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Yes, it’s true. In the past, and even today, I’ve lashed Landis about his doping, and I am glad, and sort of smug, about him coming out and finally laying it all out there. Yeah, I still think he’s kind of a douche. Then again, I thought he was a douche before he was found to be doping at le Tour, but I digress.
In my readings today, I came across a post from one Adam Myerson. Someone that a lot of us know, and have raced with, or maybe have had a few beers with before (full disclosure, have raced against him/with him, never drank beer with the man, but would if the opportunity arises). Adam, is no friend of doping, or dopers, but, his take on the Landis revelations of today, or this week I should say, made me think about it some more. I dropped him an e-mail, and asked him if I could re-post his blog here, and he said it was all good. See below, said blog post (I will include the link at the end of the post).
Pretty Boy Floyd
Submitted by Adam Myerson on Thu, 05/20/2010 – 13:59.Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934) was an American bank robber. He operated in various parts of the Midwest and his criminal exploits gained heavy press coverage in the 1930s.
So by now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Floyd’s confession. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, apparently, and there’s an excellent follow up on ESPN.com. I’ll let you get caught up rather than recap it here, because I want to get at what I think is the heart of the matter. Before I could even write it myself, Floyd said it to ESPN:
“I don’t feel guilty at all about having doped. I did what I did because that’s what we [cyclists] did and it was a choice I had to make after 10 years or 12 years of hard work to get there, and that was a decision I had to make to make the next step. My choices were, do it and see if I can win, or don’t do it and I tell people I just don’t want to do that, and I decided to do it.”
I’ve actually had a blog entry about Floyd percolating for a while. I’ve been racing with him a lot over the past two seasons since he came back. And much like Tyler, Floyd was (is) always really nice to me. Says hi, smiles, is friendly. He doesn’t ride around with an attitude, he doesn’t yell at guys in the races, and when he has legs, he works hard. There was definitely a lot of “parade riding” in his first year back where he seemed to just be showing up, going to the bar at night, and not putting a lot of effort into the races. But when his form came back around, he was always willing to work for his teammates.
Floyd was born in Georgia but grew up in Oklahoma, spending considerable time in nearby Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri. He got his start in crime at age 18 when he stole $3.50 in pennies from a local post office, according to an issue of Time magazine, published 22 October 1922. Three years later he was arrested for a payroll robbery, September 16, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri and served five years in prison.
And so just as I did with Tyler, I struggled when Floyd was nice to me. He was not the same guy I raced with back in the day, when he was a mountain biker dabbling in the road races, or on Mercury after that. I wanted to spit on him. If he was near me in the pack, I made a point of not giving him room. If he was coming back from an attack or I was passing him in a turn, maybe I turned a little wider than I needed to. You can’t make room for someone you consider invisible, or a pariah, right?
Well, that kind of negativity eats at you, too. It doesn’t feel good to go out of your way to fuck with someone, and it takes something away from you. Eventually I got over it, and tried to just treat Floyd as a human who deserved a certain amount of consideration and respect. All we really want to do is race our bikes. I needed to let Floyd do that, too.
When paroled, Floyd vowed that he would never see the inside of another prison. Entering into partnerships with more established criminals in the Kansas City underworld, he committed a series of bank robberies over the next several years; it was during this period that he earned the nickname “Pretty Boy.” When the payroll master at one robbery first described the three perpetrators to the police, he referred to Floyd as “a mere boy — a pretty boy with apple cheeks.” Like his contemporary Baby Face Nelson, Floyd hated his nickname.
Late last season, I started to turn the corner even further on Floyd. Maybe it was the collection of Sunday nights at the bar, watching him buy people drinks after races and just generally being a funny, friendly, approachable guy. Maybe it was him saying hi in the elevators at race hotels, shyly, but with that mischievous smirk on his face. Maybe it was just watching how he kept his head down in the races, was just happy to be racing his bike – I dunno, but at some point I decided I liked Floyd Landis. And I didn’t really know what to do with that.
In 1929, he faced numerous arrests. On March 9, he was arrested in Kansas City on investigation and again on May 6 for vagrancy and suspicion of highway robbery, but was released the next day. Two days later, he was arrested in Pueblo, Colorado, charged with vagrancy. He was fined $50.00 and sentenced to 60 days in jail.
