad Boy Floyd"

Science Fiction Twin concedes that he is now firmly in the Landis camp (even though he didn't start out that way):

Then his A sample came back with a wonky testosterone ratio. It didn’t seem right to me. Yes, his ride was superhuman; yes he looked angry when he crossed the line. But cheating? I didn’t quite buy it. Lots of BS from an enormous tool at WADA and chest thumping from every corner of the sports world still didn’t convince me. Which is odd. Generally I’m ready to convict. I even questioned the Godfather of American cycling at times (I can’t say his name, lest I sleep with the fishes). But I had a hard time buying it with Floyd.

Science Fiction Twin does double duty today with comments about yesterday's NYT article on Mr. Pound. He thinks the emperor has no clothes.

New blog/podcast/video site Quickrelease.TV gives us a link; we reciprocate.

Turf Toe has some snarky "Toe Knee" awards to give out, and Landis "wins" the "BEST IMPERSONATION OF AN ATHLETE BY A NON-ATHLETE" category. We note sadly that Landis' bonked trip up La Toussuire was faster with more watts then TBV can produce on a good day (250 sustained, if we recall correctly).

VeloGirl can't contain herself and makes further allusion to the NYT Magazine article and Mr. Pound.

Fat Cyclist thoroughly considers Lance's scheduling conflict that caused his withdrawal from the Leadville 100.

Smithers snarks TBV about the FFF bake sale, passing on the observation that even if Landis is innocent, he should still retire and go quietly away.

Friggin' Burt Friggin' Hoovis lets us know how he feels about Mr. Pound.

Dutch blog by Henry, machine translated here by babelfish.altavista.com goes into Mr. Pound and Landis' reaction.

' no virgin was safe for Landis '

yesterday, 22.46, 3 x had examined since 27/4 Spent: 8 January 2007 19.49

NEW YORK - the winnerwinner winner Floyd Landis suspected of doping has incensed Monday reacted to some stimulating judgements of Dick Pound, the President of the global antidopingbureau WADA.

In an open letter to the New York Times the American cyclist lays down the remarks of Pound absurd, defamatory and premature.


Harley-motor

Pound spoke reviling year previous concerning the "miraculous" wederopstanding of Landis during the tour the France. The American coureur got a heavy decline during the last klim in the sixteenth stage, but returned a day later in the seventeenth ride rockly-hard.

"it is a splendid tale", sneered Pound in the New York Times of Sunday. Terrible. Too beautiful for be. It is not possible also where to be. He lay eleven minutes ofzo at the back and suddenly performs he as Hercules. He opreed the mounts as if he Harley-motor flatlied refuse on zat.

Pound referred tevens in a conceited manner to the large deviations in the hormone household of Landis during the tour.

Virgin

The proportion between testosteron and epitestosteron was 11 against 1! With such values you would think that he would assault each virgin within 150 kilometres. That he ever still on its bicycle in that situation is for me a riddle has been possible climb.

Decenter

Landis, which have lodged an appeal against its suspension and everything do its purify name, reacted immediately to the denigrating observations of Pound.

He weet not about which he talks. He does not know the facts. With that he underlines the dramatic and systematic problems with which the antidopingcampagne contend. Given the seriousness of the beschuldingen to my address and damage which is as a result verooraakt to many people, Pound much more decently must establish itself.

Forums
DPF has a long thread dedicated to the NYT Magazine article on Mr. Pound, titled, "More bad journalism in NYTimes", which goes back and forth; also one debating whether McQuaid has lost his mind;

In a thread on the FFF, Veloflash asks for publication of the formation document, in the spirt of openness.

Correspondent Marc reminds us in a comment to note that the participants on the DPF threads regarding Messers Pound and McQuaid go about their posting with their customary warm friendliness and cheerful civility. Which is to say in the language of diplomacy, "there is a frank exchange of ideas and positions."

[end]

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Sunday Roundup

News:
CyclingNews readers poll for Male Rider of the Year puts Landis #4, behind Bettini, Valverde, and Vinokourav, and ahead of that whiner Boonen.

The New York Daily News carries a short snarkworthy blurb noting the formation of the FFF:

These may be the same people who belong to the Flat Earth Society, the Eight-Track Appreciation Club and the Carbon Paper Boosters: Supporters of tainted Tour de France winner Floyd Landis have set up a fund to help the American clear his name of doping charges.

Blogs
Male Pattern Fitness gives a positive review to the NYT Magazine piece, titling the post, "A Dick for All Seasons." It requires great will power to avoid plays on Mr. Pound's name.

Sports News mentions the FFF without much comment (though ruined reputations are discussed briefly.)

Rant writes an excellent synopsis of the recent "Cycle of Denial" CBC piece, and questions the lead reporter's objectivity:

And CBC blows it when reporting the specifics of Floyd’s testosterone tests, too. Instead of saying he had a higher than “normal” ratio, they repeated the canard that Floyd had “a high level of testosterone” in his system. And they repeat it not once, but twice. The second time in the closing minutes of the show.

Now, in the early days of the story, before the data became public, reporting such information might be excusable (not by me, I believe they should check their facts first, regardless — but I’m hardcore on that issue). Given that the data has been in the public domain now for two months, there’s really no excuse for getting that wrong.

