It was bound to happen sooner or later. Floyd Landis officially retired from professional cycling. Given that he didn’t have a pro contract for much of the last year, and that he only raced intermittently as an unaffiliated rider in 2010, you might already have thought that he was retired. With the revelations of last spring, in which Landis accused former teammates (including Lance Armstrong) of systematically doping, it’s certainly no surprise that he has been unable to find a team.
Landis spoke to ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford about why he chose to retire.
“I’ve spent five years trying to get back to a place that I can never really go back to, and it’s causing more stress than is worth it,” Landis said. “There must be more to life than this.
“I’ve been riding my bike a lot, trying to figure out life, which is the same reason I did it to start with, so I’ve come full circle. I’ll always ride my bike. But I’ll never start on a line on a road and try to get to another line on a road faster than another guy. That’s over.”
Landis, in some ways, has been the whipping boy for professional cycling for the past four-plus years. Having won the 2006 Tour de France, only to lose the title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone on the day of his epic ride to Morzine, Landis has spent the last five years wandering the cycling wilderness. First trying to clear his name. Then, trying to come back to the sport. And finally heading further into the wilderness by admitting to having doped during his career, up to and including the 2006 season.
He remains steadfast that he did not use testosterone prior to State 17 of the 2006 Tour. Having fought so hard to clear his name, he did not win friends and influence people (in a positive way) among the powers that be of the cycling world. One could easily say that he only has himself to blame for his current situation, and could even go Biblical and make a remark about the wages of sin. But there’s way more to Landis’ story than a simplistic comparison to moral tales from the past.
The more I’ve followed the saga of doping in sports, the more I’ve come to believe that what Landis was doing in his career — using any and all means to achieve results — is what many others (perhaps most) have also done. What I find myself considering is whether we, the fans, have lost our perspective on professional sports.
Once upon a time, back when I was knee high to a grasshopper, the prevailing attitude was this: Professional athletes will do whatever it takes to win, and if that means using performance-enhancing drugs, so be it. The people who pay the athletes — the team owners and their sponsors — expect results. They don’t accept “well, gee, I tried my best” as an excuse for not winning. Professional sporting events are entertainment, first and foremost, except for those actually participating in them. It’s a business. Those who can’t perform will soon find themselves out of work.
At the same time, amateur athletes were put on a pedestal and revered as those who only pursue a sport for the love of the game. Doping? Never! That would be unsportsmanlike! Of course, the truth was that doping was occurring in both professional and amateur sports back then, but the illusion peddled by the powers that be in the International Olympic Committee and elsewhere was that amateur athletes were somehow bastions of all that is good in the world.
And, no doubt, there were officials in the IOC back then who knew full well that amateur athletics were anything but pure as the driven snow. Still, they peddled the idea to the general public. And many bought the story hook, line and sinker.
In the intervening years, sports has become a huge business, even so-called amateur sports. To the IOC’s credit, they dropped the pretense of only allowing amateurs to compete. It wasn’t as if some of the so-called amateurs weren’t already professionals. Props to the IOC for at least recognizing the obvious.
Along the way, our attitudes towards professional sports and the athletes that compete in them changed. Gone are the days when it was readily acknowledged that the use of performance-enhancing drugs might be part of the job description. Now, we expect our athletes to be squeaky clean, and that the feats they perform are purely the result of natural ability with a dollop of training thrown in. Why the change?
Hard to say, exactly. We look to sports for inspiration. To see the competitors accomplish super-human feats that the rest of us mere mortals have no hope of ever achieving, no matter how much time we devote to training and practice. We want to believe that what the athletes do is through natural means. But why? I haven’t the foggiest clue, really. And why should it be any less entertaining or inspiring if they use “un-natural” means to achieve such things?
The pros, even without the drugs or special equipment or miracle technologies, are the best of the best. Or so one hopes, anyway. The little bit extra they get from whatever they use may be the difference between winning and losing, but the differences are not so great that an average athlete can become one of the greatest ever.
