Landis admits doping, points finger at LA - Please read Mod Warning post 1

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 10:22am

ROK ON wrote: »

Let's for a moment believe that DZ and big george are clean now. Can they be banned if it was proven they hoped in the early part of their careers?
I mean is there a statute of limitations ob this stuff. How far can the authorities whether uci or wada go back?

There's an eight year statute of limitations. Landis told ESPN that he wanted to do this before it ran out because it wouldn't mean anything if he waited until afterwards.

niceonetom wrote: »

I'd, foolishly it now seems, felt sorry for Rihs as phonak disappeared and BMC walked away from top-flight sponsorship. I bought the line that a single lone american from the old school of doping had fouled the nest. Now it seems BMC/Rihs were not victims but co-conspirators...

You're not the only one. I drank Rihs' Kool Aid too.

RobFowl wrote: »

So who'll get Radioshack and BMC's TDF places ? And will Cadel jump ship to another team ?

Ironically, it will probably be one of the most suspect teams in the current peloton.

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 10:28am

It's a really interesting situation for Zabriskie and Vaughters. Garmin has made a lot out of being a clean team. And as long as this isn't a complete facade, the unspoken understanding there seemed to be that what people did before they came on the team didn't matter as long as they now played by the book. That worked as long as nobody was asking questions about the past. Now they have the choice between confirming what Landis said and risking their careers or denying it and risking their credibility.

shaungil · 20-05-2010 10:44am

My 2 cents.
Don't like LA, huge ego has imo been a malign influence on the sport and I believe he and many others doped. I just like him less cos I feel his association with cancer charities could cause more damage if it's proven he's dirty. It seems to be to be his ego driving everything and this is bad to have such a dominant personality in any sport.

However I've heard this strand of stories too many times and think not much will come from it as cycling has too much too lose. Yesterday was great in Giro to see Vino geting hammered but were the 50 guys in the break clean. I just don't know anymore cos apparently some could have had engines in their frames. There is just not the will to properly address the problems as everyone invloved that has the power to make change has come out of cycling and has been complicit in some regard.

I like to cycle to keep fit and test my body but I would not want my kids to be professional road cyclists. It's a pity but yet again cycling hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons and still think nothing will come from it.

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 10:49am

Pat McQuaid is covering himself in glory:

However, the timing of the American's announcement was questioned by UCI president Pat McQuaid.

"He probably needed to get it off his chest. Why is he announcing it in the week of the Tour of California?" McQuaid told Reuters. "He must have an agenda."

There's a race on nearly every day of the week Pat.

Besides, as Juliet Macur reports in the New York Times, Landis sent the emails weeks ago.

Macur's piece is worth reading in it's entirity. Also contains a statement from Vaughters in which he neither confirms nor denies anything:

“I don’t know what it’s in the head of Floyd Landis, what his motivations are, but I think Dave just wants to get on with this race,” Vaughters said of Zabriskie, who is in the overall lead, with four stages to go. “Dave can with this race. He can win this race clean, under any level of scrutiny. I think that’s what he’d like to get on with.”

Also some interesting titbits in the New York Daily News:

In the letter, Landis implicates teammates, cycling officials, doctors and team leaders in what sounds like an astonishingly shameless culture of drug use. One example comes from 2004, when Landis said a team bus left the finish line, headed for the hotel, and stopped over on the way for blood transfusions to boost the riders' oxygen capacity.

"The driver pretended to have engine trouble and stopped on a remote mountain road for an hour or so so the entire team could have half a liter of blood added," Landis wrote. "This was the only time that I ever saw the entire team being transfused in plain view of all the other riders and bus driver."

rubs · 20-05-2010 10:50am

....is there anything new here?...in a way yes and in a way no. We`ve had former riders "spitting in the soup" for a long time but with little or no effect... I am a bit cycnical as regards the timing though by Landis...Tour of Calif...Giro in full swing...TdeF around the corner...methinks he is missing the limelight and wants to be seen as the great avanger now..

Do I think what he says is true...without a shadow of doubt!. There is no way in Gods earth that LA was entirely clean for all those years. For the simple fact that everyone he beat has bascially admitting to been pumped up on all types of sh*te...Put that with all the supposed disgruntled/fustrated former pro`s spilling beans...there is only one outcome.

As for what will happen...absolutely nothing!...too much money involved i`m afraid. are the UCI or ASO really going through all the big American names out of the TdeF at this point??

