
Wow.
Yesterday, various cycling publications mentioned that today, Floyd Landis was going to go public with some big news. Those of us who follow the sport, sadly, knew what the news was going to be.
If you were a listener of
my Podcast, you know that I defended Landis from the beginning. After doing a lot of research, and after having read
this report (see page 11), written by an unbiased source, I concluded that I didn't know whether or not Landis had doped, because his testing was not conducted in a proper enough manner to determine it, either way. Because of this, and his devout
Mennonite beliefs, I took him at his word, and gave him the benefit of the doubt. What can I say? I tend to believe in the inherent good in people, and would rather believe that people are telling the truth. Sadly, at the end of the day, he betrayed everyone, including his family.
In addition to admitting that he himself had doped, he also makes assorted accusations against former team mates Lance Armstrong, Levy Leipheimer, George Hincapie, Dave Zabriskie, and his former team manager, Johan Bruyneel.
At this point I don't know what to believe. He's obviously lost all credibility since he lied about his drug usage under oath. I have no idea what his motivations could possibly be, and I suspect we might never know the full truth about drugs in athletics.
When I think about a high profile athlete like Lance Armstrong, and how often he and his team mates are tested, one would think that if they were using
PED's, that they would have to get caught, eventually. Even the best doping program seems like it would be eventually detected, if so many athletes are involved. Up until this month, I don't believe that any rider on any team that Lance had been a part of, had ever tested positive for any banned substances. Given that Landis just admitted that he was using while on the US Postal Service Cycling Team, that brings into question the accuracy of the testing methods, entirely.
I may not know exactly what to believe, but I do believe that not
all athletes are doping. That gives me hope, but it is a murky hope.
Sometimes it sucks to be a fan.