The CBC reporter also betrays a bit of bias when interviewing Dick Pound, by asking Pound about “the nabbing of Landis.” Almost makes it sound like he was a criminal caught in the act of robbing a bank. But, of course, that’s not what happened.

Perhaps even more interesting is that it drew a long comment by Betsy Andreu presenting additional data to corroborate the story as they testified, including hearsay by... Greg Lemond. She concludes:

NPR and LA Times had the most extensive unbiased coverage based on facts. In my opinion, CBC followed suit. It would have been nice had CBC reported the above but they didn’t. If Lance would make every shred of evidence which was presented in this case against SCA Promotions available to the public, it would benefit those of us who told the truth.

Very busily, Rant also writes about the NYT Magazine piece. He suspect it reveals Mr. Pound himself to be one of the sources of the early leaks, and finds the rest of it pretty fair and balanced, though he thinks pro-Pound folks will find it a hit piece.

Cycling Logue is a Pollyanna and proud to be one. Nice perspective on some of cycling's problems over the past few years with a small mention of the Landis affair.

VeloGal has been bored with the Landis coverage, however she couldn't resist comment on the NYT Magazine article about Mr. Pound:

I am telling you that Dick Pound is a classic study in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and if I were still a Teaching Assistant, I would use him as a test case. His sense of entitlement, his arrogance, his ruthless power-grabbing, and his retaliation, vengeance and anger are classic. And how impressed he is with his own brilliance and rigid rightness. Dick Pound is never wrong... he wouldn’t even consider that possibility.

Jack's Sports Humor considers Landis and Gatlin as hosts for "The View" to dispell suggestions they have excess testosterone.

Forums
At Topix, we're having an "I am Spartacus" moment, as a host of people have adopted the name "Will" to the frustration of resident Landis hater Will from MD. Some of the alternative personalities argue just as well, in the same style, making the forum amusing again, if no more enlightening than it's been for a long time.

At DPF, Mr. Pound and the NYT article have been getting discussed in this thread. Some there think the article was a hit piece against Mr. Pound. Others think it's hard to have an accurate article that doesn't come off as a hit piece.

[end]

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Site note...

We look around and notice that we haven't bothered putting tags on posts for a couple of weeks, probably from holiday sloth.

Does anyone care?

If not, we'll probably dispense with them. The site search up there on the top left seems more useful.

[end]

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Saturday Roundup

News
Tomorrow's New York Times Magazine runs a long piece on Mr. Pound, titled, "The Scold". It is perhaps even more negative about his mouth than the Wired piece, complete with inflammatory comments about Landis:

Pound took something like a schoolboy’s delight in talking about Landis’s lab result, which supposedly showed his testosterone level to be grotesquely above what is typical for most men. Landis has denied taking a prohibited substance and is fighting what could be a two-year ban from cycling. “I mean, it was 11 to 1!” Pound said, referring to Landis’s reported testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio, a measure used to identify doping. “You’d think he’d be violating every virgin within 100 miles. How does he even get on his bicycle?”

It's not clear when the interview that provided that quote occurred -- it may have been from back in the Nazi Frogmen period. TBV suggests counting to 10 on reading that paragraph, then reading on. It looks like the harsh spotlight is turning towards Mr. Pound.

CyclingNews poll places Landis 4th most improved rider in 2006, after Schleck, Cancellara and Valverde.

Blogs
Le Tour de Langkawi posts the news about the formation of the FFF on its blog.

Snark O' the Day
Throwing Smoke Poets' Corner publishes a little ditty that wins today's prize.

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A small serving of ice cream...

if not exactly a full scoop. From this mailing list, we see:

>INVITATION; January 10, 2007
>
>"The Bike Lane presents an evening with Floyd Landis"
>
>- The Floyd Fairness Fund comes to Washington DC -

[more]


>
>In 2006 Floyd Landis won four of the six races that he entered; the
>inaugural Amgen Tour of California, the prestigious week-long Paris-Nice,
>the Ford Tour de Georgia,and the Tour de France.  This champion is coming
>to
>Washington DC to meet and greet regional cyclists, to spread awareness of
>the Floyd Fairness Fund - floydfairnessfund.org and to spend an evening
>with
>cyclists and cycling fans.
>
>Spend an evening with Floyd in Arlington, Virginia at the Arlington Cinema
>N
>Drafthouse on Wednesday January 10, 2007 from 6 to 9pm to help him raise
>awareness in the Floyd Fairness Fund - floydfairnessfund.org.  Ask
>questions, hang out and get to know him in this opportunity of a lifetime
>right here in our own back yard.  Guests must bring this invitation with
>them for entrance to the reception where there will be food and beverages
>as well as a chance to meet Floyd.  The Arlington Cinema D Drafthouse will
>host the Bike Lanes evening with Floyd Landis" to raise awareness in this fight.
>His fight for fairness, his fight for awareness and his fight to retain his
>2006 Tour de France title.
>
>The Floyd Fairness Fund (FFF) was established to support Floyd Landis in
>his efforts to clear his name of unsubstantiated doping allegations by
>providing him with the means to attain a fair and just hearing. FFF
>resources will be focused on initiatives to assist Floyd to retain his 2006
>Tour de France
>title and to return as soon as possible to his full time career and passion
>bicycle racing. Denied the basic right of due process, Floyd has been
>subject to punitive and unfair treatment by the Anti-Doping Organizations
>(ADOs) and International Sports Federations, the very groups that have been
>mandated to protect athletes rights. Even at the top level of professional
>cycling, Floyds individual resources cannot come close to matching those of
>these international sports bureaucracies. This is why the FFF must support
>Floyd in his fight for fairness.
>
>The Arlington Cinema N Drafthouse will be hosting the Bike Lanes evening
>with Floyd Landis" on Wednesday January 10, 2007 from 6 to 9pm.  Tickets
>can
>be purchased at BikeReg.com as well as donations to the
>floydfairnessfund.org.  Please help us welcome him to Washington DC, spend
>the evening with him and raise awareness, raise funds to support fairness
>and raise the floor for Floyd!
>
>Tickets are $25  advance, through BikeReg.com and $35 at the door.  This
>invitiation MUST be brought to the reception for entrance.  Advance tickets
>will close Tuesday evening at 9pm.  ADVANCE registration here;
>http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?EventID=4139
>
>Donations are listed online at BikeReg.com and will be taken throughout the
>evening. floydfairnessfund.org is online and active, please take a moment
>to read and support Floyd Landis