A while back, a reporter asked me whether I thought that free agency in the big leagues had led to an increase in doping. Maybe. When there’s big money to be had (think A-Rod and his $250 million, 10-year contract), there’s certainly temptation. It’s hard to gauge whether more professionals dope in our current time than did half a century ago.
My own personal guess: There’s probably not much of a difference. Back then, the motivation might have been that it’s part of the job description. Get results or get a different job. Now, well, that’s still true, but there’s also the allure of huge paydays and lifestyles of the rich and famous. But it’s not as if the pressure to perform wasn’t there way back when.
Perhaps it’s the nature of our times, when there are few people we can look to for true inspiration any more, we look to athletes. But they’re entertainers, the whole lot of them, albeit of a different ilk than, say, Keith Richards and his bandmates in The Rolling Stones. No one expects The Glimmer Twins, et. al., to be stone-cold sober when they’re entertaining us. Why should we expect athletes to be pure as the driven snow?
The answer, of course, is that there are rules against the use of performance-enhancing drugs. And since it’s against the rules, the athletes shouldn’t be using them. But where did those rules come from? They are, in part, a reaction to a number of deaths in amateur and professional sports during the 1960s. Tommy Simpson, the British cyclist who died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour, may have been the last straw — at least where the safety of the athletes was concerned. Simpson died from a lethal combination of too much heat, too much amphetamines and too little fluid refreshment. (Back then, riders were limited to approximately 2 liters — or about a half gallon — of water for an entire day’s stage at the Tour.)
The modern anti-doping regime is an outgrowth of a number of scandals in the late 1990s. Some involving teams (the Festina affair in 1998) and some not (the allegations of bribery of various officials during the competition for the rights to host the 2002 Winter Olympics). Huge amounts of money flow into the IOC now, just for the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games. (Does anyone actually know what the IOC does with all that money? Especially given that the host city/country ponies up most — if not all — of the money to build the venues and put on the games.)
A cynic might observe that anti-doping efforts, while couched in terms of protecting fairness or the athletes’ health, might be more about protecting the brand.
To hear a number of former pros, including Floyd Landis, tell it, doping is still pretty common among those who compete. Regardless of the anti-doping rules. The more I think about it, the less surprised I am that this would be so. The same pressure to perform exists in 2011 as it did in 1968, the year that the IOC first imposed anti-doping rules. There is a whole lot more money at stake, even accounting for inflation.
Where there is big money, there is big temptation, and likely there is big corruption. It comes with the territory. I find it hard to get too worked up about the latest doping cases and the latest advances (?) in anti-doping efforts. In some ways, it seems as if nothing ever changes.
But back to Floyd Landis. His time as a professional racer has past. In some ways, his time was over the moment his positive test came to light. Being the first to lose a Tour title due to a positive drugs test is not something that can be easily recovered from, in a public relations sense or in a professional sense, for either Landis or the Tour’s organizers or the various powers that be in the cycling federations.
There is much about the way anti-doping efforts are conducted that could be improved. There is much within the UCI and other quarters of the sport that need to be fixed. Floyd Landis may have shined a spotlight on some of the problem areas, but he was never going to be the one who could fix those problems.
Landis is less than optimistic about the future of cycling. As he told Bonnie Ford:
“I don’t want it to come across that I’m quitting because I’m bitter,” Landis said.
But he added that he is disillusioned with what he termed systemic corruption and hypocrisy in cycling and said he is pessimistic that real progress can be made in changing its doping culture.
“I’m relatively sure this sport cannot be fixed, but that’s not my job, that’s not my fight,” he said.
If cycling can be fixed — indeed if the more general sports doping problem can be fixed — it will start with a change in how we, as a society, look at sports, and what we demand of those who organize sporting events and the federations who oversee those sporting events.
I suspect that Floyd Landis will be riding his bike tomorrow. Where his life goes from here, well, who knows? Whatever lessons Landis is able to draw from the past, here’s to hoping he’s able use what he’s learned to craft a better future.