At the same time, at no point did I think Landis was innocent, or that he hadn’t been doping. But every time I’d see him talk about it, I felt like he was always winking while he did it. My understanding of Floyd’s position went something like this: “Oh fuck yes I doped. I doped just like everyone else did. I did not invent doping, and I understood that at the level I was at, it was part of my job description, like Lance, like George. So why should I be the only one who goes down for it?” I saw Landis fighting the charges not because he hadn’t doped, because like all his peers, he had. I saw him fighting it because he thought the system was fucked up, and I mean the whole system. The team he was on that encouraged him to dope, the labs that didn’t follow their own rules, the UCI that had its own interests to protect. Why would any of us expect Floyd to “do the right thing” here, and in his mind, take the fall or be the scapegoat for a system he participated in by choice, but that he sure didn’t invent?
In November 1929, he traveled to Oklahoma for his father’s funeral. His father had been killed by a neighbor, Jim Mills, who was acquitted but “vanished”.
And honestly, why should Landis have confessed at that point? Why shouldn’t he fight the charges, if the mindset of the guys at the top level is that doping is part of the job? To understand this, you have to think about doping as the equivalent of slashing or crosschecking in hockey, or traveling in basketball – essentially any kind of play that’s subject to a penalty. When someone gets called for crosschecking, you don’t think of them as a cheater, do you? But of course, they’re breaking the rules. They are absolutely cheating. But it’s part of the game, and absolutely mandatory to be successful at the game, to hook or slash or crosscheck as much as you can, while still getting away with it. The point is not to NOT slash or hook. The point is to not get caught. In the previous generations of pro cycling at the highest level, this was the mindset. It’s not about morals or fair play. It’s just a game. It’s not real life, and this is how the game was played.
One of the members of Floyd’s gang, “Frank Mitchell” was arrested in Akron, Ohio on March 8, 1930, charged in the investigation of the murder of an Akron police officer, who had been killed during a robbery that evening.
On another hand, you have to also consider doping in the mindset of rider health. It may sound backward, when we’re told that doping has long lasting, negative health effects. But when you train and race at that level, you literally make yourself sick with training. Hematocrit is suppressed, hormone levels drop, and the doctor comes in to bring you back up to normal health. The biggest risks appear to come when you go over the top, and try to turn your mule into a race horse. But for those guys, they have mechanics to tune the bikes, so why not doctors to monitor their health? In their insular, narrow world, it doesn’t even appear to be an unethical choice. Ethics aren’t even on the table. You’re just in, or out.
The law next caught up with Floyd in Toledo, Ohio where he was arrested on suspicion on May 20, 1930; he was sentenced on November 24, 1930 to 12–15 years in Ohio State penitentiary for the Sylvania Ohio Bank Robbery but he escaped.
You see the difference after guys come back, and you presume they’re racing clean. Tyler and Floyd, when they were racing in the US were good, top level. They were both obviously, always talented. But it was always strange to be racing crits and being competitive with guys who won Olympic gold medals and the Tour. I found it ironic that after all they’d been through, they were right back riding in circles in America with me, like we were ten years earlier. Of course there were plenty of guys who DID say no. Danny Pate, Mike Creed, Tim Johnson – for me those are the glaring examples of guys who had a chance to be pros in Europe (Pate and Creed on Saeco, Tim on Saunier Duval) at a time when doping was still de rigueur, but unlike Floyd and Tyler, just said no and came home. And now, in a cleaner era, you see them competing at the highest level of the sport. I believe in those guys, and I think they’re representative of the other path that was available to Tyler and Floyd.
Floyd was a suspect in the deaths of bootlegging brothers Wally and Boll Ash of Kansas City. They were found dead in a burning car on March 25, 1931. A month later on April 23, members of his gang killed Patrolman R. H. Castner of Bowling Green, Ohio, and on July 22 Floyd himself killed ATF Agent C. Burke in Kansas City, Missouri.
Landis’ defense wasn’t about whether he was guilty or not. Of course he was guilty of doping. He knew it, and he knew you knew it. His defense was against being the scapegoat, being the one who took the fall. His defense was an attack on the hypocrisy of the system. So why finally come out with it now, during the TOC and Giro? Why the fuck not now? If you’re Landis, and you know that despite serving your suspension and being free to race, you’ll never be allowed back in at the top level, why not burn the whole fucking thing down? Why should Lance get to be an international star and hero to the world, when he’s guilty of all the same crimes as Landis? Landis clearly loves bike racing and just wants to race his bike. If he can’t play, then who can blame him for calling bullshit on the whole thing?