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John Lelangue, an anti-Rant

People seem to be enjoying themselves piling on and ranting about John Lelangue, not least based on the story we found yesterday. TBV is personally wary of joining that mob. Here are some reasons...

[more]

1. We haven't heard anyone in the Landis camp criticize Lelangue (yet). They have/had a personal relationship and some understanding of his position throughout.

2. Lelangue is in a difficult position, being a child of the old-boy network, and his life destiny is tied to those boys. It would be very hard for him to cross the powers-that-be over this unless he was positive Landis was going to win in the end.

3. Reporters have been known to play an interview with the story they had in mind before it started, rather than the way it actually transpired. Landis has endured more than a few examples of that in this process.

4. The writing style of the article is highly stylized pseudo-poetic fluff that says much more about the author than Lelangue. Refer to point #3 above.

It is unfortunate that Lelangue is playing it safe and seemingly professing support of all the institutions, but not exactly surprising nor a sign of his evil intentions. It would be way more of a surprise if he was unambiguously supporting Landis.

There are plenty of opportunities to stomp around with pitchforks and torches, but Lelangue may not be the be the best target. He may be a victim too, just not in the way the article presented.

- TBV

[end]

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Friday Roundup

News
BikeBiz's Carlton Reid writes about the creation of the FFF with some interesting details missing in other articles.

Pez looks at the Tours vs. ProTour, especially their claimed right to refuse admission on the basis of "damage to the image" of their events. He isn't thrilled about that part.

VeloNews Friday mailbag publishes a letter addressing the science of performance enhancement:

Science of performance enhancement still not understood

I'm amazed how many readers are still tying their Floyd Landis hopes to the "innocent until proven guilty" defense. The identical finding on the second sample removes almost all doubt in the eyes of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The chance of testing or handling errors of both samples is remarkably small. Although the process used by the UCI to announce Landis's initial positive result was completely FUBAR, it does not diminish the certainty of the test results.

What is clear to me in all this is that the science of how performance-enhancers metabolize or remain in athletes at a cellular level is not well understood, especially by the athletes. I think the Landis case will turn out to be a shot over the bow at those who think they can successfully mask the use of recovery agents like testosterone during out-of-competition periods, and who assume there is no chance that it will pass out of the system in urine weeks down the road.

That said, I do think the pro riders should demand that both the initial and backup samples be tested in a manner that discriminates between a natural and synthetic testosterone finding. Having the ratios out of whack is one thing; having them out of whack because of the presence of synthetic substance is damning.

Ted Grace
Minneapolis, Minnesota

At the Bicycling Mag web site, Liz Reap-Carlson gives a delightful account of the Witt Memorial.

VeloNews covers the FFF opening with a me-too story.


Blogs
Neil from Road magazine gives snippets of his most recent interview with FL, and asks for comments on blogs (among other things):

Landis: I don’t have any direct connection (to the blogs). I will sometimes give some information to Trust But Verify blog or if someone wants some information I’ll tell them, but I have no control over what they say. They are going by what their opinion of what is available, which is everything. Some of them put a lot of work into it, especially the guy from Trust But Verify. He does a very good job.

Damn, now they'll think we're a house organ! Floyd, you were supposed to say, "for a guy who says he wants to be helpful, he sure puts up a lot of stuff that pisses me off. Strbuk even sent some kick-ass brownies to fatten me up. Those people are evil. Amazingly complete, but evil."

Mwahh-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Neil@Road (in his personal blog) shares "Floydisms" that will not likely make the interview cited above. One of them was yesterday's "Floyd of the Day".

Captainrecursion posts his "mad 20" for the year past and puts Landis at #10, noting that LA was a tough act to follow.

Passion Velo, french (translated) talks about FFF, citing Le Equipe and AFP. Doesn't give the URL, but doesn't slam the idea either.

Triple Crankset wonders what to do with an extra few bucks?

Rant devours the Lelangue article, and comes to some uncharitable conclusions.

UltraRob says Leadville registration forms (to get into the lottery) are on-line. Line forms to the right.