Saw this first on MSNBC.com…
SI reports new information in the case against Lance Armstrong
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html?eref=sihp
Claim: Customs agents found drugs in Armstrong’s bag
Rant – I’m with you, I think they pretty much all do what they have to do to get results…It’s a bit depressing coming to that realization, but I think it’s accurate at this point, and I really wish they would all just come clean and lay it out on the table.
MikeG
Rant:
You know I did believe Floyd; a man is only as good as his word. Disillusionment is a mild word for the cognitive dissonance I experienced at the time of his admission of guilt! Floyd certainly was punished far beyond what was necessary by the cycling community for his crime. But, alas, Floyd is guilty of theft by deception, he is a man of a very questionable character, a man prone to take advantage of people who wanted to believe. Floyd cannot make ammends for his past behavior or garner support by accusations; if he expected empathy he is a very misguided man! Perhaps it is best that he retired at last; but I fear his legal issues will persue him; and the ghosts of the past will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.
But Rant: behold! Floyd has sanctioned universal doping for all! http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/floyd-landis-calls-for-legalised-doping?ns_campaign=news&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=cyclingnews&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0 The man is clearly insane.
Too bad Floyd didn’t have a crystal ball or the Amazing Clio at his disposal back in 06…he could have taken his 2 year ban (and shut the hell up) and would have been back in cyclings good graces on a major team for a few years now. If ‘they all’ were doing it to be competetive at the highest level, well…then it was still a level playing field.
Surely everybody seems to be up on their high horses demanding clean riders at this point in time. For me, I just look at it as ‘open’ class. It’s entertainment, just like any pro sport. The best of the best, doing things seemingly impossible to us lowly amateurs. As always, those who get to make the rules aren’t the ones competing. To say that this one thing is legal but that one isn’t, well…it all comes down to who gets to make that decision and what their motivation is.
Rant: you’ve said it before…surely it’s not for the ‘safety’ of the riders…otherwise they’d just set a hemacrit value and test for it on race morning…too high? No race for you today. No penalties, no sanctions, no fines, just can’t ride. THAT would have more effect on things than any amount of testing. As to all the other stuff (steroids, hgh and such), well…I don’t care. Every career someone chooses has it’s ups and downs…drawbacks if you will. Ask any of the kids coming back from Iraq/Afghanistan (and their parents for the ones who came back in a box) about making career choices that affect the rest of your life. I’m guessing they couldn’t care less if cyclists take a whole pile of drugs to make them stronger, and lose a few years off their life span doing it. You wanna chance to be a star? Well…there is a hidden cost…possibly quite large.
As to the NEW SI information about Lance…well, I just say ho-hum. At what point do ‘they’ draw a line in the sand and say “ok..as of TODAY, we test for this and this, and there will be lifetime bans if you are caught”. I know there are many Lance haters out there…as to whether he did or did not ‘dope’, I’d probably have to admit that yes he most likely did. I have no evidence for that, but I also have no evidence that everybody else at that level weren’t doing the same exact things. IF ‘they’ decide he did it and take away some (or all) of his TDF wins, then what? Who do they give them to? The #2guy? How on earth can you say whether HE was clean at that time? Cuz he wasn’t caught? Well, neitiher was Lance. Or do they just say there was no winner for those years? It’s a pandora’s box for sure.
I just see no good coming out of this. At some point everybody needs to let the past go and look to the future.
And speaking to the future, I have to touch upon Alberto’s current dilemma. I can safely say that I hope and pray they let him slide on it, whether he was guilty or not. I desperatly want to see him and Andy duke it out this year. The amount of Clen detected was so miniscule, and whether he got it from transfusing blood or from some food item, I simply don’t care. He NEEDS to be in the peleton this year. Nobody wants to see the 2010 TDF title handed to Andy that way. And this years race will be crushed if he is banned.
Just my 2 cents worth (well…looks like I slipped in more than 2 cents…maybe a quarter?)
Rant, this is one of your best pieces ever. Only one fact worth mentioning: Floyd was unable to find a team in large part because he hasn’t shown the form to be worthy of a team spot. Also, he cannot race for a team with Tour de France aspirations, because the Tour would never let Floyd race again. In fact, with his legal issues, Floyd cannot race in France or even set foot in France. None of this has anything to do with his revelations about Lance.