In 1932, former sheriff Erv Kelley of McIntosh County, Oklahoma, tried to ambush/arrest Floyd; he was killed on April 7. In November of that year, three members of Floyd’s gang attempted to rob the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley, Oklahoma.
So burn down Babylon. Burn pro cycling down. There will still be racing, there will still be races. Burn it down, so we can build it up again new. I condemn Landis’ original decision to participate in a corrupt, immoral system. But I’ll stand in front of the flames with him and watch it burn.
I’ll shake his smokey hand the next time I see him.
On October 22, 1934, Floyd was killed in a cornfield near East Liverpool, Ohio, while being pursued by local law officers and FBI agents led by Melvin Purvis. Varying accounts exist as to who shot him and the manner in which he was killed.
Text on Pretty Boy Floyd taken from “Pretty Boy Floyd.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 May 2010. Web. 19 May 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Boy_Floyd
The link to Myerson’s blog post is here, check it out in its original form and location. I think what he writes has some merit, and has some ring of truth to it. Like I said, it made me think. Maybe it will for you? Fuck, maybe it won’t, but I thought it damn well written, so wanted to share.
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I took Floyd and the rest of the USPS team for an mtb ride during their training camp in ATX in 2002(?). As an espoused mtb’er (at the time, for now I make no such frivolous distinction) I felt a sort of kinship with the guy; he was one of the few who appeared to be enjoying it, and the man has mad skills. The Euros were definitely not comfortable on the dirt. In fact, Tom “Party Boy” Boonen, despite his prowess on the cobbles, had no interest in our excursion and stayed at the hotel. I admired Floyd’s rebelliousness as well, and was truly entertained by his and D. Zabriskie’s antics when we all lived in Girona. Both had a very independent way of looking at things, which, of course, led to their departure from Lance Inc.
During my trials and tribulations, I often pondered the righteousness of people who come from a religious upbringing, or who wear those views on their sleeves, and naturally wondered why people like Floyd et al stood silent about doping.
Now, five years on, the moment of truth arrives. As is often said: better late than never.
…adam myerson’s take on floyd’s situation is a worthwhile read w/ an intelligent perspective…
…i guess another of the sad points is that these guys wouldn’t be “front & center” in this if they weren’t talented as cyclist’s to begin with…drugs won’t turn a plow horse into a “derby” winner…
…so we lose the best & brightest as they arm themselves w/ “just that little bit” extra to make themselves “just that little bit” better that the others for the glory & the bucks…
…it’s understandable that a body that trains & races hard XXX number of days a year, that is subjected to injury through the strain of exercise as well as crashes & hours of exposure to hostile weather is going to encounter problems that require more than water, fresh air, bee pollen & fairy dust for the sake of recovery…
…just make the fucking program transparent, dammit !!!…
…as you suggest, mike anderson…“better late than never” & in that mr landis is, was & will always be an independent thinker, who better to take that big breath & blow the whistle…
…i will reiterate that i honestly hope he finds solace in his present action because the reaction to this is a brewing shit-storm bigger than anything he’s previously encountered & that is saying something…
…for every one of us who applauds his revelations, there are an equal number who will not only wish him a slow painful crucifixion but will work towards that end…
“In my readings today, I came across a post from one Adam Myerson.”
really? … yeah … the link posted in this blog …
If landis “just wants to ride his bike”, then why didn’t he? It worked for david miller, there’s no reason it couldn’t work for floyd. Instead of taking responsibility for _his_ actions, he lies about it for 4 years, then cops to it, blames everyone but himself, and accuses everyone he ever raced with of doping as well. There’s more than a hint of psychosis there.
believe tyler
The above comment is the funniest thing I have read all week.
Landis is like a Politician……. LIE LIE LIE, then when you have no place to go blow this whistle on everyone. Anyone that has ridden knows the truth. We live in a society of cheaters. Wall Street, Lawyers, Football players, Basketball Players, Baseball, Nascar, WWF, MMA….. Hell, half the chicks running around with triple F hooters are liars and cheaters because I know those aren’t real….