Trudi B gave us a nice plug on Dec 31, but the link to here is a broken http:///. Time for more Cherry Garcia.

Penny thinks Landis is the douche of the year. I guess Lij isn't a pen-pal.

Forums
At Topix, new poster "ricki bobbi" from Germany offers this assessment:

bike racing is a STUPIDLY hard sport and there is a selection effect for the type of personality that is usually attracted to the top levels. I raced at a high national level, not pro, but within spitting distance and I really hated it, I just happened to be good at it. I mostly hated the people involved, macho mean, sullen, the humor of a room full of germans and willing to stand unbelievable amounts of pain and with the ethics of poker players. So, given this, and many people would corroborate my assessment, why "go to bat" for any of the top riders.(I could go into detail about some of the former TdF champs, very twisted people) Lemond was actually decent, to a large extent which resulted in him getting f--ked over by Hinault, but he was still simply a bike racer. Armstrong and now it appears, Landis are more typical, and thats fine, but lets not argue how wonderful or not these people are as people, thats not what matters for bike racing. For some reason we need athletes to fulfill too many roles. Now its pretty clear with Landis,(the synthetic testosterone) that something was amiss, too bad, unfortunately, not surprising, no matter how much we want it to be otherwise.

I'll nominate "the humor of a room full of germans and willing to stand unbelievable amounts of pain and with the ethics of poker players" as being right up there with Vemo's comment about TBV, saying our work "rivals the physical effort of a long distance ride, without the fun and exhilaration."


At rec.bicycles.racing, MagillaGorilla returns to form and excoriates the FFF in this thread. The equally provocative DupedCylist says, "Lance treats Leadville like his kids, skips appearance."

[end]

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John Lelangue appears...

We reported in today's roundup of a Le Figaro article about John Lelangue. On request of an anonymous commenter, Marc has done the following translation for us...

[more]

John Lelangue's unbuckled buckle

[note from translator: this is not more of "Sport and Eroticism"; remember: the French nickname the TdF "la grande boucle"]

by Jean-Julien Ezvan

"The world in yellow." At the restaurant L'Opportune (on boulevard Edgar Quinet in the 14th arrondissement) in Paris, where the days'stages get even longer, John Lelangue is sitting facing a poster-- with that luminous slogan--for the next Tour de France. The Tour, a dream and its torments all attached to a colorless, senseless jersey. Notebook. Filled with doubts. The state of the world.

Last July 23: Like his father, Robert, with Eddy Merckx (Molteni) in 1972 and 1974, the Belgian DS is parading on the Champs-Élysées with the American, Floyd Landis, all in yellow. A fleeting pleasure. After an inforgettable celebration, those colors are going to lose their brilliance, the sun will be covered. An eclipse.

The winners share a carefree Parisian jaunt the next day, before setting off for Holland to compete in a criterium, Tuesday at 9 p.m. After gobbling the race down, the group returns to its hotel in Eindhoven at midnight.

Exhausted, the manager grants his troupe a generous free morning. Reveille sounds. It's brutal when news of the Yellow Jersey's positive result (for testosterone) comes down. "A telephone call warned me of the imminent arrival of a fax. My wife, looking right at me, saw me fall apart. I immediately went to see Floyd. We talked about what steps to take. We did not leave on the sly, like criminals, as I had to read. We simply wanted to announce the news elsewhere."

Paris bound. Everything is hanging by a thread because the rumor is growing. Quick. The Swiss team issues a press release July 27. Fire storm. John Lelangue sighs: "A betrayal. A huge disappointment for the Tour, which didn't deserve it; for Jean-Marie (Leblanc, race director), who didn't deserve to go out like that; and for the public, which was treated with contempt. I hope the fans regain their taste for the race."

"You can fly near the sun without burning your wings"

He who had always brandished prohibitions, now was threatened, and struck. Suspended on Friday morning (later fired after the B sample), Floyd Landis flew to Madrid. To establish his defense, before cutting communications with his former guide. The American, who underwent an operation on his hip in August and is busy stalking the corridors of justice, called his former DS two weeks ago, after a gap of four months. Four months of silence.

"A long conversation, pleasant, no animosity. But he knows my position." Inflexible.

"You can fly near the sun without burning your wings. Those who want to get near it artificially are wrong. I'm a legalist; there's a rule; I accept it; I apply it. I have confidence in the AMA investigations, in the UCI, the Ministry of Sports, the lab at Châtenay-Malabry. The infraction is clear; it's proven. It's up to Landis to prove that he's innocent. And I hope this doesn't turn out the way it did for Landaluze (a Spanish rider who tested positive in June 2005, only to see the case dismissed by the sports arbitration tribunal last Dec. 20 because of a procedural flaw). . . ."

