“I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs.”

As Joe Biden is prone to say, “This is a big fucking deal.”

Floyd Landis took his accusations against Lance Armstrong to the airwaves Friday night, slamming the seven-time Tour de France champion with his most blunt attack yet.

“I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs.”

. . .

“Look, at some point, people have to tell their kids that Santa Claus isn’t real,” Landis said. “I hate to be the guy to do it, but it’s just not real.”
nydailynews.com/sports/…floyd_landis

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

44 Replies to ““I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs.””

  1. Lance recently announced he will move on to triathlons after his illustrious cycling career ends on Sunday.

    Do they have triathlons in federal penitentiaries?

  2. I think Floyd is not just going to ruin Christmas; he’s going to forcibly sodomise Rudolph in front of the kids.
    Know the truth and it will set you free. Someone smarter than me said that originally.

    Ciao, Bjorn.

  3. Sad that weather he’s telling the truth or still spinning yarns, the motivation here seems to be money and not some altruistic good. How much does one stand to earn as a whistleblower? What’s a Nightline appearance pay these days? Is there another book deal in the wings? (and what’s the title – ‘falsely positive’?)
    Are there drugs in sport? Yes. Our sport? Yes. Is this anything new? No. Will an investigation and criminal charges change 100+ years of ‘the way it is’? No. Burn down the house, it’s time to rebuild.

  4. I’ll repost this. Somebody knows.

    How does one dope during a stage race? Exactly how? Since Festina people have been watching. They’ve gone from uppers, to hormones, to EPO, to homogeneous blood. Who transfuses? How complicated is it? How dangerous is it? How do they disguise the infusion sites (especially after the toll a three week race takes on % body fat?)

    I know what all the articles say but some of you have raced and seen this stuff. Speak up. Lay some knowledge on us.

  5. I suspect at this point Landis’ motivation is no longer money but the avoidance of charges in exchange. My question (in addition to the one above) is how long will it be until he faces civil suits for the people he’s defrauded. Lance may have committed fraud (dubious – even if he doped), Landis definitely did.

  6. The fraud charge could be filed against Lance only because he may have been an owner or involved in the management of the team (it’s a little unclear when he bought shares and if this investigation is really limited to USPS). You have to show specific intent – ie, Floyd doped because he intended to defraud USPS for personal gain. If, as he claims, someone – especially the employer, who actually had a contract with USPS (Floyd had one with the management company, not the sponsor), told Floyd to dope, he’s in the clear.

    I think the principles in Capital Management and Tailwind are the ones who are probably changing underpants daily at this point.

  7. The day football, futbol, baseball, and hockey, etc. (who are dirty as shit…) have to dance with the vampires on a regular basis is the day that I will think cycling needs to open old wounds. It is the most tested and arguably cleanest sport out there. How many other sports have the biological passport? Your heroes in other sports were/are dirty. Deal with it. How many other sports were part of Operacion Puerto? But cycling is the only one that gets the bad press? Fuck that. Landis is a punk assed ninny bitch. The time to come clean was then, not after the statue of limitations has nearly expired.

  8. el jefe speaks sense— why are cycling fans obsessed with the doping aspect of their sport while the other 99.5% of the population doesn’t give a shit about the unethical/illegal aspects of own sports? Almost none of this is “sport” anyway— it entertainment and a basis for gambling.

  9. Since we still have the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (or until the media gets its teeth into a story) in this country, I preface all of this with an “IF”…

    Since Lance has had these rumors swirling around him for over a decade, and has been poked more times than a pin cushion, what happens IF this investigation can’t find any evidence of doping or wrong doing? Seriously, after all these years, IF Lance has been doping AND hasn’t been caught, what makes anyone think he’ll be caught now?

    Which of course will do even more damage to Floyd’s credibility.

  10. Let me get this straight:

    1. Frankie Andreu attempts to “clear his conscience” after he’s retired and already wrung every possible dime from the system.
    2. Greg LeMond attempts to “burn down the house” after he’s retired and already wrung every possible dime from the system.
    3. Floyd Landis attempts to “clear his conscience” after he’s [forcibly] retired and already wrung every possible dime from the system.

    Anyone else detecting a pattern here? It’s all about money. Either put up or shut up – instead all we have are allegations and innuendo.

    Why should we place any faith in these guys who – by all appearances – are attempting to “burn the house down” simply because nobody will pay them not the light the match? Oh, that’s right – their “consciences” made them do it. More than 10 years after it would have made any difference. What a bunch of dicks.