You know, it goes back to the playground….. Not a single person likes a tattletale….. He lied in a court of law!
Best fucking article I have read on this yet.
There are two sides to a coin. What I can’t believe is the fucking balls Armstrong has when he says ” When Floyd was in a hole, a lot of us gave him a ladder…” Are you fucking kidding me? How about when you were on your fucking death bed and Kevin Livingston was there when you could not get up your driveway on a bike? did you give him a ladder with postal when his contract renewed? hell no. how many years did you not talk to him b/c he did what he had to do when Linda McCartney folded and signed for Telecom to feed hsi family. Fucking hypocritical Douche.
How about the ladder that Frankie Andeau,Roll and others handed you when you dropped out of Paris Nice in 1998 like a little bitch? Maybe you wanted to quit b/c you knew what you had to do to win? maybe it was b/c you knew that was why you got fucking CANCER to begin with. Yeah I fucking said it.
How about the ladder Postal gave you when you got scrapped by Cofidis? or the one many other sponsors gave you when no one else would in your first “comeback” ?
What about all the “ladders” you were given by your slaves that helped you win all those tours? the ones you endoctirnated into the fucking doping culture to server YOUR needs, only to turn your back on them when they got caught doing what you introduced them to??
See Lance, we have all been given ladders in our life you one balled fuck…so don’t throw it in his face…and come of your PR high horse.
See I get it. Floyd to me is less psychopath and more “why the fuck not?” He has lost EVERYTHING has nothing left to lose so why should he got down in flames while Armstrong gets away with murder.
I’m with Adam. Burn it all down. Good on Floyd for saying what he saw. Hopefully it will encourage more to do the same.
good on floyd! i’ve been in a great mood all day. my dream is an organization
of reformed dopers like david millar and now floyd together with some
guys like lemond and some gov’t soldiers like jeff novitsky. oh the
effect they could have on cycling! can you imagine armstrong and bruyneel and mcquaid in jail? awesome! hopefully this is the beginning of something really big.
Guess I should have copied the whole thing when I posted this;
http://drunkcyclist.com/2010/05/20/the-landis-letters/#comment-40271
…why jail for any of ’em, dolak ???…
…just like millar & floyd, i’d like to see all of ’em come clean so they could join that organization you hypothetically refer to…
…lance, bruyneel, huge talents respectively despite the dope, so if they made the admissions, why not ???…
Big J, Just sitting here wishing you could dig up more detail such as drug type and dosage -maybe some time lines, because, rather then bitching about fast guys because your not one… I was thinking of becoming one myself… and this type of information would help.
jail is simply absurd, and if for them, then a firing squad for the BP execs? OK.
if they all come clean, the monetary value of the sport will tank.
This thing will be fought to the death by L.A. and it will be peculiar when Floyd’s body is found floating in the North Sea.
Sorry zMud, replicated info happens.
Shit Hell!
This ‘burn it down’ sentiment is probably the most ludicrous mantra I’ve heard yet.
Burn it down? Then what? Will some squeaky clean international sanctioning body miraculously appear to fill the void? Sure, Great idea, destroy the entire structure of professional cycling and start over. I have news for you guys, without the UCI and USAC, bike racing doesn’t exist. Sure, you might have a few dogshit industrial park crits and maybe the occasional MTB race (in both cases run by people who manage to get insurance for the event), but no race series, no state or national tours, no championships, at best we would have to wait for the olympics to see riders at the peak of the sport. There would be no media coverage of professional events because there would be no professional events. whether you like racing bikes or like watching bikes, your party will be over. Your only excitement will be the tuesday beat down rides with your buddies, and no one will give a flying fuck how many town-line sprints you won this season.
Let’s say this new sanctioning body _does_ pop up. Are you people really so naive to think they would have any _fewer_ problems with doping? Gee, a new sanctioning body with no money and no clout, right, they’ll go real far in stopping dopers. News flash – drug testing costs money. The WADA and USADA don’t work for free. No UCI or USAC – who’s gonna pay for the drug tests in this little utopia of yours?
