Arbitrators find cyclist Floyd Landis guilty of doping, rule he must forfeit 2006 Tour title

DeutscherGeist

I remember following this case. 2 million dollars later, Landis is still claiming innocence. The battle was sometimes grueling and very ugly. It got into some personal lives which were irrelevant to the case.

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Connecticoin

And you know the French are digging and re-digging to try to nail Armstrong -- nothing has stuck yet, but you have to wonder if they will find (or make up) something.

FifthScaleRacer

Those stupid euro queens are just pissed that they got dominated in their "own" sport.

Imagine if Team USA wins the mens world cup...all of Europe would riot.

BobaFett72

do you really doubt his guilt? Next to baseball and track and field it seems the biggest cheaters are cyclists! blood transfusions, doping, steroids etc.

I wish these clowns would just play the damn game/sport and EARN your victory instead of trying to steal it.

perkdog

I wish we would just let these guys do what they have to do, believe me there is thousands of athletes that have gotten away with it, would anyone give a crap if the guy who finished last in the race was on HGH as well? Or how about the MLB player who dopes himself up but only batted .250? It seems that whoever performs the best is under the most scrutiny. I do not expect anyone to agree with me but that is my 2 cents!

DeutscherGeist

With lab tests, you have to be accurate and precise in your technique, otherwise, you really mess up the results. At first I thought he would be guilty for sure because of the lab results, but one arbitrator judge by the name of Campbell stated that the French lab got some of the easy tests done sloppy and the arbitration panel strongly relied on a test which was much more complicated to conduct and used that as the basis of a 2 to 1 guilty verdit uphold. Campbell dissented, and he brings up a good point. When you are dealing world class competition, you need the highest standards of tests too. The entire arbitration panel did find several faults with the French lab, but I guess two of the arbitration judges still found it sufficient enough to uphold the original guilty verdict.

There is still a chance Landis could pursue this further, but that will be a huge expense and drain on his time where he should be spending with his family. That's the problem with court cases, they are costly on all fronts. I know Armstrong has be picked on many times, but there is no evidence for anything with Armstrong--just hearsay.

DeutscherGeist

Floyd Landis did appeal and lost that chance too. Now he admits to doping. BRAVO!!

After collecting 2 million dollars from his fans to fund his defense, he has in effect made a lot of people angry when many thought he was innocent, but now know he was not. There will be some personal lawsuits coming his way, that's for sure.
He must be coming out with some kind of book deal, or else why attack Armstrong? By attacking Armstrong, he is drawing attention to himself and it is a good strategy (although not a personal choice for me) for getting word out of his possible upcoming book, or at least generating some interest leading up to its possible release.

Connecticoin

The French are still digging for dirt on Armstrong . . . . .

DeutscherGeist

With Armstrong, there is a chance he is innocent.

His urine samples from the earlier Tour de France are still present. At the time of testing, back in 1999/2000, EPO was not tested for or the technology to test it just was not up to par. The lab now wants to test it for EPO, but Armstrong and company refuse citing that the chain of possession is in question and who really knows what happened to it during all this time (meaning it could have been sabotaged or spiked).

During the Cold War, has there been any incidents of tampering with samples during the Olympics where competition was really fierce between United States and allies vs. the Soviets and its allies? What I am getting at is spiking samples is not something that came to public attention even during an era where it was so tempting to use. I am not saying its impossible, but it is a stretch.

Since 1999 was not far away from Armstrong's cancer rehab and he has admitted to taking EPO and other kinds of banned drugs to recover medically, who is to say some remnants were not in his body during the Tour? It could have a false positive test and I don't blame Armstrong concerned about it being divulged out of context.

Armstrong has tested for presence of banned substances before, but it was not enough for a positive. He later showed he had a medical note of using a topical cream for his saddle sores that does contain banned substances, but this is medical use and not some kind of performance enhancing application or benefit. Glad no one made a fuss about it either.

EPO increases red blood cells which counters the effects of chemotherapy, which results in loss of very import red blood cells. We are talking life and death here, so I applaud Armstrong for taking it and some steroids to help with his chemotherapy side effects and recovery. However, EPO for a healthy athlete means more power and endurance, thus an unfair advantage.