Well, the Tour de France is over for another year. Alberto Contador beat Andy Schleck by a pretty narrow margin (39 seconds, in case you hadn’t already heard). Lots of comments have been made around the web noting that Contador won by exactly the amount of time he gained after Schleck’s infamous mechanical difficulty. I won’t bore you with any more of that. Kudos to both Schleck and Contador for having the maturity to be friends off the bike, even if they are enemies during the heat of battle.

Color me unimpressed

Floyd Landis appeared on Nightline (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, print version) last Friday night, in what the show billed as an “exclusive” interview. Supposedly, Neal Karlinsky sat down and interviewed Landis for 90 minutes or thereabouts. Watching the story they put together, I was stunned. Not by any new information — there wasn’t any. I was surprised that ABC News had basically regurgitated the information that has been in the print media for just over two months now. With all the time that’s passed, and all the information that’s been published, I expected that a diligent journalist would try to find some new angle on the story. Or some new tidbit of information that would make the Nightline story stand out from all the others.

The only thing that really stands out about the story is that we can hear Landis speaking for himself. That, and we get to hear from a couple of the usual suspects when it comes to stories of Lance Armstrong and his (alleged) history of doping. Betsey Andreu made an appearance, coming off as calm and well-spoken. Emma O’Reilly makes a cameo, and provides perhaps the most darkly amusing comment of the story. “I was a glorified drug runner,” she told an interviewer.

Landis made a good point during the interview when Karlinsky asked the obvious question about Landis’ credibility.

Nightline: You realize you have serious credibility issues?

Landis: I think that’d be an understatement.

Nightline: You’re an admitted liar and cheat.

Landis: What — what is a person supposed to do when they make the wrong decision? I mean, are you committed to that path for good? Are you — once you tell a lie, are you committed to tell that lie forever?

Once a person goes down a certain path, are they doomed to following that path forever? Or can they change directions? Granted, lying in the past about what he had done and seen wasn’t the best choice for Floyd to make, but can’t a person learn from his mistakes? Seems to me Landis is paying a pretty high price for his choice, and turning things around won’t be easy.

One of Lance’s attorneys, Tim Herman, stands in for his client to rebut Landis’ comments. Herman, by way of trying to prove his client’s innocence, notes that Armstrong has been tested hundreds of times. And that Armstrong has not failed any of those tests. While that’s all true, it doesn’t prove Armstrong is clean. It only proves that the tests didn’t detect anything amiss. It doesn’t even prove whether the tests were accurate or not. Karlinsky could have pointed that out and asked a tough follow-up question or two. But he didn’t.

Landis’ own account (published in stories back in May and early June) of the doping he did from 2002 until 2006 would be a good case in point. While Landis still maintains that he didn’t use testosterone during the 2006 Tour, what’s important to note is that the drugs he does claim to have used weren’t detected. And that goes to show that it was possible to beat the testers at their own game 4 years ago. Someone who learned the ropes, or who had people helping him who had the necessary skills, could game the system. Perhaps that’s still true.

Two months after the original revelations, ABC News should have been able to pull together a story that offered some new insight. Getting Landis to agree with a statement that he’s calling Armstrong a liar is about as good as Karlinksky and company were able to get. That, and the answer to the most obvious question of all: Why come forward now?

It’s about the truth. It’s about me feeling better for having mislead the public. I would like to take this opportunity to just say that I’m sorry for having lied. I’m glad I don’t have to lie. It was hard to do interviews where I was lying. I didn’t feel good about those. (via CyclingNews.com)

No evidence, to my eyes, of Karlinsky asking any follow-up questions of any substance to any of the people shown in the story. Which is a shame, as it could have provided the story with more depth. While Floyd may not come across as smooth, as practiced and as polished as Big Tex, Landis usually provides a few good quips and quotes along the way. Is this all they were able to get? Really? Yawn.

Here we go again

Meanwhile, Armstrong is getting to ride off into the sunset, saying that this was his last Tour, for, like, ever. This next voyage into “retirement” is getting off to the same kind of rocky start as his last one did. Only, the difference is that this time, there are Federal agents and a prosecutor snooping around. Last time, it was just a dustup over lab results. This time, who knows where any of this can lead? As of yesterday, it appears that Federal prosecutors want to look at records from the SCA case, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the WSJ story:

The documents contain depositions from former teammates and associates of the seven-time Tour de France champion during a period when a promotions company was trying to prove that Mr. Armstrong employed banned drugs and practices—known as doping—during his cycling career.

Jeffrey Tillotson, the attorney who represented the company, SCA Promotions Inc., in the arbitration hearings, said it received a subpoena for the records on July 16. He is preparing to send the files to the federal prosecutors in Los Angeles who are handling the investigation, he said.

One person, GQ correspondent Andrew Corsello, offers up his opinion on what Lance should do in this piece. The headline and subhead give a clue:

Lie Strong

Is Lance Armstrong a doper? At this point, that is officially irrelevant. Lance, you’ve got your story, and even if you’re lying through your teeth, we need you to stick to it

Give Corsello’s essay a look. He makes a rather provocative point about the Lance/Livestrong legend.

Let the bidding wars begin

Three-time Tour champ Contador is set to switch teams next year, leaving Astana all to Alexander Vinokourov and his band of merry men. The BBC and a number of other news organizations are reporting today that Contador rejected Astana’s offer of a contract extension for the coming season. According to the Beeb’s article:

Contador said in a statement that he “will calmly study all of the possibilities on offer for the coming season”, adding that “he hasn’t dismissed any of them”.

However, he did not divulge the offers he was considering.

It will be interesting to see where Contador ends up. One rumor is that Bjarne Riis is courting the Spaniard, because the Schleck brothers will be leaving the Saxo Bank squad. Got to wonder, too, if Team RadioSnack might be in the mix. With Lance gone, they will certainly want to bring on a contender. And Contador is a heavyweight contender for next year, barring illness or injury. Contador has a history with Johan Bruyneel. That said, he’s also proved he can win without Bruyneel’s help. However Alberto Contador decides, I’m guessing that the Contador/Schleck on-the-bike rivalry will be going on for some years to come.

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