John Lelangue, man in a hurry at age 36, the incarnation of the movers and shakers of modern cycling--went from the Belgian Olympic Committee (recruited by Jacques Rogge, current president of the International Olympic Committee) to Amaury Sport Organization (ten years spent as right-hand man to Jean-Marie Leblanc) before throwing himself into rescuing the Phonak team (a team running a heavy deficit, threatened with relegation, and ultimately returned to international competition in 2005). He saw his descent into Hell as an experience: "From the moment of the announcement, I knew I was going to live two years of Purgatory." And of seeing the film unwind, without seeing the tricks. "This business would have been a disaster if I had been implicated. If I had things to reproach myself for. But there. . . . Yes, you can be right there and see nothing. It's like a married couple. Sometimes you don't know everything about the man or woman you share your life with. In cycling, you can try to put up safeguards, but zero-risk just doesn't exist. Those who claim it does are being unrealistic. Or, you'll have to take all the riders, put them naked into a room with only a bed and a TV, and take them out again in the morning. Barriers, sometimes, are not enough."

Pain. Between words and prohibitions. "With us, it wasn't the sponsor who was putting the pressure on. They were content with the team's performance. Leaving the Pyrenees, we already had a successful Tour. We'd had the Yellow Jersey one day; we'd turned in a good time trial. That was good stuff. . . ."

"I'm far from being disgusted"

Before the murderous finale. Afterwards, he swallowed the remaining races of the season with dignity. Respect for the calendar and his obligations. And accompanied by the understanding and sympathy of the fans: "they understood the drama the team and I were living. People were never belligerent, never pointed fingers at us, because the team's position was clear from the very beginning."

Over his head, questions were swirling; the future haunted him--that is, when it would be necessary to sketch out the future for the rest of the team. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't save Team Phonak. The curtain fell August 15, darkening the horizon for fifty employees. Another race began: to save whom he could. Before thinking of his own future.

During the autumn, when he'd calmed down, John Lelangue picked up his federal certificate and his national trainer’s diploma. With the desire and the pleasure of passing along the good word: "Bicycling brings together those simple values, such as team spirit, solidarity, humanity. It's all a question of education." No doubt.

That was the reed he hold on to. Flanked by his father and Eddy Merckx. And he wants to fight. Still. "If I'd had to admit to being beaten, then doping and the cheaters would have had our hide. I want to fight, to give back to bicycling as much as it has given me, ever since I was born. I'll try to do this until I die." He rode out the Festina tempest in 1998, and recalls: "In 1998 they told us, 'We're going to have a few years hard labor.' Now we've fallen into something else. But cycling has to get back up. You have to believe in it. You can't fold your arms."

And to make his own plans. "I'm far from being disgusted. I had contacts with Unibet and other teams, but I'd prefer to let a little time pass." The RTBF has offered him a return to his roots. As a consultant, he'll put in twenty-four days of racing and will participate in a weekend broadcast in Belgium. He'll let the road unwind, in its own rhythm: the start of the season in Qatar, the classics, the Tour . . . right up to the Tour of Lombardy.

Since the decision taken the evening of the announcement of the Tour's route, at the end of October, this indefatiguable polyglot has been working his way through the international press, filling up notebooks, collecting information, multiplying contacts and exchanges. On the lookout for one thing: returning to racing. "This is going to be a new experience this year. After, I'll see whether I want to orient myself toward DS, management, or sports marketing." But surely never far from cycling.

"All races, the biggest and the smallest, like the Grand Prix of the Chapel, raced around a church, evoke enthusiasm and happiness. Cycling has a future. It's up to it to find the right people to write it." John Lelague has kept a Yellow Jersey. Not a relic. A signpost. To remember a fleeting pleasure.

Into the black leather bag that dates back to the 1975 Dauphiné libéré and which accompanied his father's successes and trials, he methodically arranges his files. Ready to hit the road again. Convinced. Like yesterday. Like tomorrow. With the Tour always in the back of his mind. A buckle that is never buckled.

[edited to correct a translation error]

[end]

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Thursday Roundup

Floyd of the Day

[Floyd] was leaving his lawyer's office in L.A. A homeless guy was laying down on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign asking for money. Landis, being big-hearted, gives him $40. The homeless guy thanks him and asks what Landis does for a living. He tells him that he's a cyclist. The homeless guy presses Landis for details and he tells him that he won the Tour de France. The guy then wanted Floyd to autograph his cardboard sign. "My real fear was that he was going to argue with me and tell me that Pereiro won it!"

(link)

Web
FloydFairnessFund is open. It's an advocacy site and takes PayPal, not tax deductable. Press release here, from the site. No mention on FloydLandis.com at this time.

The site contains direct downloads of many of the case documents, including translations of the slide show for Europeans. The new piece is a set of recommendations authored by Arnie Baker for improving the process in ways that improve transparency, accuracy, and fairness. Bulleted:

• Public reporting of WADA committee minutes, test validity studies, and positivity criteria;
• Bar coded tracking, always.
• Check digits (an important technical point).
• Public Standard Operating Procedures for labs.
• Mandatory degradation reporting for markers.
• Mandatory percent error reporting.
• Unified standards for false positive rates
• Limit test exposure based on false positive rates.
• Flexibility in sanctions for fairness.
• Unequal jeopardy: many parties may appeal for sanction vs. one athlete.
• Public reporting of Lab error rates, tracking of AAFs, and Arbitration decisions.
• Truly blind lab proficiency testing.
• Freedom for lab experts to testify.
• Oversight for WADA
  

Which does't seem like an irresponsible set of requests.

(Site bugs: The slide show file name is misspelled, and not a single mention of TBV, not even in the extensive press clippings. Sniff. We'll be better after a pint of Cherry Garcia.)