‘burn it down’. Yeah, that shows a real love for the sport. In the grand scheme of things, to the people the read this blog, Professional bike racing has as much effect on our daily lives as professional wrestling – it’s entertainment. Whether or not lance doped doesn’t affect you in any way, it isn’t going to cost you your lively hood, isn’t going to make you sick or healthy, isn’t going to pay your mortgage. Here’s some advice: If you’re so disgusted with the sport that you think it needs to be completely dismantled, just fucking ignore it. You don’t need professional cycling, and it sure as hell doesn’t need people who think it should be destroyed.
Could somebody clarify why Millar is held in such high esteem? He used to deny doping, then got caught, and now he is back to denying doping. Why do I have to believe him now – because he says so? Is Vino winning Classics and flying high in the Giro because he is better since he stopped juicing.
Hopefully Floyd prised open the first crack, someone else will fess up to back him up, then all the cyclists, athletes, hockey, football, soccer players that my kids are meant to look up to can jump right in and come clean.
If your kids need something cleaner than pro sports, I suggest Paris Hilton.
And the catholic Church, or any organised religion for that matter, they all just LOVE children. THey are all sooo clean.
Here is a nice singalong to get you into the spirit of the great human race;
http://vimeo.com/11338327
Floyd is just human…
G
Here are all the emails from Landis to TOC President etc.:
http://www.livestrong.com/teamradioshack/news_series-emails-referenced-statement-regarding-doping-allegations/
Shit is about to get real….
Or WADA could disband. The riders will use any advantage they can. It’s inevitable so we might as well embraCE IT. “Run what ya brung”, says I.
I’ll go get a coffe to enjoy this, it will a great as watching junkies duke it out with stained needles.
The 2time Winna with a name that goes real well with the color of DC has spoken:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/greg-lemond-says-he-believes-most-of-floyd-landis-claims_117764
I think this is converting itselfs from a clusterfuck thrown into the fan exploding in a fine mist of shit. To a BP negligence.
A BP negligence is BAD.
Why would anyone give a fuck what LeMond believes? Ain’t like he’s judge, jury and executioner. And you’re not gonna sit there and tell me he’s any cleaner than the rest.
Well, lets say he missed the start EPO high times due to going hunting with Cheney, and getting mistaken for an old man. Or something like that.
I mean, what would happen if you were at a party, went outside for piss, came back and all your mates had nicked your beers and stolen your GF?
And anyhow, his nemesis, Fignon, tells basically the same story from the french side… Amongst many others.
(PS-I don’t really like Fignon nor Lemond – but I liked it when they beat the living crap out of each other)
Huh?
Just got finished reading Landis’ letters to Lance which reveal basically nothing.No reply from Lance, just some batshit crazy ramblings by Landis’ Doctor. Nice try, Armstrong, you piece of shit. You still haven’t convinced me.
And Gildas, there’s a secret message in that video you posted: http://vimeo.com/11338327
at 1:07 the singer says “UCI”
And when we burn it all down, let’s not stop with cycling, burn down the corrupt guvmint and social structure, too. And when the new regime rises phoenix like from the ashes, I wanna be the king er I mean Grand Poobah
And gildas, you should be the new minister of entertainment. I like your style, man.
think about how much cash he spent trying to prove his innocence. what a waste.
Tony, you da man!
IMHO Velonews is a shit magazine. They know goddamn well that doping has pervaded and still pervades the top level of the sport. Yet they play coy and “well maybe some of this and maybe some of that” flounce & cowardliness, AS usual.
Here is there opening from this link (bottom)
BEGIN QUOTE [There’s the meat, and then there’s the manner. Floyd Landis did not put his best foot forward in his presentation of assertions that many high-level riders and team staff doped or assisted riders to dope in the years 2002-2006. But does that automatically mean his claims are false?
In his now-famous email, Landis begins by admitting that he cheated and lied about it for years, and then moves right along to accuse a number of top professionals — from Lance Armstrong to Johan Bruyneel to George Hincapie — of cheating and lying.
No lawyer would open an argument this way. And in the court of public opinion, it was not an effective way to establish credibility. Nonetheless, the poor presentation does not necessarily mean that all his allegations are false.
