Landis 'fesses up?!

[rich p]

With regard to the supposed pay-off to the UCI, did anyone ever satisfactorily explain why LA donated $20K(?) to McQuaid last year?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

so we have the accusations of a self confessed liar and cheat, the track record of the most drug tested athlete in the history of sport who has yet to test positive, and a whole lot of innuendo with people largely advocating the pov they had of LA before the scandal broke, either he's a zero or a hero.

Why is LA so 'lucky' testing wise, over such a huge period of time, yet his colleagues and team mates and ex-team mates seem to have got caught with tedious regularity. Do we assume Indurain was a doper because he was so good?

nothing about cheating in professional sport ever surprises me, even when it disappoints me immensely.

Off to Paris today, hope my schoolboy French is up to reading the sports pages there.

 

[kennykool]

Suppose I should really have a post on here....

.....Load of rubbish! Landis is clutching at straws

That will be all.

 

[Keith Oates]

How a man who has spent all of his savings and a lot of his time trying to convince various people and institutions that he did not take drugs and can now turn around and say he did, is completely beyond my comprehension.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[User169]

I'll wait and see what Lance does,before rubbishung Landis's claims. If it's a slam dunk then he'll sue him and the evidence will come out

If he doesn't and neither do Hincapie/Levi/Bruyneel I'll find that suspicious to the point of an admission of guilt

I think that's a terribly unfair position to take.

US courts (more accurately the lawyers) are notorious expensive - Landis is seemingly desitute, so isn't exactly going to be good for getting any costs or damages. Why should LA spend his own cash rebutting every outlandish claim made against him?

 

[trustysteed]

so we have the accusations of a self confessed liar and cheat, the track record of the most drug tested athlete in the history of sport who has yet to test positive, and a whole lot of innuendo with people largely advocating the pov they had of LA before the scandal broke, either he's a zero or a hero.

Why is LA so 'lucky' testing wise, over such a huge period of time, yet his colleagues and team mates and ex-team mates seem to have got caught with tedious regularity. Do we assume Indurain was a doper because he was so good?

totally agree, Greg.

 

[raindog]

Landis will be mocked and denigrated by the people he's accused, the truth will be glossed over or covered up and the circus will roll on.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

who has yet to test positive

Just to correct you, that is not strictly true - he has not technically tested positive. However samples provided by Armstrong from the 1999 Tour have tested positive for EPO. It is just that the test used was not available at the time.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Landis will be mocked and denigrated by the people he's accused, the truth will be glossed over or covered up and the circus will roll on.

That's about the size of it. There is no way of knowing who is, or is not telling the truth. It's possible to selectively gleen enough information to support any position you like over this. If 'the most tested athlete' mantra works for you, that's fine.

But if you're as cold, impassionate and objective as me, there's just the whiff of something fishy going on.

 

[Smokin Joe]

William Fotheringham hits the nail squarely on the head -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/may/20/floyd-landis

 

[Chuffy]

Another piece in todays Grauniad (Richard Williams this time, not Fotheringham). It's a pretty reasonable summary of the history behind all this. It seems that this story has enough traction that it's getting big coverage, which may in turn force WADA et al to take the allegations seriously and investigate accordingly. Ultimately though, unless Landis has more evidence than he's admitting to (and would Honest Floyd lie to us about that?) then it probably won't come to much. However, anything that puts a hedgehog in Team LA's pants is fine by me...

 

[Ball]

I think that's a terribly unfair position to take.

US courts (more accurately the lawyers) are notorious expensive - Landis is seemingly desitute, so isn't exactly going to be good for getting any costs or damages. Why should LA spend his own cash rebutting every outlandish claim made against him?

I totally agree. Taking the litigation route would not only be hugely costly, with very little hope of reclaiming that cost at the end, but also a long slog. A massive case like this would be wholly time consuming and emotionally draining, when I imagine Lance and his team just want to get on with doping...I mean racing, sorry, and don't want an enormous libel case to take over their lives for the forseeable future.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I totally agree. Taking the litigation route would not only be hugely costly, with very little hope of reclaiming that cost at the end, but also a long slog. A massive case like this would be wholly time consuming and emotionally draining, when I imagine Lance and his team just want to get on with doping...I mean racing, sorry, and don't want an enormous libel case to take over their lives for the forseeable future.

The trouble with going to court is if you do have something to hide, you can never be sure what will come out and who else will decide to bat for the other team.

Armstrong is better off attacking Landis as a crank and leaving it to die down.

 

[Chuffy]

I totally agree. Taking the litigation route would not only be hugely costly, with very little hope of reclaiming that cost at the end, but also a long slog. A massive case like this would be wholly time consuming and emotionally draining, when I imagine Lance and his team just want to get on with doping...I mean racing, sorry, and don't want an enormous libel case to take over their lives for the forseeable future.

I'm kind of on the fence here.
Yes, litigation would be expensive (but Team LA has lots of money and lots of lawyers) and there would almost certainly be no money at the end of it, because Floyd doesn't have any. However, surely stomping Floyd into the ground, which would be dead easy if he really has no hard evidence, would serve as a sharp warning to anyone else who has tales to tell. Wouldn't that be a price worth paying? Or is Team LA actually nervous about the embarrasment that a court case could bring? After all, if Floyd sub-poenaed Hamilton, Andreu and co it could be very, very damaging to Team LA's credibility and business interests.

 

[andy_wrx]

the most drug tested athlete in the history of sport who has yet to test positive

Not that one again !

That description of Armstrong comes from...Armstrong himself

It's certainly not true - someone produced figures for those cyclists who had been tested and Lance was way down the list : the most tested were sprinters, as they tend to win more often so get tested the most.

At one time, the most tested athlete across all sports was Marion Jones, and we know how those tests failed to catch her out...