  11. “This is a big fucking deal”…non sequitur but @ this point, so was the chain drop incident, it seems…

    …the spanish did beat schleck in the tt but not by as big a margin as the pundits surmised…

    …actual difference in overall standings without “the incident” = 2 seconds…

    …while both schleck & the spanish buried themselves in that tt with seemingly nothing else left to give, well, i’m just sayin’…

  12. Lance was caught, more than once, but managed to wriggle/buy/talk himself out of it. Its all over books in Europe (that he did not legaly challenge – he menaced that he would – publishers answer: “bring it on” – he never did), but due to a weird interpretation of the first ammendement, those can’t be sold in the US…

    What is going to be his legal argument?
    “If you can’t find the drip, you must aquit?” (sorry about my lack of taste)

    Hopefully the lillywhite Armstrong lovin burbs are not going to riot…

    I’m not a legal expert, but you need a A and B positive to be positive in sport courts. But in the “normal” justice system, is a “A” positive considered as valid evidence? Because if it is, he had 6: 5 to EPO and 1 to some other stuff. Jingle all the way Christmasstrong fanboys.

    PS: I can’t tell you more and quote books and shit, I’m moving house and all the stuff is in a box somewhere…

  13. tee hee its getting better and better,but yo Flyd,Nightline?really?sigh,guess its plenty o tabloid stuff from here on out.CONGRATS AL C tho if it was up to me you could attack/be attacked on the last day while your taking pictures with champmhy flutes

  14. THIS IS GIVING PRETTY BOY FLOYD MORE PUBLICITY THAN WINNING THE TOUR DID! What is next for Landis? A talk show? Some kind of advertisement campaign?
    Why don’t we do this right and get Lance and Landis in a boxing ring without gloves. Hell, fists are much softer and more gentle than pavement. Give them wooden swords or something. See who walks out.

  15. i luvs me some lance TT 7′ down on Cancellara but only 1′ down on the leaders after 3 weeks and 10-15 year younger guys but its almost like he was missing somthin

  16. So, we are to believe Floyd now? haha Armstrong probably doped….But crap I am tired of it all…Cant Lance just fade away along with all this BS?

  17. Let’s see….

    Lemond is a millionaire….does not need the $

    Landis raced this week in a fucking T shirt, has no $ and no one will ever hire him. I was born in the Shenandoah Valley, VA..home to a LOT of Menonites. Believe me when I say taking blood transfusions and other drugs on a pro cycling team is a LONG way from his roots.

    Cranky Andreau confessed after he retired sure, but risked not getting hired in the sport b/c of it. If you will remember he was canned from Toyota United right after…

    Guilt is a powerful thing….even LA had it long ago. ’98 when he dropped out of Paris – Nice and put away the bike and picked up the golf clubs? Takes a lot to live that big of a lie for that long.

  18. …landis HAD a wife (& child) who left him ‘cuz she knew the truth…

    …landis HAD a brother in law who took his own life ‘cuz he knew the truth…

    …landis WAS, as humpy suggests, raised in a very different upbringing wherein simplicity & truth were basic tenets…

    …i’ve asked it before “coming from that background, you don’t think that weighs heavy on a man’s conscience & soul ???”…you’d be ‘clue nada‘ not to believe it…

    …money, in landis’s case ???…i really fucking doubt it…

    …i believe landis HAS a conscience that finally reared it’s head & said “dude…you wanna live the rest of your life in a lie that’s affecting your every fucking turn & leaving you with no credibility in your own eyes as well as the eyes of others, when the real issue is about having used a few supplements to race bicycles ???…come fucking clean”

    …it became a major deal because it involved armstrong…he’s not a bike racing dude, he’s an “entity”, he’s a fucking worldwide organization & he so believes in his own image, he’s afraid to back down…

    …i’d also suggest looking at how he was raised & i wouldn’t criticize it because his mother did it on her own which couldn’t have been easy but it was “all about lance”

    …his attitude is understandable to a degree because it’s not the house of cards some of you suggest, it’s a support system built around an insidious disease & a lotta folks believe in & benefit from that organization…

    …while it’s being built up with flags waving like it’s life & death because it involves morals, it’s still about having used supplements to race bicycles…

    …come clean & write a new tell-all book lance…“it’s not about the dude”

  19. Lemond isn’t in it for the money–he’s in it for his legacy. He hates to see Armstrong take the limelight. Armstrong hates the same about Contador, although it’s a little different because it’s not another American.

    Do I think Armstrong doped?
    Yes.

    Do I think everyone else on (or near) the podium when he was racing did the same?
    Yes.

    Do I think Lemond is crazy?
    Yes.

    Do I think even Lemond doped?
    Yes… I mean, think about it. He got shot and seriously wounded–and then came back stronger than ever. Everything changed in 1991? Bullshit–doping has been around longer than Lemond. Maybe people had new drugs and methods that out-classed what Lemond was using, but doping has been a harsh reality in cycling and I’m sure it still is.

