*** SPOILER *** Interesting facts from Landis' book

[Bro Deal]

One other interesting thing: the guy (Paul Scott) who used to be #2 at the UCLA WADA-accredited lab and who used to advise UCI on cases and who started an anti-doping advocacy group, has stated ON THE RECORD that he thinks Floyd is innocent and that if this case had been sent before the UCLA lab, like it usually would be, for advisement, they would have told UCI that they had no case.

One other interesting thing: Don Catlin, the founder of the UCLA lab, has said that doping was obviously going on. Charlotte Ayotte shot down Landis' claim that other labs would not found Landis' samples positive.

The fact is this: Landis now has a long and well documented history of lying about his case. Heck, I wanted him to get off so I see him race again; but there has been much of Landis' defense that is laughable.

 

[Rocket^]

cycling seems to be one of these small time sports that are run for the benefit of the administrators so they can pretend to be napolean and lord over their petty empires and play politics and back stabbing games with each other.

it's about time the riders wised up and organised themselves into an effective union to look after their interests especially when it comes to money.

every other pro sport has taken this step especially in america where the players aren't affraid to go on strike and kill the season.......this is the type of attitude cyclists need to use instead of being sheep and taking it up the **** from these tin pot dictator administrators.
it's one out all out.

the riders should be getting about 25% of incmes revenue from tv and sponsorship going to salaries as in most other sports and there should be better guarantees of salaries being paid and also minimum base wages etc.

the riders should be in the best negotiating position........no riders = no tour.

+1 best idea I've read so far

 

[poulidor]

1) I think Landis is guilty
2) I think the UCI and the lab messed things up so badly he should be exonerated

And what about the people who were cheated, abused by Landis?

If Landis is guilty, it's better that he would not be exonerated, the reverse it's like to steal his victims once again! Victims are not responsible how the case were handled, and Landis' case is far to be clearly flawed so there is no reason to exonerate him.

 

[mitosis]

Wow. I read the appendix and it really is amazing. I'd have to say that I'm convinced Floyd's innocent after reading that - no more on the fence. The first interesting point is that the mislabeling of Floyd's ID number is worse than I'd thought from previous articles. They did not mislabel one document, or get one ID number wrong. They got his ID number wrong THREE times! It almost looks as though they found positive lab tests by other riders and, using wite-out, changed the number to Floyd's. Not saying they did that, but jeez! THREE TIMES.

The contamination of the specimin is a very valid argument. I don't know enough about the science here to know if he's interpreting the numbers properly but if he is, then the sample is contaminated and not a valid sample.

The unreliable testing is to me, 100% a reason for this thing to be thrown out. They tested the same sample (his "A" sample) twice and the two results were off by more than 200%!!! Even in high school science class, if you'd turned in those results, your teacher would tell you you needed to do it again. A 200% variance in tests says that it's not accurate or capable of telling you anything useful with regard to what you were testing for. I don't understand why this case wasn't thrown out.

The other points were ones I was already aware of (e.g. how the rules for what constitutes a positive result is diff. in diff. WADA labs).

His book did not really change my mind; Arnie Baker's presentation DID.

Read Lances book. You'll finish it thinking he's a great guy too. In fact read anyone's authorised story and you'll wonder why they only let saints publish their story.

 

[musette]

Other juicy tidbits:

The first year Landis was on the USPS Tour squad, he was in debt, and his share of the team's Tour earnings was $50K. LA gave Landis a "Lance bonus" of $40K.

One year when Landis couldn't pace LA up a climb and Chechu had to do it instead (during one of the earlier years Landis rode the Tour), both LA and Bruyneel were pretty stern with him afterwards. Bruyneel said something like "this is unacceptable".

Landis writes that LA is a paranoid, detail-oriented person.

Landis makes it sound like Bruyneel didn't really care too much whether Landis' hip was injured, in terms of Landis' personal well-being. It sounded like Bruyneel was focused on getting good domestiques for LA.

Unless one is LA, one does not get one's requests readily fulfilled. Landis wanted a time trial bike at home for practice, and was repeatedly denied. One of the excuses given to explain why Landis couldn't have that was that even George didn't have one.

The domestiques, except for Landis, are all very deferential to Bruyneel and LA.

 

[Bro Deal]

Unless one is LA, one does not get one's requests readily fulfilled. Landis wanted a time trial bike at home for practice, and was repeatedly denied. One of the excuses given to explain why Landis couldn't have that was that even George didn't have one.

Just goes to show that Armstrong is an asshole, Hincapie is a putz for staying, and Landis was the only domestique with balls.