Doping has been a reality within the sport for years. Of course not every rider — or arguably even the majority of riders — engages in illegal chemical manipulation, but many pros at the very top of the sport have been caught cheating. This is fact. So is it within the realm of possibility that some people named by Landis have done some of the things he claimed? Sure.] END QUOTE
Read more: http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/the-landis-case-truth-lies-and-the-impossibility-of-time-travel_117723#ixzz0obeHRYj3
Riders talk and that talk certainly reaches the people of Velonews and for them to take the most minimal case in the reality of doping just shows how manipulative they really are. The minimal case here is to declare that those who have been caught did dope (wow Velonews, you sure are rakish!) and that Floyd is really a confused, babbling and vacillating figure.
Velonews is very much playing the Lance Game; piss on Floyd and if you can relieve yourself enough on him then of course what he is saying isn’t true. Except independent of Floyd everyone who spends time in this game knows goddamn well that the doping has been and is at every opportunity rampant. Yet Velonews never reports that overwhelming reality and they goddamn well know it.
I say we petetion Tyler Floyd and Beltran to flip on LA. Any other Posties that did the shit? Hope that fucker and all his PR drones end up in Federal Pound you in the Ass Prison.
That’s right LA, start out sticking pens in your culo and work your way up to a Firehydrant because you are gonna be someone’s bitch….
Well done, Mike. You said exactly what I’ve been thinking for some time now. Velonews=Velosnooze. Are there any good independent online cycling sites? There has to be a site for people who are passionate about cycling but haven’t been co-opted into the Armstrong/Big $ mindset.
Until that time I’ll continue to read DC and LA doped.
And another thing. Under the new regime, I nominate Mike as the Minister of Information.
Despite all of Floyd’ warts I still like him but I’m not sure of his place in the new administration. Minister of wackiness? Court Jester? Minister of Beer?
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
Adolf Hitler
Sound familiar Lance?
And, yet again, Godwin’s Law is proven.
Humpty, as much as I dislike LA, he is at worst a liar… Comparing him to a mass killer is wrong.
Last time I checked LA had not invaded Poland.
man armstrong must be seriously spooked. i just cruised his twitter and he answered questions point blank from oel Lindsay, a writer at Bicycling maybe? this seems a little “eager” for a bunch of baseless allegations from someone with no credibility.
btw after reading those emails, does LA actually get an “appearance fee?”
jesus, fuck – compare Hitler to Clinton why don’t you? A guy who races bikes and is pressured to, and subsequently cheats, compared to an armed criminal of ill fame? What the fuck, man? I know you’re trying to be creative here, but this is just absurd and quite confusing to some people, I imagine. Stupid. Give Landis a fucking break.
The Hitler analogy is extreme (and I belive it was Goebbels who said it, anyway), so how about Costanza: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
The Hitler analogy isn’t an extreme. ..because it isn’t an analogy.
It’s a quote. a very different thing from an analogy.
..or a mis-quote in this case as there isn’t much evidence to support the idea that Hitler actually said that exactly, despite speaking to the concept of the “big lie” in his pity-party mein kampf thingy. (and borrowed by Goebbels as stnikk666 mentions)
Anyhoo, The point I think Humpty was trying to make is that Lance has borrowed a well established method of manipulating public perception from histories finest propagandists.
I think it’s a valid point.
Attributing the quote to Hitler adds a certain “spice”, but it’s neither an analogy or a particularly good example of the Godwins law notion.
Kark said: it’s not “…a particularly good example of the Godwin’s Law notion.” Really? Because it seems like an example you could use in a textbook on the subject. From wikipedia: Godwin’s law states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.” Ummm, how is Humpty’s comment not an exact fucking example of Godwin’s Law? I’m no Lance-o-phile, but equating the man to Hitler is, what’s the word I’m looking for? Batshit crazy.
Jesus titty fucking Christ..thank you Kark for actually getting it…and not quoting fucking Wikepedia
Lance ain’t Hitler, but Hitler got a lot of people to believe a lot of lies by the same methods.
LA is playing the PR fiddle. He will repeat repeat repeat, deny deny deny all while trying to discredit Landis as a liar, and now a drunk guy with psych issues. Pretty standard actually, and all the yellow band drones will drink the Kool aid and buy their Livestrong shirts and Mellow Johnny;s socks. It is passive aggessive and PUSSY.,
hell the only reason why there was a “comeback” was to clean up the tarnish left on his Tour wins. why do you think there was the Twitter campaign, etc, to market his brand and clean up his image.
I don’t need pro cycling to ride, but I want my sport to have some fucking credibility for my kids if they want to be a pro, so they don’t have to make the same “choice”.
