Floyd Landis has said that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) offered him a deal to reduce his potential suspension on drug charges if he would provide incriminating evidence against Lance Armstrong "or anyone more important than me," according to ESPN.com.
I've said a few times that Landis appears to be using the spaghetti defence - throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. His latest doesn't ring true to me for 2 reasons: (1) Armstrong's been out of the sport for 2 years now, I can't imagine the USADA (USADA, not the French, not the Italians) would still be focused on bringing him down. I'm not sure how focused they were on it while he was riding. (2) Landis had just won the TdF. In the cycling world, there is nobody "more important" than him at the time. They had bagged the biggest fish possible - the comeback winner of the largest, best known bicycle race in the world.
I didn't post on it, but recently all of Landis' "B" samples from the TdF were re-tested and they all came up positive for exogenous testosterone. They weren't tested for it during the original tests and Landis actually fought to prevent these tests from happening. Since they all came up dirty, some additional weight can be given to the "they f'ed up the masking on the day he tested positive in the Tour" theory. It also points to a much bigger problem since he was obviously able to consistently beat the tests. He is claiming that the lab did a big frame-up job on him, that the French are out to get him, etc. etc.
I'm becoming more and more convinced that he's guilty.
1 comment:
The recently tested B samples hae not "all" been found positive. The improper and incomplete leak to L'Equipe says only "several" are allegedly positive. "Several" is not "all", and the lack of details raise many questions.
For instance, if they were done the same way as the original Stage-17 test, and the method is found incorrect, then they are equally invalid. That some are reported positive and some negative is also odd, since that doesn't appear to be physiologically sensible.
I advise waiting for documented evidence to become available at the hearing before making any conclusions.
Hearing coverage and other detailed news is available at trust but verify.
TBV
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