 

[Rhubarb]

Other juicy tidbits:

The first year Landis was on the USPS Tour squad, he was in debt, and his share of the team's Tour earnings was $50K. LA gave Landis a "Lance bonus" of $40K.

Musette is still awaiting her "Lance boning.." I mean bonus...

 

[musette]

Just goes to show that Armstrong is an asshole, Hincapie is a putz for staying, and Landis was the only domestique with balls.

I think keeping a tight hold on one's domestiques, even ones that are strong climbers or otherwise strong themselves, is an art for a team leader and DS. There has to be a certain level, in my book, of combination of carrots and sticks -- a blend of a desire to do well for one's team leader, as well as a certain fear of consequences if one disappoints or tries to have personal ambitions. At least that's necessary in my mind for a team that tries to win the Tour.

see the 2007 Astana Kloden/Vino situation (before the team was pulled)
see the various T-Mobile situations

It is not being a bad person to have developed, along with one's DS (who is very much like oneself) an effective system to induce domestiques to only think of one's well-being (team ownership participation and the team leader also being the boss of the European peloton also help).

Bruyneel has not made it a secret that he picks domestiques not only for "pure" ability, but also for fit. In the case of a domestique, that requires a certain selfless type.

 

[Klodifan]

I think keeping a tight hold on one's domestiques, even ones that are strong climbers or otherwise strong themselves, is an art for a team leader and DS. There has to be a certain level, in my book, of combination of carrots and sticks -- a blend of a desire to do well for one's team leader, as well as a certain fear of consequences if one disappoints or tries to have personal ambitions. At least that's necessary in my mind for a team that tries to win the Tour.

see the 2007 Astana Kloden/Vino situation (before the team was pulled)
see the various T-Mobile situations

It is not being a bad person to have developed, along with one's DS (who is very much like oneself) an effective system to induce domestiques to only think of one's well-being (team ownership participation and the team leader also being the boss of the European peloton also help).

Bruyneel has not made it a secret that he picks domestiques not only for "pure" ability, but also for fit. In the case of a domestique, that requires a certain selfless type.

the antics of TM/Astana added an element of interest to le tour as opposed to the maniacal, robotic racing of blue train.

 

[wolfix]

I think keeping a tight hold on one's domestiques, even ones that are strong climbers or otherwise strong themselves, is an art for a team leader and DS. There has to be a certain level, in my book, of combination of carrots and sticks -- a blend of a desire to do well for one's team leader, as well as a certain fear of consequences if one disappoints or tries to have personal ambitions. At least that's necessary in my mind for a team that tries to win the Tour.

see the 2007 Astana Kloden/Vino situation (before the team was pulled)
see the various T-Mobile situations

It is not being a bad person to have developed, along with one's DS (who is very much like oneself) an effective system to induce domestiques to only think of one's well-being (team ownership participation and the team leader also being the boss of the European peloton also help).

Bruyneel has not made it a secret that he picks domestiques not only for "pure" ability, but also for fit. In the case of a domestique, that requires a certain selfless type.

Agreed. I'm amazed more teams do not see this. This was the winning formula for Eddy M, Hinault,Indurain, and LA. Total of 22 TDFs. Then we looka t peter Post's team of Ti-Raleigh and it could be argued that it was the most dominant team of the past 40 years. It had a problem with winning the TDF.

 

[donrhummy]

Other juicy tidbits:

The first year Landis was on the USPS Tour squad, he was in debt, and his share of the team's Tour earnings was $50K. LA gave Landis a "Lance bonus" of $40K.

One year when Landis couldn't pace LA up a climb and Chechu had to do it instead (during one of the earlier years Landis rode the Tour), both LA and Bruyneel were pretty stern with him afterwards. Bruyneel said something like "this is unacceptable".

Landis writes that LA is a paranoid, detail-oriented person.

Landis makes it sound like Bruyneel didn't really care too much whether Landis' hip was injured, in terms of Landis' personal well-being. It sounded like Bruyneel was focused on getting good domestiques for LA.

Unless one is LA, one does not get one's requests readily fulfilled. Landis wanted a time trial bike at home for practice, and was repeatedly denied. One of the excuses given to explain why Landis couldn't have that was that even George didn't have one.

The domestiques, except for Landis, are all very deferential to Bruyneel and LA.

You misread the "Lance Bonus." He gave him the 50K AND the 40K on top of it. He says he got 90K and that the 40K was from lance's own pocket.

