Floyd Landis, bitter?

[huw williams]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ts_news_us

[Ben]

Lots of press conferences scheduled for before the stage of Tour of California, I guess to deny everything

[Marcus]

Blimey! Blimey! Blimey! Who's upset him then

[Ben]

Copied across

In one of the emails, dated April 30 and addressed to Stephen Johnson, the president of USA Cycling, Mr. Landis said that Mr. Armstrong's longtime coach, Johan Bruyneel, introduced Mr. Landis to the use of steroid patches, blood doping and human growth hormone in 2002 and 2003, his first two years on the U.S. Postal Service team. He alleged Mr. Armstrong helped him understand the way the drugs worked. "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," Mr. Landis claimed in the email. He claimed he was instructed by Mr. Bruyneel how to use synthetic EPO and steroids and how to carry out blood transfusions that doping officials wouldn't be able to detect. Mr. Bruyneel and Mr. Johnson could not be reached for comment.

In the same email, Mr. Landis wrote that after breaking his hip in 2003, he flew to Girona, Spain—a training hub for American riders—and had two half-liter units of blood extracted from his body in three-week intervals to be used later during the Tour de France. The extraction, Mr. Landis claimed, took place in Mr. Armstrong's apartment, where blood bags belonging to Mr. Armstrong and his then-teammate George Hincapie were kept in a refrigerator in Mr. Armstrong's closet. Mr. Landis said he was asked to check the temperature of the blood daily. According to Mr. Landis, Mr. Armstrong left for a few weeks and asked Mr. Landis to make sure the electricity didn't go off and ruin the blood. George Hincapie, through a spokesman, denied the allegations.

[Ben]

Copied across

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/n ... id=5203604

Landis said he takes full responsibility for having doped and added he was never forced or threatened.
"I don't feel guilty at all about having doped," Landis told ESPN.com. "I did what I did because that's what we [cyclists] did and it was a choice I had to make after 10 years or 12 years of hard work to get there; and that was a decision I had to make to make the next step. My choices were, do it and see if I can win, or don't do it and I tell people I just don't want to do that, and I decided to do it."
According to Landis, his first use of performance-enhancing drugs was in June 2002, when he was a member of the U.S. Postal Service team. The World Anti-Doping Agency's statute of limitations for doping offenses is eight years, and Landis said that, too, is part of his motivation for divulging his inflammatory information

"Now we've come to the point where the statute of limitations on the things I know is going to run out or start to run out next month," Landis said. "If I don't say something now, then it's pointless to ever say it."

[Phil H]

Landis is jealous. He's not as successful as Lance because he doesn't have a Ferrari ....

[huw williams]

Goodness me, just seen the actual emails which Landis sent out - there are pages and pages of detailed dates, places and names.

Keep your eye on this one guys - amazing stuff

[huw williams]

Our staffers are currently collating it and sifting out the good bits (and running it past legal to see what we can print), be on the websites soon enough

[Ben]

Copied across

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/mo...#ixzz0oSNx0kj8

"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."
Armstrong, who has always vigorously denied doping, is said by Landis to have participated in that and many other instances of doping. Attempts to reach Armstrong's attorney were unsuccessful.

[huw williams]

All that is fairly well documented - the more interesting stuff concerns Armstrong's allegedly positive tests and Bruyneel's pay-offs to Verbruggen to keep them quiet.

[Ben]

edit by marco: Unsubstantiated and unverified claims allegedly by Floyd Landis....

[quote]
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread ... post213765

[David.Hilbert]

The [edited by marco] (alleged) pay off to the uci to cover up armstrongs positive is the jewel in the crown

Also, is anyone more than a little alarmed at wiggins link with Lim last year?

[Phil H]

allegedly.

[kieran]

why is that? just 'cause last year Wiggins suddenly becomes a GT contender? I have accepted the 'old' generation I watched during the late 1990s to early 2000s were doped for the most part, but had hoped that a new chapter was beginning?

[kieran]

Also from Adam's comments about high level amatuer/semi-pro racing in Belgium is the sport beyond saving?