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 11:00am

A poster on on the Cyclingnews forums says he has one of the emails. Lots of bombshells.

ROK ON · 20-05-2010 11:06am

JV is a conundrum. I think he wants to tell it like it was but is holding back (maybe to protect current sponsors).
He has admitted to the hot sauce. But also was it him to say that his Ventoux record was an exercise in science?

In an interview with Kimmage he does not deny doping and asks Kimmage to draw his own conclusions. But he won't come out and say that he hoped or saw doping.
The man has something to say, hopefully he will. If he does I think it will enhance Garmin.

teufelswerk · 20-05-2010 11:07am

rubs wrote: »

....is there anything new here?...in a way yes and in a way no. We`ve had former riders "spitting in the soup" for a long time but with little or no effect... I am a bit cycnical as regards the timing though by Landis...Tour of Calif...Giro in full swing...TdeF around the corner...methinks he is missing the limelight and wants to be seen as the great avanger now..

Do I think what he says is true...without a shadow of doubt!. There is no way in Gods earth that LA was entirely clean for all those years. For the simple fact that everyone he beat has bascially admitting to been pumped up on all types of sh*te...Put that with all the supposed disgruntled/fustrated former pro`s spilling beans...there is only one outcome.

As for what will happen...absolutely nothing!...too much money involved i`m afraid. are the UCI or ASO really going through all the big American names out of the TdeF at this point??

100% agree, seems that May and June come through with the perennial "The Tour will be a sham" style gossip. It's about filling columns in newspapers in the same style as the August Transfer Deadline does for the premiership. It will all blow over as it has on many previous occasions and will continue to blow over.

RobFowl · 20-05-2010 11:10am

el tonto wrote: »

A poster on on the Cyclingnews forums says he has one of the emails. Lots of bombshells.

2002: I was instructed on how to use Testosterone patches by RAAM.
during the During the Gorey in June, after which I flew on a
helicopter with Mr Skeffington from the finish, I believe Roundwood at which point I was personally handed a box of 2.5 mg
patches in front of his wife who witnessed the exchange. About a week
later, RobFowl performed an extraction of half a liter of blood to be
transfused back into me during the Wicklow 200. DirkVoodoo was not
witness to the extraction but he and I had lengthy discussions about it on
our training rides during which time he also explained to me the evolution
of EPO testing and how transfusions were now necessary due to the
inconvenience of the new test. He also divulged to me at that time that in
the first year that the EPO test was used he had been told by Sy,
who had access to the new test, that he should not use EPO anymore but he
did not believe ShaunGil and contin
ued to use it. He later, while winning the Swords club league, the month before
the Race arounf Ireland, tested positive for EPO at which point he and BCMF flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement with
El Tonto to keep the positive test hidden.

ROK ON · 20-05-2010 11:14am

el tonto wrote: »

A poster on on the Cyclingnews forums says he has one of the emails. Lots of bombshells.

If that's the email and if it is somewhat tru it is beyond damaging. Bribing the UCI. That's fraud.
If this can get to a court and be substantiated then this is very very important.

Allen Lim? Well maybe Garmin aren't that clean after all. Who knows anymore?

Hermy · 20-05-2010 11:20am

RobFowl wrote: »

Fair dues to Landis. This was not an easy decision to make. I hope he gets support from the cycling establishment (or what's left of it afterwards !!).

I don't mean to be flippant but who are the cycling establishment now?

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 11:23am

I remember at the time reading that Lim felt underutilised at Garmin.

RobFowl · 20-05-2010 11:25am

Hermy wrote: »

I don't mean to be flippant but who are the cycling establishment now?

Team owners.DS's prominent riders and ex champions and some bods in the UCI and WADA

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 11:26am

Planet Armstrong might be actually worth watcing tonight.

teufelswerk · 20-05-2010 11:29am

el tonto wrote: »

Planet Armstrong might be actually worth watcing tonight.

Is Planet Armstrong daily? I only caught it on one occassion and didn't care much for the self-aggrandising format. Might catch it though if it's up to date

Hermy · 20-05-2010 11:33am

RobFowl wrote: »

Team owners.DS's prominent riders and ex champions and some bods in the UCI and WADA

Yeah, sadly that's the case - an establishment with little or no credibility rather than an establishment with high standards that everyone else strives to achieve.
What's the chances of this latest bombshell heralding a changing of the guard?

niceonetom · 20-05-2010 11:35am

Anything interesting coming from the twittersphere? I haven't seen anything from the cyclists I follow, but I'm probably not watching the right people. I have vague memories of an account claiming to be Floyd tweeting something actionable during the winter and then Floyd denying it was his actually him. Can't remember the details though, or whether it was related to this latest debacle.