The remainder of your analysis is spot on, in particular the conflict you describe between the doping culture in sport and the need to appear speaky-clean to the international authorities and the fans of the sport. My guess is that Floyd was never comfortable with that conflict — I bet that few athletes enjoy having to say one thing and do another. When Floyd tested positive in 2006, he ran head-on into the conflict between what he thought he had to do (dope) and what he thought he had to say (lies). In this, he was no different from any other athlete, particularly in cycling.
What Floyd did next was what will mark him forever in my view. He decided that he would continue to lie, which is not unusual. But instead of lying in the usual way (say very little, disappear from public view — sort of like Jan Ullrich, though I don’t know if Ullrich is lying), Floyd took lying to a level that no one had ever seen before. He wrote the book, and went out to raise millions for his defense, in the process recruiting folks like you and me (and many others) to devote time and effort defending him.
I don’t want to go back to our arguments from last year over whether Floyd’s conduct is worthy of condemnation and even criminal punishment. (I think it is; most readers here disagree.) But with a little hindsight, I can see how Floyd’s conduct was fueled by his righteous indignation over being caught between the (perceived) need to dope and the (perceived) need to lie about it. Floyd might have taken a different path, and told us the truth back in 2006. Instead, his indignation took him in a different direction. He tried instead to restore himself to the normal rank-and-file of elite cyclists who are able to dope, and able to lie about doping, without consequence. I think Floyd was truly angry (or truly felt enormous self-pity) that others were able to dope and lie without consequence, while he would no longer be able to do the same.
Sadly, Floyd used and abused our trust and our money along the way, evidently out of the belief that what the sport had done to him justified what he was doing to us.
But I have come to see Landis as something of a victim. Yes, Landis doped, and Landis lied, and Landis has no one to blame but himself. But Landis is the victim of a change that took place while he was racing: not changes in the rules, or the testing, or the doping culture in cycling. The change I’m talking about is one that took place inside of each of us. Our attitude towards doping has changed.
At one point we would tolerate doping in the peloton. Actually, it’s not so much that we tolerated doping — we just looked the other way. We knew about Tom Simpson. We knew, or we should have known, about Jacques Anquetil, his statement that “everyone takes dope”, about his so-called “cocktail” (a painkilling injection followed by amphetamines and later, sleeping pills). But those dopers were doing the sort of things that WE did (a stimulant like coffee to get through the day, and some alcohol at day’s end to wind down). We all knew people who might take a “pep pill” to lose some weight, or get through a long night without falling asleep at the switch or at the wheel. Perhaps athletes were not supposed to do the same thing, but we really didn’t care.
And as the doping culture in sport changed, moved away from amphetamines and towards things like EPO and anabolic steroids — we were slow to react. In baseball, we did not react until guys with arms the size of tree trunks started hitting home runs at a rate we’d never seen before. We baseball fans are jealous of the records in the record book. In cycling, we did not react until the riders seemed to glide over mountain passes with the greatest of ease, at speeds that seemed unreal to some.
We then turned against the doping athletes, who could (if they had wanted to) have reacted with justified confusion: what did we do? Just the same sort of thing the guys that came before us did, or would have done if they could have gotten their hands on EPO and steroids.
The sport didn’t change, the athletes hadn’t changed. WE changed.
Floyd belongs to an ancient history of doping athletes, the ones that wanted to win (even to dominate) and who were willing to dope as part of the effort. Floyd is a dinosaur in this respect, dinosaurs just like the baseball players who wore sleeveless shirts to show off their steroid-swollen muscles. No one would do that today. No one would dope in an effort to hit 80 home runs or win the Tour de France by 20 minutes. No, my guess is that the average doping athlete is doping today just to try to keep up, just to finish the Tour de France, or to finish in the middle of the pack.