  20. Landis’ testimony will not prove Lance committed an offense – and if everyone was doping and some are lying then what’s the point? This is, as some have put it, a ‘witch hunt’ of epic proportions. Idiotic bullshit never ceases. Can we just have bicycle racing? There’s never any big hullabaloo about Winston Cup racers doping… there’s harmony in that NASCAR world, and more money moving around in it to boot, so why can’t the skinny fucks on bikes have harmony too?

  21. EPO was FDA approved in 1989. LeMond won his last tour in 1990. Do the math. Mitochondrial myopathy my ass. I’m sure he and everyone else did autologus blood doping (among other things). Many people didn’t even think it was wrong in the 80s. He just wasn’t willing or able to get onto the EPO bandwagon…

    An interesting article from a couple of years ago by Alexi Grewal:

    http://velonews.competitor.com/2008/04/news/an-essay-by-1984-olympic-gold-medalist-alexi-grewal_74053

  22. There’s no way this is about money when it comes to Lemond unless it’s the money this fight has cost him. http://www.lemondbikes.com ring a bell? My guess is this thing has cost Lemond more money than everyone but Lance.

    I’ll take the fact that no one has answered my posts asking how someone dopes successfully via blood transfusions amid such scrutiny that no one knows. That’s a shame. When someone starts telling the “how” story the house of cards, if there is one, comes down.

  23. @ike— I must protest, sir. LeMond got in bed with Trek and then shit in it. The money he may have lost was entirely his own to lose. Financial suicide, as it were.

    Disclaimer: my first “real” road bike was a Lemond Buenos Aires— an outstanding value sold through Trek channels. It was awfully flexy though, and I replaced it with a stiffer machine. I currently run a LeMond Poprad ‘cross bike, totally bleeding edge with the disc brake setup. I really like it, but not every day, as it has been plagued with odd mechanical issues. Head set, bottom bracket, basic stuff— I guess ‘cross is a tough application for mid-grade road components. I rode it over 100 miles of gravel last weekend, so how bad can it be? Keep the rubber side down, y’all.

  24. Of course this is all about money.

    Landis couldn’t blackmail his way into the 2010 TOC, so his “conscience” kicked in. He’s flat broke, and blackmail is only good if you’re willing to follow through on it. So for Landis, this is absolutely about money. Let’s not kid ourselves by debating whether or not Landis has a conscience. He claimed innocence for years, took it to court, lied under oath, and defrauded millions of dollars from his supporters. Landis is a sociopath whose conscience is motivated by money and anger.

    LeMond’s bikes were manufactured by Trek from 1992 through 2008. He sued Trek in 2007 for not giving a “best effort” to sell his bikes. He claims he was quiet about Armstrong’s alleged doping for years because his business was threatened, and openly blames Armstrong for sabotaging his relationship with Trek. So for Lemond, it’s absolutely about money. Unfortunately for him and the people who care about him, he’s also an incredible egomaniac.

    Andreu’s “conscience” never kicked in until he’d milked the industry for every penny he could. He himself admitted to doping in 2006. So for Andreu, this is absolutely about money.

    The common denominator amongst these guys is money. Furthermore, I don’t have a lot of respect for people who admit to breaking the rules after they no longer apply.

    Ride safely, people.

  25. As far as I know there is no test for autologous blood doping. They remove their own blood during the off season or in long breaks between races, concentrate the red blood cells, store it, then re-inject them before an important race. It’s pretty easy to hide an IV kit in an insulated brief case or cooler. Any good soigneur can start an IV, it’s not hard. The only test is hematocrit. As long as your stay under 50%, you’re golden, and some people get permission to have higher levels by showing that they “naturally” have higher levels. Other drugs are done in microdoses leading up to the race. Until they started labeling EPO, you could do small doses that cleared the body before testing, but still gave the benefit. These guys get blood tests, either by the UCI or by their own internal testing, so having needle marks isn’t anything too terribly out of the ordinary. It’s pretty simple really.

  26. Who cares if Lance doped, it’ll make the haters happy if he gets busted but it won’t change anything except kill the growth of cycling in the US.

    I guess it’ll keep the ‘posers’ away and then you can all have the trick carbon parts to yourself.

    Carbon has no soul and neither does a clean cyclist.

  27. How many of you actually saw LeMond ride, or are you tweeners just going by what you maybe heard?

    Guy is crazy now. But I like crazy old dudes. LeMond could, and did, win and place in every format in all parts of the season. That would mean he was doped/uppered/whateverd to the gills continually for his short career. I don’t buy it. PEDs are about peaking. Motherfucker could do just about anything at anytime during a race. LA? Not so much.

    My take is LA is really clean today. That statement surprises even me. Risk is too high for getting caught, and the testers have caught up, so he’s snow fucking white. But he got caught anyway, in an ego trap. The little voice in his head tells him, “your doper ass beat all the other dopers so, of course, you’ll be the clean uniballer beating all the other clean guys.”