Surely we're entitled to at least a SSDD?

As for Lim, well, you don't get his salary by making rice cakes, no matter how delicious.

Chips Lovell · 20-05-2010 11:41am

Twitter's oddly quiet. I think riders are either a.) in bed or b.) in shock or c.) both.

Hermy · 20-05-2010 11:42am

Someone needs to update their site...

Lumen · 20-05-2010 11:48am

Landis wrote:

I hired Allen Lim as my assistant to help with details and logistics. He helped Levi Leipheimer and I prepare the transfusions for Levi and I and made sure they were kept at the proper temperature.

Oh how bitter those rice cakes taste now. :rolleyes:

I look forward to reading Wiggins' tweets in due course.

godihatedehills · 20-05-2010 11:49am

el tonto wrote: »

Planet Armstrong might be actually worth watcing tonight.

Planet Armstrong is always worth watching.

Hermy · 20-05-2010 11:53am

A great day for David Walsh.

mike12 · 20-05-2010 12:10pm

Hi,
Is there any way they will ever clean up cycling, why not just say anything that happened in the past stays there and from x date if you are caught u are banned for life, I remember watching Landis on the stage where he won the tour and thinking it was the greatest comeback ever, since then i think u have to watch cycling and just assume most of them are doing something, maybe some good will come out of this in the form of better drug tests if landis knows how to avoid them but is it any good to the sport if a lot of the top guys got banned that the guy who finished 25th in the 2006 tour was the only clean guy they could find.
Mike.

Wicklowrider · 20-05-2010 12:12pm

Personally, I am jaded with this crap. Unless you are really naive or young, you should know that Professional and Sport do not belong in the same sentence. Our idols are glorified sandwich board men and women. I rember reading Phonak sales escalated during and after the Hamilton scandal.If you think back to bank overcharging scandals you will remember the management stating publicly that " under the new regime no cheating will be tolerated" Yet they did not reduce the targets for their frontline employees - identical to the situation for a Pro in any "Sport" don't take drugs but if you do not get the results you will be lucky to get a job washing the team bus next season. I am convinced that it isn't possible to win at the top level of any sport without dopeing - it just depends on your budget as to whether the dope of choice is illegal ( read known to testers) or some new to market designer wonder system. Hence the oft heard mantra " I am the most tested ..." Insert cyclist, runner, weigth lifter, swimmer as applicable.
Regardless, the roads of the grand tours will be lined with tens of thousands of fans while the remainder of us will be glued to our t.v/internet and for just a few moments we will kid ourselves that just maybe this year it is real.

ednwireland · 20-05-2010 12:12pm

agree totally with wicklowrider AND i'll carry on watching the giro and the tour this summer

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/wsj-and-espn-landis-admits-doping-alleges-use-by-armstrong-others_117407#ixzz0oS7IiQeE

RadioShack press officer Philippe Maertens told VeloNews that Armstrong and Bruyneel will speak to the press tomorrow morning at the team’s bus at the start of stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California.

Sean Weide, U.S. media director for BMC Racing, told VeloNews that the team will issue a statement later regarding the allegations made against current BMC rider Hincapie and former Phonak boss — and current BMC Bicycles owner — Andy Rihs.

Garmin-Transitions communications director Marya Pongrace said that the team will offer comment soon regarding the allegations against its rider Zabriskie, who currently leads the Amgen Tour of California.

so how are they gonna weasel out of this one ?

wasnt twiggos performance last year after hooking up with lim ? and he hasnt tweeted for days

furiousox · 20-05-2010 12:15pm

Has anyone read 'Positively False'?
My God...the deceit exposed today is breathtaking.
This may prove to be the 'smoking gun' David Walsh has been waiting for.

NickDrake · 20-05-2010 12:20pm

This is a great day for cycling and finally puts to bed LA. It was easy to see LA was blood doping. His levels stayed the same throughout the Tours and indeed did last year.

The man is a cheat and always will be. No test for HGh back then. So he was all over it. No test for blood transfusions. Dodgy tests for EPO unless abused right up untill 2006.

Absolutely delighted