News
Reuters covers FFF launch, as does the CBC and TSN:

Supporters of disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis have set up a website which is seeking funds to help Landis clear his name of doping charges.

BikeBiz covers FFF, quoting our summary.

Marc, our Correspondent in Paris, reports the French press has not yet covered the FFF, but this might be because of time zones. He does say that Le Figaro has a piece about John Lelangue, the Phonak DS, that is not kind to Landis, prodding Marc to write a mini-rant:

I'm a little steamed. [...] French TV had a camera inside Lelangue's car through the whole of the decisive final TT of the Tour. There wasn't anything--not anything--about FL's ride that
wasn't directed by Lelangue: how low Floyd should be on the bars, where he should be on the road, how he should set up for turns, eveything. (It was a little embarrassing, in fact. Most riders memorize this themselves, I thought.) It is inconceivable to me that FL could have put ANY substance, legal or illegal, into his body without Lelangue knowing it . . . hell, directing it. For him now to pretend it's all a shock to him, and, as he says in the story--"I have confidence in the AMA investigations, in the UCI, the Ministry of Sports, the lab at Châtenay-Malabry. The infraction is clear; it's proven. It's up to Landis to prove that he's innocent. And I hope this doesn't turn out the way it did for Landaluze"--fills me with disgust.

Newsweek column via MSNBC mentions Landis in discussion of stick and ball doping, and says,

Landis is challenging the evidence, a clash of science that could have a huge impact on drug testing in the future.

but doesn't go any further with it.

AME Info (United Arab Emirates) hopes for the right kind of sports headlines in 2007.

Blogs
At Digg, thinnman dug the CBC interview with Landis.

Lij is irked the Graham Watson calendar has no Floyd.

Donald Walker, proclaimed liberal Canadian, was not impressed by the CBC piece, which he thought went timidly straight down the middle and didn't offer any conclusions, despite the sensational tagline "Cycle of Denial". He calls his piece "Expose or Vendetta?", which is in its own way just as misleading, because he says it's neither!

Droidlocks ran into the Wired piece, and looks at it fresh as an outsider. It's down a ways in the post.

A Rant's eye look at the FFF site suggests Team Landis has found another gear for the defense. Rant had first ran the FFF press release w/o comment. Earlier, he talked more about who should accredit labs, and that's turning into quite a discussion. TBV still doesn't think it's within ISO accrediters expertise.

Alan Snel/Bike Stories says "They Want to Give a Hand to Landis" and also pretty much runs the press release (with minimal comment) on the FFF.

Athletebrities likes the FFF.

Steroid Nation is very skeptical of the FFF, and thinks Landis should have done lots of his own tests. Its not clear to TBV who, or how or when those would have made a difference, since they would not have been the same samples under the same conditions. Later, SN gives TBV a plug, which we appreciate. We don't always agree with SN, but it's usually a reasoned point of view.

SayOw writes:

Floyd Landis supporters start fund to clear his name. What once seemed as a clear-cut doping case against the 2006 Tour de France winner, Floyd Landis, seems to be losing momentum and public support. Now Landis has a group of supporters rallying behind him and his cause. All this will mean that cycling will be less cared about in America than it already is because of the perception of cheating and unfairness.

The Angry Fan's year end review talks about the good, the bad and the ugly. Ugly includes:

The doping throughout cycling which saw some of cycling's biggest names banned from competing in the Tour de France and the incompetent way in which testing and storing samples continues to be done by international anti-doping authorities, which have now cast doubts on their implication of Floyd Landis, and the way in which the appeals process is being stalled while his career is on hold pending the hearing.

MPL offers as one of the top phrases of the year this from Landis pose S16:

“It was very hot, I think that was the only explanation for the water. Or maybe it was because the beer I had last night.”

Forums
DPF covers the FFF opening; also, spirited discussion over on the in this thread about last night's CBC "Cycle of Denial" documentary :

Cycling Newbee said ,Yeah, I agree with your analysis overall. But, when Floyd said the test results were not positive the interviewer questioned him with a skeptical tone and then when Floyd gave a brief explanation (you'd have to read the 370 pages of documents) the interviewer completely blew off that response with basically an "uh-huh" in a tone that a reading between lines would be "yeah, your so full of sh1t; just another guilty doper coming up with lame excuses." So, I guess I heard a certain amount of skepticism from the interviewer towards Floyd.
And at the fearful risk of sending this thread on an already rehashed (ad naseum I'm sure) issue, this whole Besty/Andreau story regarding LA has never quite passed the smell test for me. Would he really admit to such things in front others, much less a friend's GIRLFRIEND? Now HE'S the one being accused of being STUPID if that's the case. I don't know; don't want to go off on a tangent here and start a big "thing;" just stating my observations of the story/show.

[end]

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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.

[End]

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Some things learned in 2006

By STRBUK

With the passage of 2006 I thought that it might be time for me to actually express some things that have recently attained a little clarity for me...

[MORE]

Since I was very young my year has revolved around what particular sporting event was occurring. My Dad was the head of the athletic department of a small college in the town where I grew up, so watching sports has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. The year started with the NFL playoffs and the Australian Open, followed quickly by the Masters, the Triple Crown, and then the Stanley Cup playoffs -- which now oddly continue AFTER the Indy 500 is run. With summer comes Wimbledon and so on, you get the picture.