Because, truth is, we (the fans of sport) have changed our views about doping, but not by all that much. Ask yourself: do you CARE if some cyclist dopes and finished the Tour de France in 75th place? I doubt you do. We care about doping, but we care about doping only when the doper wins stages, or is competing for climbing points, or is a GC contender.
So, I can see things a little bit from Floyd’s point of view. Floyd didn’t destroy his cycling career because he DOPED. He destroyed his cycling career because he DOPED, and WON. I suppose if that had happened to me, if I’d understood the way I’d been treated the way I understand how Floyd was treated … I’d be bitter too.
Bye bye, Floyd. You took me on a wild ride. You taught me a lot. Maybe I expected too much from you. Call me unreasonable, but I expected the truth, from day one. You said you were telling the truth, which I think gave me the right to expect you to tell the truth, even if telling the truth wasn’t easy. But you didn’t just fail to tell the truth. You outright lied, and you asked people to trust that you were telling the truth, and you asked people to make a public commitment of belief in you, and you violated that trust in a way that I still find remarkably awful. I could probably forgive you if I thought you’d ever asked for forgiveness. I can even explain why you did what you did, even try to understand why you did what you did, but that does not change my opinion of what you did.
Bye bye Floyd. I’m personally not sorry to see you go. Even in a crowd of athletes who’ve doped, you singled yourself out as a guy who abused the trust of your fans and supporters.
Floyd Retires.
SI Article.
SI article brings to light Juan Pelota (Lance) making the comment antagonizing Novitzky about 4 star hotels and business class.
“Hey Jeff, como estan los hoteles de quatro estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplano? Que mas necesitan?”
Yesterday, Juan Pelota (Lance) responding via twitter to SI article..
“That’s it?”
Floyd saying they should legalize doping..
No comment. Just watching it all unfold.
Interested to see the upcoming Kimmage article. Maybe 2 weeks from now?
Wondering what data was blocked from SI article.. apparently something was removed last minute. Rumor mill has something, but I’m not goin there..
MikeG,
Thanks for the link. Might have to go out and pick up a copy, unless they put the whole story online.
VeloVortmax,
Another interesting article. Thanks. Not entirely sure what to make of it, but a line from an old Kris Kristoffersen song comes to mind. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Matt,
Sure is too bad someone didn’t have a crystal ball back in 2006. I was thinking of signing off with a bit of commentary about Contador’s situation, but I’m leaving that for another post. Contador vs. Andy Schleck seems to be the cycling rivalry for the near term — assuming they’re both riding the big events. Could make for plenty of drama. More and more, I think that the only sane approach is to look at sports purely as entertainment.
Larry,
Thanks. Good points, as always. What you say at the beginning would certainly have been a good addition to the post. Perhaps if I ever do a re-write, I’ll try to work that in. 🙂
AC,
Gotta be a Kimmage article in the works. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have something to say on the subject, or that he wouldn’t try to interview Floyd and write a follow-up to the ESPN and SI articles.
OK. My brain is officially fried, after a long day. Time for some Stratocaster “therapy.” Thanks for the comments everyone.
There is a Kimmage article in the works..
Here is a kimmage vid.. if the link still works: http://nos.nl/video/210777-lance-armstrong-gebruikte-doping.html
here is the full SI article BTW: http://goo.gl/31MR9
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1180944/1/index.htm
I hope Floyd finds happiness and fulfillment in his life.
The fact that he lied about using PEDs, wrote a book and raised funds to defend the lies is less than commendable. In spite of his bad deeds, I’d find it hypocritical of me to hold a grudge given we’ve all been guilty of bad deeds, some less serious and some possibly much more damning. Floyd had the misfortune to have lied in a spectacularly public manner. I find that the primary distinction between him and others who’s lies are no less serious but much more private.
Still, to some degree, I can empathize with those who harbor anger or are resentful. Hindsight is 20/20 and I’d have much preferred to have donated the same funds to my local Autism advocacy organization rather than to have blown it on FFF. I chalk it up to a lesson learned, rationalizing that I’m an informed adult and made a choice while being aware of the risks. The measure of Floyd, as a person, will be determined by the effort he expends on attempting to make amends to those he has wronged and how well he lives his life moving forward. As for me, I give him a pass on restitution. I don’t want my money back. It would please me more if he concentrates on providing whatever restitution he can manage on those who have a real bug up their bums and incorporates lessons learned from his self created debacle in how he conducts himself for the remainder of his life.
