Landis loses appeal to AAA...

[Felt_Rider]

Is it just me or does it seem like people could care less about Landis?

I see it is headline news on a couple of the national news websites and I bet there will be some mention on this evening's USA news, but I bet you are right that tomorrow or the next day it will not make the US news again. I don't think the public is all that concerned with Landis. I believe the public is even getting desensitized to all the Barry Bond's new as well to the point it he makes the news weekly, but it no longer seems to make it as small talk at the water fountain at the office.

Avid cyclist fans will be the only ones who will talk about this for a few more weeks.

 

[Felt_Rider]

So true but this is the best news I've heard in months...... hopefully now we can put behind us the drug culture USPS/Disco cultivated through the peleton...... I still think Landis will confess....... as LeMond said... the house of cards is falling....... if we want to get on with cycling guys like Landis need to be out of the picture...... now what about the Vuelta stage today ! Now that was racing ! LOL !

Really?

I would hope that he would man up and tell the truth, but I am skeptical.

 

[mitosis]

The real loser is Oscar Pereiro. The fact that Landis has used the courts and every conceivable ******** excuse and blamed everyone else except himself means that Pereiro has lost a lifetime highlight. I am not one for litigation but its well justified in this case. I hope Pereiro sues Landis for a fortune.

 

[plectrum]

I am quite amazed that with the expert doctors available the athletes ever manage to fail drug tests.

Why did Floyd's doc allow him to take such levels of testosterone, why did Vino's doc allow him to blood dope.

The reason for taking the dope was to get back in contention, or to prove a point. In Landis' case it was to regain yellow, which automatically triggers a dope test and in Vino's case it was to regain some pride through a stage win which again auto matically triggers a dope test.

I understand the cyclists are emotion driven fools but how do the cold hearted calculated physicians allow their 'clients' to go get themselves banned and hence .....lose their clients and related earnings?????

 

[lwedge]

2006 was poorly executed TDF from all sides; Oscar shouldn't have won and Landis, doped up to the gills shouldn't have won. There is no way you give anyone 30min breakaways... and Riis should have chased Landis down. It was Kloden's in my opinion.

By the way, how have you been? I haven't seen you round here of late.

The real loser is Oscar Pereiro. The fact that Landis has used the courts and every conceivable ******** excuse and blamed everyone else except himself means that Pereiro has lost a lifetime highlight. I am not one for litigation but its well justified in this case. I hope Pereiro sues Landis for a fortune.

 

[Crankyfeet]

Did you think of the possibility that the testosterone was not intended, that he transfused himself with blood harvested in spring which unwittingly had traces of the steroid course he had previously been on.

Just speculating of course. But it would explain his anger at tripping the dope test on something he didn't intend to trip-up on.

I am quite amazed that with the expert doctors available the athletes ever manage to fail drug tests.

Why did Floyd's doc allow him to take such levels of testosterone, why did Vino's doc allow him to blood dope.

The reason for taking the dope was to get back in contention, or to prove a point. In Landis' case it was to regain yellow, which automatically triggers a dope test and in Vino's case it was to regain some pride through a stage win which again auto matically triggers a dope test.

I understand the cyclists are emotion driven fools but how do the cold hearted calculated physicians allow their 'clients' to go get themselves banned and hence .....lose their clients and related earnings?????

 

[Hemopure]

It is the drug cheating and liar legacy to Nike's LAF and to Pharmstrong marketing brand which matters now.

Roid Floyd will be quickly forgotten--as Jan Ulrich already has.

Roid is a punk.

Is it just me or does it seem like people could care less about Landis? Had this happened 12 months ago... hell, six months ago, this forum would have blown up and there would have been twelve different threads on this topic. Now even the one thread about the Tour champion losing his appeal gets scant traffic.

 

[Trev_S]

There were problems with the CI test - remember the photos of lifting magnets strewn on top of the CI machine? Incorrect software? Untrained operator? Beyond that, there was the generally sloppy manner in which LNDD had been shown to operate, and the fact that they failed to follow established procedures. Not once, but repeatedly. Lack of instutional control seems to sum up that lab's modus operandi.

Did the Landis defense admit that the picture of the 'said' machine was in fact NOT the machine used. (I think they took the picture and claimed it was the machine in an attempt to cloud/confuse things).

Incorrect software, their claim was that it was old out dated software. I don't recall what the outcome of that argument was.

Untrained operator, I believe that was proven otherwise. The work that they did was all within the rules & procedures as set by WADA. The WADA witness on the stand testified as such.


Whilst there may have been some grey areas in procedures for the A sample, they still proved that the B samples also tested positive under correct procedures. Landis reps where there to observe. (which as testified they tried to interrupt the testing, perhaps to confuse or force a mistake by the operator???)