Until 1984 I had a "hole" in my summer sporting reality. That year I started paying attention to the Tour de France which was far more entertaining than the baseball All-Star borefest, and which got me through until the start of the LA Olympics. I was entranced and fascinated by all aspects of Grand Tour bicycle racing and became hooked. I come to this time of wrenching revaluation within professional road cycling honestly, and did not just jump on the "Lance bandwagon" .

Floyd Landis became a blip on my radar screen in 2003 when he rode for the USPS cycling team. I found his performance compelling in the 2004 TdF as he helped lug Lance Armstrong over the Alps. He did so on a hip that had barely healed after a devastating injury and two subsequent surgeries the winter before the tour began. Inspiring stuff.

Many of us know what has happened since that tour. Landis defected to Phonak and had a respectable first year with them, and then there was the paradoxically magical year 2006. In any circumstance, other than the one clouded by the suspicions that Floyd Landis now lives under, this year would have been spectacular. He won the Amgen Tour of California, The Tour of Georgia, Paris-Nice, and yes the Tour de France. Tiger Woods has been chosen by many as "Sportsman of the Year", I would suggest that Floyd Landis had as ground breaking a year as Tiger had, and with a compelling human interest back story to boot. Riding on a deteriorated hip (which few knew about until the mid point of the Tour de France) challenged him from the start, and the uncertainty it caused for his future in cycling may also have been his inspiration. The victory, the exultation, the positive test for t/e ratio, all came within a three day period, like a lurid mini lifetime lived out on the international media stage.

Just contemplating the triumphs and tragedies that have comprised Floyd Landis' life this year (no matter which side of the "guilty or not guilty" fence you occupy) can make you shake your head. How humans deal with this kind of saga is what drama is made of, and how this family must be endeavoring to simply maintain the normalcy of everyday life defines the term "coping skills". And yet those who have bothered to look and honestly observe have been able to watch this process closely.This is due the the public availability of Landis through interviews with him and his family, and on the Daily Peloton, an internet cycling forum and the disclosure of the documents that might damn him to an early retirement. Add to all of this hip replacement surgery in October and you now have the kind of stuff Hollywood makes up. The documents are there purposely to be scrutinized and analyzed as (inadvertently) is the person himself.

Being in the midst of this day in and day out is like watching someone lose weight slowly, you don't notice the impact of what is happening until you leave it for awhile. I have found this whole ordeal fascinating to view, and not just a bit guilt producing as well. Sometimes I think we know far too much about something and someone than can truly be justified -- some of which is surely none of the public's business. But there are some things to be gleaned from this situation that are of value.

One is that with all the talk of Landis' lost pay, prize winnings, and sponsorship money (and money lost from sponsorships to cycling in general) the human toll paid is of far greater importance. Obviously this price is one that mere observers may never really grasp. Guessing that it is of the greatest magnitude would be a sure bet, and one that no amount of money can cover.

I have also learned that no one, no matter the eventual outcome after the arbitration hearing between Landis and WADA/USADA "wins" in this debacle.

Landis has lost the reputation and respect that he worked so hard to achieve, no matter what the ruling these things are irrevocably gone. In addition he has suffered a personal loss that cannot begin to be calculated.

Cycling has lost no matter what the ruling. It has lost fans, sponsors, and has itself become the poster child for the use of PEDs in sports. The fans have also lost faith in cycling, no matter what happens in the arbitration hearing, now delayed until at least early spring, and if you go by some internet arguments that have persisted since the release of the Landis docs. civil war rages between the people who believe in Landis and those who believe that he must have enhanced his performance. Whatever the resolution to this incident, the arguments will continue for years to come.

The sports world has lost one of the finest performances ever seen in the history of Tour de France in Landis's seemingly superhuman effort on stage 17, to suspicion and doubt. Landis, of course, does not bear responsibility for these "loses" by himself, but he has unfortunately become their face.

I have learned that it's not really as entertaining as it might once have seemed to watch someone's life go down in flames.

There is nothing that many human beings crave more than "discovering" someone special and building them up out of all proportion -- until it comes to tearing them down. I guess it might be that we imagine we are seeing someone who is now more desperate than we are so it makes us feel better about our own desperation. Or we see someone who had a lot and has lost it so that makes us somehow equal.

No matter what the circumstances I will no longer feel any satisfaction over the demise of someone's reputation. Whether you think Landis is guilty or not, it has been difficult watching the pain, confusion, and sadness of a family so unprepared for what has befallen it. But even more than the apparent appetite of people to see this disgrace, I have been disheartened by the attitude of the press, and the sporting press in particular. I have read op-ed pieces, blog entries, general news articles, and articles written by professional sports reporters that had so many basic facts wrong that to call them inaccurate would be a gross understatement.

Landis has assumed a villainy comparable to that of OJ Simpson's. That he is being accused of cheating in the most prestigious bike race in the world is doubtless a serious issue, but from some of the things that have been written you'd think that murder, along with the decline of Western Civilization, have also been included in these accusations.

I've learned that hope can be addictive, and depending too much on it can be a dangerous thing. Of course hope is necessary to continue living, particularly under difficult circumstances, but hopes raised and dashed can be more damaging than the elimination of almost any other emotional nutrient.