As for cycling fans and hero worship, I say sc$%w em. Especially if they have Judeo-Christian ethics or beliefs, then they are flirting with the issue of false gods and need to go back and examine their values system. Worship a person rather than respect a value, skill, or accomplishment and you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
On the subject of doping, the rhetoric of the enforcers is so far removed from the experience of the athletes that the current system has zero chance of being effective. Appearance is king on both sides of the issue. Regarding the IoC, WADA, USADA, UCI, or the athletes, it’s mostly about image as it relates to doping. The difference is that the alphabet soup’s system was designed to be capricious and ensure the soup has the last word. If there is anything I’ve learned from this fiasco it is that the current system is ineffective and corrupt. In the hypothetical, a system that seeks to manage health risks and strives to level the playing field while employing an adjudication apparatus with roughly equal representation from the soup and the athletes is much more rational, ethical, and fair. I’m not holding my breath for those kind of reforms, but one can dream.
To keep some perspective, cycling is not alone when it comes to absurd levels of hypocrisy:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/01/steelers-fan-sent-home-from-tacoma-middle-school-on-seahawks-appreciation-day/1
This is a story about a middle school student (public school) who was sent home for wearing a rival team’s jersey to school on Seattle Seahawks Appreciation Day. Let’s try to remember that a public school is involved in supporting a private enterprise while disallowing a reasonable dissenting opinion. A public institution is encouraging the financial support of private ownership in the guise “community spirit” and is quite willing to punish those who don’t go along with their idiotic scheme. Aside from the issue of the wealthy individuals conning municipalities into allowing them to suck on the nipple of public funding to finance sweetheart stadium deals, intelligent educators should be aware that every NFL owner profits from the sale of branded overpriced NFL team gear. They should be paying you to advertise their product, not the other way around. The same goes for professional cycling team apparel. Most schools could use the money, no? It’s not as if the NFL owners can’t afford to throw schools a few shekels for huckstering their teams, right? This particular display of greed and bass-ackwards thinking is all to common, yet still stunning for its boldness. The quote may have been mistakenly attributed to P.T. Barnum?, but “There is a sucker born every minute”. YMMV.
AC,
Thanks for posting the link to the video and the SI article. I was wondering whether they might hold back the full article in order to drive magazine sales. Doesn’t look like it, though I may purchase a copy just to see if the two articles are identical.
Jeff,
Well said. No matter how much we want to believe in a cause, especially a cause involving the possible guilt or innocense of another individual, we need to remember that there’s always a possibility that we might be wrong. With the FFF, I chose to donate, but I knew in the back of my mind that it was always possible there was more to the story than met the eye. Turns out, there was a whole lot more.
If I knew then what I know now, I probably would have given that money to other causes. That said, it was cheap “tuition” for gaining a quasi-Masters degree in “Doping Studies.”
For those who are interested in who orginally said it, here’s an the Wikipedia entry regarding the “there’s a sucker born every minute” quote.
Great NPR interview
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133091254/Sports-Illustrateds-Case-Against-Lance-Armstrong
Definitely an interesting interview.
Regarding the NPR interview cited by austincyclist:
Henry Heaphy (in comments section) finds the reporting of Selena Roberts to be suspect because of her botched reporting on the Duke Lacrosse (false) rape allegations coupled with a lack of retraction on her (Roberts) part when her original reports did not reflect reality. Many years ago, I played D1 lacrosse for a direct rival of Duke and followed the case with interest and in more detail than I followed Floyd’s case, and that is substantial. As such, I find Henry Heaphy’s objections to be largely on the mark and hope Selena Roberts is doing a better job here.