Tell me, why should Lance get away with it while others have their lives ruined for the same choice?
I am not saying Landis should have lied, or done dope, but I understand why he did and why he is doing what he is doing. Landis was asked to rat LA out by USADA and he would not in 2007. His reward was isolation and cold shoulders.
Fuck Lance, this one is not going away. If it takes Landis to throw the first shot to get others to come fwd, the bring it.
@Kark – you are correct: a quotation is not an analogy. However, as this very discussion illustrates, inferences will be drawn and analogies made. Had the quotation been attributed correctly/incorrectly(?) to Goebbels and not to Hitler, propaganda and not crazy evil would have been the inference drawn. As you said, propaganda and the LA propaganda machine is the point of the comparison. Quotations are not just quotations. Source and context are relevant to their interpretation.
Not to go all Godwin’s or anything, but propaganda is the means. Crazy evil is the end. And Goebbels or Gibbs, it’s all the same to me.
Yeah, Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, chief architect of Kristallnacht, widely accepted to be the beginning of the Holocaust, and Robert Gibbs, current White House Press Secretary- totally the same thing.
Ain’t gettin’ into THAT, sleepy. My point is that in any regime, the head of the Ministry of Truth subscribes to the policies of Big Brother, or he wouldn’t have the job. That, and that politicians and all who serve them are lying scum at heart.
…hey, guys…sorry to interrupt but did you hear that floyd landis made public that he actually did use all kinds of “performance enhancing” drugs, something that he had previously denied & that he learned to use them @ the hands of bruyneel & the lance-ster…
…ain’t that something ???…
And this is news because…?
…put down the glass & step away, motherfucker…
…this started out as an erudite perspective by adam myerson, an “organic athlete” rider laying out his thoughts & feelings about interacting w/ floyd landis & it’s since devolved into personal viewpoints that are only relevant to the topic because several people wanna swing their dicks at someone’s unfortunate need to mention “godwin’s law”, which really is not “news”…
Another side of Lance Armstrong. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/more_sport/cycling/article7133884.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
There may be a reckoning.
QUOTE: I stayed in touch with O’Reilly, Swart, the Andreus and Anderson long after the interviews ended. And one thing always puzzled me: why would good people make up vicious lies about Armstrong? The difference with the Landis emails is that he presented them as a challenge to cycling and anti-doping authorities: what are you going to do about this?
Long ago, cycling’s authorities decided it would not wash in public any linen belonging to Armstrong. The United States Anti-Doping Authority has taken a different line and appointed the federal investigator Jeff Novitzky to the case. Landis and Armstrong’s former wife are understood to be co-operating. The choice of Novitzky is significant because if his work in the infamous Balco case proved anything, it was that lying to federal investigators is not a good idea.
If Novitzky concludes that US Postal did run a doping programme, Armstrong and others could face charges. Through Tailwind Sports, the US Postal team was funded by taxpayers’ money. The penalties for misusing such funds are draconian. END QUOTE
Amen bikesgonenwild….
that article posted by Mike is key. This one ain’t going away Lance.
…thank you, mike…now we’re getting down to it…
…i will forever consider armstrong & bruyneel to be superb in their respective expertise as regards cycling but i will never respect them as fully valid without truthful admissions on their part…
…were the admissions to be made, i could easily accept that reality without need for great vilification…personally i can accept & move on…
…they’ve done an amazing job through the years…better than most & while i’m now fully convinced that it did involve drugs, the sad part is their sense of need in perpetuating the charade…
…i’d hope armstrong is intelligent enough to realize a clean slate would ultimately gain him more supporters rather than fewer…but perhaps he’s not…there are different kinds of applicable “smarts”…
…while there would be an initial backlash, it would be a solidly positive move for everyone concerned…we’ll find out if he’s indeed prescient or simply too ‘headstrong‘…
…at this point he’s doing the public & cycling a disservice & in return, the public & cycling’s administrative branches would be doing him a disservice to not pursue this issue…
…you’re not infallible, mr armstrong…no one is…please do yourself, along w/ the public, a favor…
…come clean…live strong…& be righteous about it…
jail for what? for crimes. novitsky investigates crimes. he does it well, apparently.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/magazine/05/25/lance.armstrong/index.html?eref=sihp&xid=shareFB