What Landis Saw
In all likelihood, the Tour De France was decided today when Alberto Contador gained a few more precious seconds on second place rider Andy Schleck in the individual time trial, the penultimate stage of the race.
Contador's impending victory isn't without some controversy. Contador took the yellow jersey away from Schleck on the 15th stage of Le Tour when he sped past the Luxembourg rider as he stopped to fix his bike chain. Etiquette dictates that riders not attack while mechanical problems are being dealt with, especially by race leaders.
However, it's a different pot of controversy being stirred and a different strand of cycling etiquette that's being thrown out the window by American Floyd Landis right now. The former teammate of Lance Armstrong who was stripped of his 2006 Tour De France victory for doping appeared on ABC's Nightlne last night to outright claim, "I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs."
The accusation comes on the heels of Landis maintaining his innonce in the 2006 Tour right up until May of this year, when he not only admitted his own use of performance enhancing drugs, but also blew the whistle on several other racers. Those being accused by Landis point to ulterior motives for his confession, suggesting that they only came after his team was refused entry to the 2010 Amgen Tour of California and he wasn't considered for a spot on Armstrong's Team Radio Shack.
Before we paint Landis as nothing more than a blathering pile of bitterness, the New York Times recently gathered testimony from a lawsuit filed by Armstrong in which his agent, Bill Stapleton, said "Armstrong was formally granted an 11.5 percent interest in the team sometime around the fall of 2004." This is in stark contrast to Armstrong's claims that "the most glaring thing is the misconception that I was the owner of the team. That’s completely untrue. No ownership, none at all."
Two other riders, in addition to Landis, have admitted to doping while on the former Postal Service team, and as federal prosecutors focus their investigation on Armstrong, they may work to prove that if he didn't cheat himself, he had specific knowledge of his team's behaviour, something else that Armstrong denies. From there, it wouldn't be difficult to link the cancer survivor to charges of fraud for profiting from illegal activity while holding back on important information.
On the ongoing investigation into his dealings, Arstrong claims "I've done too many good things for too many people."
Sports By Brooks took him to task for this quote, asking "Why would an innocent man invoke his charity work as a defense for alleged wrongdoing?"
No matter the end result, there is little question that the reputation of a man that many considered to be a hero above reproach is taking more and more hits as each day passes. While the first rock may have been cast by someone with sin, it perhaps drew attention to the smoke that a raging fire has caused.