However, indications are that she may not be doing a better job here? For example, I find her characterization of Dr. Catlin’s response (in the NPR interview) to the non-confirming Armstrong B samples to be counter to what is widely reported elsewhere. To paraphrase, on NPR, Selena Roberts is reporting that Catlin is saying he doesn’t know why the B’s didn’t confirm. Other sources indicate Catlin actually says this:
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/7146/Catlin-says-he-cant-respond-to-Sports-Illustrated-allegations-about-Lance-Armstrong.aspx :
“I have not been provided with either letter or any of the other materials referred to in the Sports Illustrated story, thus I do not have the context to provide appropriate comment at this time,” he told VeloNation. “Without them and without any of the data from that time period, it is not possible to provide any insight into the situation or to provide specifics on any of the analysis performed.”
http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/01/news/catlin-says-it’s-“not-possible”-to-comment-on-si-story-without-data_156069 :
Catlin told Sports Illustrated he has no recollection of the discussion. He issued a brief response Tuesday, saying that without materials referred to in the Sports Illustrated story, “I do not have the context to provide appropriate comment at this time.”
I find Catlin’s reported responses in VeloNation/VeloNews to be measured, but absolutely reasonable and fair. The VeloNation and VeloNews reports give direct quotes, are more detailed, are more logical responses, and are much more Catlin-esque. I believe them over the less than formal Roberts statement in the interview.
I don’t believe in the “miracle of Lance”, but the devil is often in the details. Selena Roberts appears to have the details wrong, again. Though she may very well be right here, I still find her interview response about Dr. Catlin to be sloppy and suspect. YMMV.
Jeff,
The more I consider the SI article, and Roberts’ comments during her interview, the more I’m concerned about the reporting of the SI article. There are some things she said in the interview that just don’t quite jive for me. One, it appears that she and her co-author pretty much dismissed out of hand whatever comments or information they received from Armstrong’s side.
Two, there’s the issue of Armstrong’s supposed positive T tests results. Thinking back to Floyd’s A sample results, there were T:E ratios pretty much all over the map. Could it be that the initial readings weren’t supported by subsequent analysis. You bet. And I don’t think it would be all that odd, despite what she said in the interview. The 6.5:1 result would probably be within the testing lab’s margin of error, so I wouldn’t count that as indicative of anything.
Three, how she characterizes Catlin in the article and in the interview. Catlin’s response to VeloNews and VeloNation sound more like the measured responses I would expect from him.
As you said, on the bigger issue, she may be right. But we need to be a bit cautious in how we approach the evidence she lays out. It may not be quite so crystal clear, as regards the test results and some of the other stuff cited in her article.
Good article:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/4571355/Lance-Armstrong-faces-tough-ride-ex-mechanic/
and
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/4571360/Armstrongs-bloody-dodgy-legacy
and.. here is a very interesting opinion comment from the clinic forums on cyclingnews:
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?p=418334#post418334
I am working on a long piece about WADA for my blog site. I’m trying to describe to a WADA-naive audience what happens to a sport when its drug testing is taken over by WADA.
Let me ask a question here to anyone who is listening, and I mean this question in the nicest and most respectful way possible.
The Landis doping saga is now into its fifth year, and I’m asking myself how it changed us.
No, I don’t mean how much we learned about doping and athletes, I’m looking at something deeper. Sure, we’re probably more cynical now than we used to be, but again I’m looking at something deeper.
It seems to me that now, since Landis has fallen, we hope to see others fall too. I don’t think this was something we felt 4 years ago. Four years ago, many of us argued that it was possible to win a grand Tour without doping, that there were probably a lot of riders (possibly the majority, possibly the vast majority) who did not dope, that riders who claimed they did not dope should be given the benefit of the doubt.
When Landis confessed to being a doper, I sensed a sea change, that some of us continued to identify with Landis and quickly came to believe that Landis had been singled out for doing what nearly everyone else in cycling was also doing (this belief seems to be at the core of Landis’ own feelings about his situation). This was probably not as sudden a change as it might have appeared — I would bet that many of Landis’ most public supporters had their private doubts.
