Floyd Landis hires Lemond's attorney
This story from AFP (LINK) says that Floyd Landis has hired Greg Lemond's lawyer in case he faces a criminal case or a defamation law suit. Previously, I supported his fight against what I believed was a badly flawed case brought by the French anti-doping agency. As it turns out, I was wrong. Landis lied about using performance enhancing drugs. He lied right up through the Court for Arbitration in Sports. He continued to lie after the court ruled against him.
But we're supposed to believe him now that he's accusing others of similar cheating.
One question to ask is "who benefits?" Landis no longer has a team. It's extremely unlikely that anyone in professional bicycle racing will hire him, so his career is over.
I'm sorry that I supported his fight. I'm sorry that I believed he had a valid case against the French. But I will not be sorry for this - you've lied and cheated, Floyd, demonstrating to the world that your words mean nothing. You're facing an uphill battle because from now on, you'll be regarded as a liar first. Whatever tumbles from your mouth will not be believed. It will have no credibility unless or until you have proof for your allegations.
(By the way, I think the guy on the left is Keith Richards. Yes, there really is a guy over there! You didn't see him? I wonder why?)
Labels: doping, floyd landis
posted by Ed W at 5:55 PM
5 Comments:
Yeah...this sucks. I almost bought his book recently about how he was totally innocent. How does he live with himself now? He should have just admitted it, taken hispunishment and moved on. Now, he'll struggle forever.
He clearly didn't think things through very clearly - at pretty much ANY step of the way.
What IF what he says is accurate. (I happen to think it is). Will you say the same thing about Lance?
There's an anti doping campaign being run by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority at the moment along the lines of "You can never win your reputation back."
Too true.
Patrick...if Armstrong ever admits to doping, or if he's tested positive, I'll be just as hard nosed toward him. But I'm also a firm believer in the idea of "innocent until proven guilty." In the Landis case, I still think the investigation was botched and shoddy. It wouldn't have held up in an American court (IMO) and he probably would have walked away on procedural errors. That would have meant an admitted drug cheat would have continued racing.
And there's a real moral dilemma to ponder. On one hand, a bad investigation eventually unmasked a fraud, but if it had been conducted by our rules, there's a good chance the fraud would have gone undetected. Am I reading too much into this? Am I alone in feeling conflicted about it?
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