Finally I've become aware of how grateful I am that my life is not lived under what appears to be the scrutiny of the entire world. That my everyday actions are not being examined in the manner that those of Floyd Landis, is of far more value than I ever realized. Being basically just plain anonymous has much more charm and cachet than the limelight could ever hold for me.

Should someone ask Floyd Landis, I am thinking that at this point, he too would settle for being just another face in the crowd.

- STRBUK

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Tuesday Roundup

News
The Daily Peloton's Cathy Mehl starts the new year with a Landis interview, here commenting on how he deals with public criticism:

Sometimes I do go off on rants, isn’t that what the Lemond vs. Satan comment was! Look, I know I’m innocent and I won the Tour de France clean. I know it, Amber and Ryan know it, my friends know it and the people who are defending me know it. People think and say a lot of things and don’t think about what they’re saying or why they’re saying it. And with how everything was reported in the press in July and August, I don’t blame people for thinking that I’m guilty. It doesn’t bother me as much anymore. What does bother me is how I’m being treated by USADA, WADA and the UCI. There is nothing fair about how they are treating me. They have called me guilty before I really even knew what it was I had been accused of! Everyone else just bases their opinions off of what guys like Pound and McQuaid say in the press. That’s just bullshit and the whole system needs to change. If there’s anything that makes me want to climb up to the roof and shout, it’s how the system has dealt with this.

The Baltimore Sun call for a "phony look back" at 2006 (but doesn't get the PED right):

"July 27: Tour de France winner Floyd Landis blames his positive steroid test after the 17th stage on drinking Pat Robertson's flaxseed oil protein shake."

Rocky Mountain News hypes the Lance/Landis Leadville battle as the #1 thing to look forward to in 2007. Oops.

The Marin Independent Journal notes that Landis was the winner of the Tour of California in 2006.

Blogs
The Boulder Report enjoys a snow day and does some creative multiple choice thinking:

1. Floyd Landis will:
A) prove that his testosterone positive was a Frenchie plot and win the Tour again.
B) Lose his case and quit the sport to become a roadie for Kid Rock.
C) Race Leadville and get beat by four-time defending champ Dave Wiens.

Science Fiction Twin makes some cycling predictions for 2007, but is not sure any of them will be as exciting as the things that happened in 2006:

So, 2007 is upon us and the next cycling season starts in a few short months, if you can believe it. That being said, I'm not sure if the season will be as exciting as the Floyd Landis Chronicles have made the off-season.

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Monday Roundup

News
The Miami Herald places Landis in the top 10 sports "oddities" of 2006 where he comes in at #2:

2. Landis' tainted title: American dominance continued at the Tour De France when Floyd Landis pulled off a dramatic, come-from-far-behind victory. But Landis' title quickly came under question when he tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race. Landis is fighting the accusations.

The Herald-Dispatch discusses the prevelance of doping issue stories in sports in 2006.

The El Paso Times features an AP piece by Jim Litke which points out that adversity seemed to define sports in 2006.

Appleton Post Crescent offers a New Years Resolution:

I, Floyd Landis, resolve to get better organized when telling my various tales as to why I tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs after winning the Tour de France.

Daily Item of Lynn is more generous in it's "adversity is the theme" rundown:

American Floyd Landis overcame much adversity to become the first Tour de France winner who wasn't Lance Armstrong in eight years.

But then, similar to many bicycle riders, Landis' victory - and good name - has been tained by a doping scandal.

VeloNews letters rage on, 3:1 against Landis today.

Clarksville TN Leaf Chronicle says,

The biggest surprise of the year may have come in the Tour de France and American Floyd Landis winning, but then fighting to keep the title after drug tests showed he had cheated.

Blogs
Rant talks about how athletes don't trust WADA right now, citing internal conflicts of interest, and what might be done. He's particularly irked at the "you can't question the science" rules. He'd like to separate test development from lab accreditation from case prosecution. These sound reasonable, but his suggestion for accreditation seems off -- he proposes using ISO accreditation for the doping test parts. However, ISO auditors work to the ISO standards to which they are trained. How would they come up to speed on doping tests? It does seem like an independant doping lab auditor is needed, but the real problem is tha laxity of the standard and validation of the tests to which they are being certified. TBV might be happy just to separate the prosecution from the test/lab parts of WADA.

Mickey Mantle's Liver (Ross the Prof) predicts what July 2007 will bring:

Even though he isn't racing in this year's Tour de France, during the Tour, you will hear more about Floyd Landis than you will hear about the winner of this year's race.

Brett does a multiple choice test on sports doping, with these two germane questions:

13. After a Spanish doping investigation forced the riders who finished second, third, fourth and fifth in last year's Tour de France to drop out of this year's race, the 2006 Tour was:

a) Clean.
b) You're kidding, right?

14. Which of the following excuses did Tour de France winner Floyd Landis NOT provide for his failed drug test:

a) Dehydration.
b) Cortisone shots for a sore hip.
c) Drinking beer and whiskey the night before a stage.
d) Thyroid medication.
e) His natural metabolism.
f) Ingesting something.
g) All of the above.
h) OK, we're running out of letters here.

[end]

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