Not to forget Landis's previous B samples from other stages also tested positive to a synthetic testosterone. Whilst these positives where not part of the stage 17 positive result it showed that despite the fact he was still within the 4:1 ratio it proved that Landis was taking testosterone on a controlled level throughout the tour and as such it backs up the stage 17 test results.

 

[Bro Deal]

The real loser is Oscar Pereiro. The fact that Landis has used the courts and every conceivable ******** excuse and blamed everyone else except himself means that Pereiro has lost a lifetime highlight. I am not one for litigation but its well justified in this case. I hope Pereiro sues Landis for a fortune.

Is this the same Pereiro who was on Landis' team, a team with a dozen doping problems in a few years, and the same Pereiro who described Landis' positive test as something that "was unfortunate what has happened to him"? The same Pereiro who then went to a team whose manager describes dope as medicine? I am not crying a river for him.

The ASO should not award any winner, or at the very least they should retrotest Pereiro's urine with IRMS.

 

[mitosis]

2006 was poorly executed TDF from all sides; Oscar shouldn't have won and Landis, doped up to the gills shouldn't have won. There is no way you give anyone 30min breakaways... and Riis should have chased Landis down. It was Kloden's in my opinion.

By the way, how have you been? I haven't seen you round here of late.

I lurk from time to time. Had a bit of input during the Tour de Farce but as you probably saw the quality of posts was pretty down. I've been snowed under with work this year and haven't raced at all.

Thanks for asking. Yourself?

 

[Bro Deal]

I am quite amazed that with the expert doctors available the athletes ever manage to fail drug tests.

Why did Floyd's doc allow him to take such levels of testosterone, why did Vino's doc allow him to blood dope.

The reason for taking the dope was to get back in contention, or to prove a point. In Landis' case it was to regain yellow, which automatically triggers a dope test and in Vino's case it was to regain some pride through a stage win which again auto matically triggers a dope test.

I understand the cyclists are emotion driven fools but how do the cold hearted calculated physicians allow their 'clients' to go get themselves banned and hence .....lose their clients and related earnings?????

I don't think the athletes were stupid. I think that if we knew the real story it would be very rational.

My bet on Vino is that he was unaware that the LNDD had recently acquired the equipment and training to test for autologous blood doping. My bet on Landis is that he somehow screwed up the same thing he had been doing all thoughout the TdF.

 

[Crankyfeet]

I don't think the athletes were stupid. I think that if we knew the real story it would be very rational.

My bet on Vino is that he was unaware that the LNDD had recently acquired the equipment and training to test for autologous blood doping. My bet on Landis is that he somehow screwed up the same thing he had been doing all thoughout the TdF.

Which would explain why they are so skeptical of the positive test results. If they had done the same thing 100 times before and passed the tests, their view must be that something anomolous happened with the test procedure that gave a different result. But again, I speculate.

 

[Felt_Rider]

Cranky, I was told of the theory on Landis having blood taken in the off season during a period using testosterone and it seems reasonable. Perhaps the doctors, trainers and athletes are so caught up on the finer technical details of masking during the event that they sometime overlook the simple items on the check list at other times. Like making sure blood extracted is done during a time that the athlete is clean. It does seem possible to overlook simple details when you are working really hard to pass the more technical difficult items.

If this is true I bet he really was shocked when he first got the news. I bet it took him and cohorts hours or days to figure out what happened.

 

[Frigo's Luggage]

The real loser is Oscar Pereiro. The fact that Landis has used the courts and every conceivable ******** excuse and blamed everyone else except himself means that Pereiro has lost a lifetime highlight. I am not one for litigation but its well justified in this case. I hope Pereiro sues Landis for a fortune.

I think it will only get worse for Pereiro now. I would bet real money that ASO will refuse to declare any winner for 2006. There is a precedence for it with Riis in 1996. And, there are some unanswered questions about Pereiro that will give ASO some pause.

 

[fbircher]

Is this the same Pereiro who was on Landis' team, a team with a dozen doping problems in a few years, and the same Pereiro who described Landis' positive test as something that "was unfortunate what has happened to him"? The same Pereiro who then went to a team whose manager describes dope as medicine? I am not crying a river for him.

The ASO should not award any winner, or at the very least they should retrotest Pereiro's urine with IRMS.

+1. It's hard to believe this guy (Pereiro) spent his career surrounded by and collaborating with some of the biggest dopers in the business but remained pure as the driven snow throughout it all. That probably explains his seeming lack of outrage upon hearing he was cheated out of his "rightful" win in '06. It's a sorry state of affairs when the winner of the biggest event in the sport if disqualified for doping, and the person in line to inherit the trophy from him is in all likelihood a cheater himself.