    Well, a clean Armstrong is pretty fucking weak, regardless of what Phil and Paul would have you believe. Still got some talent, but got NO recovery.

    I think riding dirty has moved back to where it’s mostly the guys doing it to stay employed on the Pro Tour and not being used to win on the Pro Tour. But I might be as big an idiot as that guy around here who thinks he’s a fucking poet, bikesgonewild.

  28. I speculate that it is about his legacy in the case of Lemond because he didn’t dope. All of the business deals & craziness just cloud that truth.

    I know that Frankie came clean because he is a solid guy who reluctantly doped to keep up, felt spousal pressure combined with his own guilt and knows nothing else than bikes & bike racing, hasn’t made millions and needs to keep working in the industry.

    I speculate that this is Floyd’s last chance at making a living, his only choice was to come clean in the end, probably a decent guy who did made some very bad decisions and hopefully makes enough $$ to pay back the funders and live a little.

  29. popping LA isn’t going to remove drugs from the sport of cycling. it will however ground the hopes LA has given to millions to be fighters and survivors.

    what’s the point at this point?

    is it self serving for Floyd? is it downing the ‘big tree’ by a ‘small ax’ or principle?

    thanks

  30. The root of the argument is that none of these supposed men of honor said a word they were cashing checks. When their net worth went down, their consciences kicked in. Let’s not make the mistake of elevating them to positions for which they’re uniquely unqualified.

  31. Armstrong is not a ‘weak’ rider due to being clean. He’s OLD. He’s been racing TOO LONG. He is not in his PRIME. He won his tours DURING HIS EARLY 30s – widely known to be a cyclists prime years – between 28-34. That’s why – not because he stopped doping. It’s still possible and probable that he was CLEAN THE WHOLE TIME AND FLOYD IS A LYING SACK OF SHIT. Is it possible? Yes.
    None of us know, we are just supposing on 2nd, 3rd hand speculation and ZERO evidence. Big fucking fiasco.

  32. Lemond = VO2 max from hell, no need to dope

    Franky did not rake in any cash by admitting to dope. Owns a bike shop, DS of Kenda Team and VS commetatoe does not = cash

    Landis- ” If you tell a lie are you destined to stay on that path for the rest of your life” ?

    will be many more besides Landis that spill the beans.

  33. Not one of the men of “conscience” I’ve sited said dick when it would have made a difference. If we are to believe them now, then, by their own admissions, they kept quiet because of money.

    LeMond = My business dealings were in jeopardy, so I kept quiet for years until I terminated my contract with Trek and my paranoid delusions of grandeur completely took over.

    Andreu = I doped while cashing paychecks, and only admitted to doping in an interview related to Armstrong’s suit against SCA Promotions.

    Landis = I doped while cashing paychecks, then committed mail fraud on the order of millions of dollars, failed to blackmail my way into the TOC, so I changed my story completely.

    The point is that here we are, and we’re supposed to pretend that these guys are acting in good faith. That they’re telling the truth. For reals, this time. Maybe. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, thank you sir, may I have another?! I’m not going to overlook the fact that – according to their own statements – they spent years selling their consciences for a few bucks. Only when nobody was willing to continue paying them did they suddenly find their inner Jiminy Crickets. It’s all about money, people. Same as it ever was.

    @Everyone who said these LeMond, Andreu and Landis have nothing to lose here – you’re probably correct. That just bolsters the argument that they’re cowards for not piping up when they had skin in the game. They may have nothing to lose, but only because they made damn sure they took the money and ran first.

    Keep it rubber side down, people.

  34. Correction: Landis collected at least one half million dollars for his defense fund. Not “millions.”. Sorry, my bad.

  35. NO SANTA CLAUS?!?! Great, now my 8-year old kid will not stop crying…. Hey, Landis will you donate to the “stop my kid from crying” fund…$5000 will suffice. AND NO REFUNDS!! (wink, wink)

  36. DOPERS SUCK! (ps: maybe Lance needs to drink more of his FRS energy dring…just sayin)

  37. Not to divert the subject because if LA doped, he deserves whatever penalty he gets but it’s funny to me that they are attempt to bring “fraud” charges on him. The man wins 7 Tours, five of which in US Postal colors. If anything, at the time, it brought the US Postal Service some of the best press that they have had in years. Seems to me that they got a return for every cent they invested…just sayin’.

  38. USPS claims for the millions the paid, they got about $600K (mostly in Europe) worth of new business directly related to the sponsoring of the US Postal cycling team. A lot of pressure from the US Gov’t to pull the plug, as they were (are) operating in the red. Not a very good investment, hence their exit. Lance doped, so did the rest. Level playing field. Fuck ’em.