 

[BillC]

Theres is no way McQuaid would have said some of the things Landis seems to claim, but Landis can tell any lies he likes about a telephone conversation - unless it was recorded no one can prove him wrong. Also ridiculous to imagine the UCI wanted to "get" Landis - over the years, there have been dozens of guys who lost wages when teams went bust, or had some other argument with officialdom.

Its the sort of stuff uneducated, "patriotic" Americans will believe, and I guess that the market for Floyd's book. Plenty of them on this thread!

Incidentally, Landis did have the option of requesting his B samples to tested at another lab - why didnt he take that option?? Because the other lab would have confirmed LNDD's findings and destroyed Landis' conspiracy theory defence - which is all he has.

 

[musette]

You misread the "Lance Bonus." He gave him the 50K AND the 40K on top of it. He says he got 90K and that the 40K was from lance's own pocket.

I did not misread that. That's what I said.
You misread my post.

 

[limerickman]

Agreed. I'm amazed more teams do not see this. This was the winning formula for Eddy M, Hinault,Indurain, and LA. Total of 22 TDFs. Then we looka t peter Post's team of Ti-Raleigh and it could be argued that it was the most dominant team of the past 40 years. It had a problem with winning the TDF.

Interesting.

Cyclesport Magazine did an entire edition on Merckx : unlike Armstrong, Merckx retains the friendship of his team colleagues.
For example, Patrick Sercu does publicity work for Merckx team.
Two of Merckx former riders are employed at his factory in production work.

I can tell you that a similar situation exists between Indurain and his former team mates : Gerard Rue for example still works with BigMig.

Guys like Merckx and Indurain have managed to retain friendships with their team collegues.
They never operated an employer/employee relationship.
And they were more successful on the bike.

 

[poulidor]

About Merckx, when I saw what was a hearing, I have understood why he didn't want to come. I think he would have done some damages to Floyd or to his friends with his answers.
- "Mr Eddy, how widespread is doping in cyclling?"
If he had lied , he would have lost a lot of credibility around him. Without lying his testimony became bad for Floyd.

Answering to the question "did you dope?" was probably a smaller problem.

 

[saluki]

Think about it. Do you think Landis would co-author a book that didn't support his innocence?

That's completely irrelevant emotionalism. Either the lab did screw up the labeling three times or it didn't. Either they did have a 200% test variation or they didn't. Doesn't matter who wrote the book.

The lab has to follow standards. And whether Landis doped or not, if their rules were not followed, then they don't have a positive.

 

[Bro Deal]

Doesn't matter who wrote the book.

Once again saluki confirms her absolutely mind boggling stupidity.

Landis sure is not going to write a book that says his defense is largely spin control and misrepresentation. The testing issues are complex and it is easy to distort if you only present one side of the case.

 

[saluki]

Landis sure is not going to write a book that says his defense is largely spin control and misrepresentation. The testing issues are complex and it is easy to distort if you only present one side of the case.

Hi again BB brain. What part of "samples mislabled 3 times" don't you understand? What part of "200% variation in test results" don't you understand. These are verifiable facts. Do you understand the difference between facts and spin; or have you been spinning so long that it's no longer possible. What the hell do you think "the other side" of 200% variation is - "Close enough for government work"? What the hell do you think the other side of "samples mislabled 3 times is"? "Tom, ****, Harry, what the hell, it had to belong to Landis"? Sometimes I think that you've exposed yourself as the biggest moron in the world, and then the next day you top yourself.

 

[Bro Deal]

Hi again BB brain. What part of "samples mislabled 3 times" don't you understand? What part of "200% variation in test results" don't you understand. These are verifiable facts. Do you understand the difference between facts and spin; or have you been spinning so long that it's no longer possible. What the hell do you think "the other side" of 200% variation is - "Close enough for government work"? What the hell do you think the other side of "samples mislabled 3 times is"? "Tom, ****, Harry, what the hell, it had to belong to Landis"? Sometimes I think that you've exposed yourself as the biggest moron in the world, and then the next day you top yourself.

Jesus Christ, you stupid ****. Instead of relying upon what Landis tells you, go over to the DP forums, where there is a full discussion in excruciating detail of all the lab work and the science.

 

[mitosis]

That's completely irrelevant emotionalism. Either the lab did screw up the labeling three times or it didn't. Either they did have a 200% test variation or they didn't. Doesn't matter who wrote the book.

The lab has to follow standards. And whether Landis doped or not, if their rules were not followed, then they don't have a positive.

You need a rest mate, you are starting to sound like Musette.