 

[nns1400]

Is it just me or does it seem like people could care less about Landis? Had this happened 12 months ago... hell, six months ago, this forum would have blown up and there would have been twelve different threads on this topic. Now even the one thread about the Tour champion losing his appeal gets scant traffic.

I personally find the suspense over the new Slipstream kit more riveting than the Landis case...

 

[Frigo's Luggage]

There is no drama in the Landis situation. Anybody wih a half a brain that was willing to read through all of his Wiki Defense realized it was just smoke and mirrors. The only drama is whether he would be able to weasel out of it. The chance of that pretty much disappeared after the LeMond blackmail incident.

I actually feel somewhat sorry for the guy. He was relying on too many people that were not looking out for his best interest. Too many people wanted a portion of the $2 million in defense costs and their time in the spotlight. Somebody should have said "Hey Floyd, if you did it, you should come clean. The public will forgive you if they think you are honest and everybody knows cycling is dirty anyhow. You should just explain that you didn't start out intending to cheat but got caught up in a culture where cheating is required for survival. Say you are sorry and keep all of your money."

At the end of the day, who is better off, Sinkewitz or Landis? I think Sinkewitz is because he came clean and has nothing to hide for the rest of his life. Landis will have to face people from now until the day he dies and tell the same lies. That is a big burden. If he were smart he would come clean now.

 

[Felt_Rider]

I have always been open about my former use (even while I was using), but then again I competed in an activity where it was fully condoned, encouraged, and supported by the orginization so it is not an apple to apple comparison, but I have to believe that living a lie has to be hard and stressful to manage as Landis is finding out. I suppose some of these guys see LA manage the task and believe that they can do the same with the right legal counsel if needed.

All these guys would do themselves a greater good if they were willing to come together confess their use, agree to see how they will fare in competition without using, seek immunity from the organization so that if past dirt were to surface the organization can state, "we already know about this individual and have them on a watch list", begin their period of making training re-adjustments (training clean is not the same as training with PED's). In the end they will only have the stress of competition rather than the stress of competition and the greater stress of sneaking through each and every test, false medical approvals and falsehoods that have to be told.

Do I think this will ever happen? Unfortunately, No!
Because these athletes will not trust each other to stay clean and in their paranoia they will continue to believe they must use to win. They must come to a point in their lives like I did and ask is winning worth losing it all. I won almost everything I entered, but winning never really fulfilled me and at the same time I was losing my life, my first wife and almost my freedom. Is winning worth that much? Thank the Lord that I no longer believe winning is worth more than dying.

 

[meehs]

The real loser is Oscar Pereiro. The fact that Landis has used the courts and every conceivable ******** excuse and blamed everyone else except himself means that Pereiro has lost a lifetime highlight. I am not one for litigation but its well justified in this case. I hope Pereiro sues Landis for a fortune.

Oh sure! Poor Oscar Pereiro. A deserving champion, robbed of his moment in the sun. Certainly OP was clean and is deserving of the TdF title. There's certainly no evidence linking good ol' OP to doping.

One doper sues another for robbing him of his rightful spoils. Oh the irony.

 

[Crankyfeet]

+1. I don't think of these guys as cheats who should be burnt at the stake. I think these guys got to a certain stage in their "cycling's my life" careers and getting on the gear was just part of the deal. With team and team-mate assurance, the omerta, and I believe, UCI's superficial stance on the issue previously, these guys treated drugs like it was just part of their training. It was not even considered immoral.

Now they are getting hung out to dry and UCI are scapegoating them without taking any public responsibility.

There is no drama in the Landis situation. Anybody wih a half a brain that was willing to read through all of his Wiki Defense realized it was just smoke and mirrors. The only drama is whether he would be able to weasel out of it. The chance of that pretty much disappeared after the LeMond blackmail incident.

I actually feel somewhat sorry for the guy. He was relying on too many people that were not looking out for his best interest. Too many people wanted a portion of the $2 million in defense costs and their time in the spotlight. Somebody should have said "Hey Floyd, if you did it, you should come clean. The public will forgive you if they think you are honest and everybody knows cycling is dirty anyhow. You should just explain that you didn't start out intending to cheat but got caught up in a culture where cheating is required for survival. Say you are sorry and keep all of your money."

At the end of the day, who is better off, Sinkewitz or Landis? I think Sinkewitz is because he came clean and has nothing to hide for the rest of his life. Landis will have to face people from now until the day he dies and tell the same lies. That is a big burden. If he were smart he would come clean now.