The floyd Landis revelations that he ACTUALLY did use drugs for his tour de france win, and years before, was the startling news of this week.
The more shocking or perhaps not (depending on what you believe) was that he was part of a systematic drug doping programme at US postal (Lance Armstrong’s ultra-successful mutli-winning cycling team).
The problem with Landis’ revelation is that he has been a proven liar before.
When he won the tour, he was found to have doped, he denied this.
Then he spent $2 million on his defence and lied on oath stating he never took drugs.
He benefitted from his book “positively false”, stating again that he never took drugs.
So to confess this week is very puzzling and a bit late in the day to say the least.
He does go into great detail though and speaks of the doping programme and how intensive it was.
If you want some more details, have a look at david walsh’s article in the sunday times or timesonline.co.uk, its very good indeed and will let you make your own mind up.
One things for sure, lance armstrong remains the most tested athlete on the planet and still has not tested positive, thats a fact so no point slinging shots at him until theres evidence.
Many of armstrong’s ex-team mates have now tested positive though, tyler hamilton, roberto heras, landis, andreu and vaughters admitted EPO use, and i believe manuel beltran also got caught last year in his final year of racing.
Cycling has been a dirty sport for years, but the last few years it seems to have got cleaner, so here’s hoping for a better future.
Most sports use doping, its just that cycling seems more serious in its testing and banning of athletes especially over the last 4 years.
The sad thing is that there’s a scandal every year just before the tour de france, and this year is no different!
Whatever happens, landis is not going to come out of this good, but if the murky truth does come out one day, then it would have been worth it. If landis has been lying again, he loses any respect he may have had left and his life will remain in the gutter.