But I lost any sense here that anyone believed that a clean rider could win a race. I got the sense that the posters here believed that nearly everyone in cycling was doping. I got the sense that with one cyclist’s confession of having doped, the reputation here of all cyclists fell dramatically.
My sense here is that, if Armstrong falls or Contador falls (to use two prominent examples), few here would mind very much. I don’t mean to pick on the people who post here. The sense I have from reading the mainstream media, or Daily Peloton Forums, is that there’s ill-disguised glee every time a cyclist is brought crashing to pavement by a failed drug test.
I am wondering if this is a phenomenon that in some unintentional sense is a result of WADA-style drug testing. There were thousands who believed in Floyd Landis, and probably similar numbers who believed (maybe still believe) in Mark McGwire or Marion Jones or Jan Ullrich or any other number of athletes caught up in doping scandals.
When your hero falls, what happens to you? Take what happened to the Landis supporters after Landis fell, and multiply it through the sports world by the supporters of every other athlete publicly brought down by a doping scandal, and what do you have? A chain reaction of cynicism and doubt? Fertile ground for those within WADA-world who would like to see WADA gain more power over a larger piece of the wide world of sports?
Lance Armstrong has MILLIONS of supporters around the world, who have been inspired by his battle against cancer, who have donned LIVESTRONG bracelets. What happens if he falls? Is the fall of Lance Armstrong something that any of us should desire?
I guess I ended up asking more than one question. But it seems to me that the WADA approach to clean sport is like the famous line of the Vietnam War commander who said that they had to destroy a village in order to save it. I think that many of us saw this, back in the day when we were defending Floyd Landis. What do we see now?
Larry:
I’ll attempt to answer your question.
When the Landis thing first broke in 2006, I was sort of “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” I kind of wanted FL to be innocent but at first I had nothing to go on. I started looking around on the web and eventually came to TBV and here. From what I read, it seemed that there were legitimate questions concerning the specific testing wrt FL as well as the WADA process in general. Looked to me like there might be a chance he was either innocent of what he was charged with or at least the evidence was flawed.
But the process eventually came out against him. I still wasn’t convinced that the evidence did in fact support the verdict, but the game was over and things do not always come out the way you intend. I saw little point in continuing to discuss FL, other than perhaps some of the latter developments, like the hacking thing. I kind of hoped he might be able to revive his career in some way, probably US based, but that didn’t work out to well. Again, there are lots of sports figures who have a season or 2 in the spot light and then fade away. Who here remembers Mark the Bird Fidrich (sp?)?
But I was and am still interested in both the anti-doping efforts as well as cycling itself as a sport. I am not sure what to make of things vis s vis cycling and drugs. The more that some cyclists are busted for doping in some way, the more various people toss around specific as well as general accusations, perhaps the likelier it is that the worst is true: cycling is dope-ridden and it is impossible to win a major event without the aid of doping.
On the other hand, the evidence is pretty much, in my mind at least, circumstantial or otherwise questionable. Some of it is perhaps self-serving fabrications by busted cyclists hoping to at least score a few PR points: “I didn’t do it because I’m a cheating scumbag but because everyone does it and I had to in order to have a career.” Some of it seems to be “If he’s faster than me (or my favorite rider), he must be doping.” And some seems to be guilt by association: so and so was on the same team as someone else, a known doper, so must also be a doper.
Personally, I don’t follow too much cycling. Last summer I watched the TdF, as we got VS at the time. I’ve switched cable and no longer get it, but I’ll probably follow on the website. My apparent lack of interest has more to do with the time and trouble I would have in following racing, rather than any disillusionment with the sport.
In part, I think cycling’s troubles come from the power struggle between WADA, UCI, and IOC. I wish cycling would tell the IOC and WADA to go take a hike. Then maybe UCI could develop a drug policy more in tune with the realities of the sport. Who knows, this just might be legalizing drugs in some way.
Ultimately, I just might be a bit more careful in choosing my “heros” but a lot of this comes from other areas too. I was and still am a big Beatles fan, but I fully realize now the John was rather a total asshole. Nonetheless, he came up with some good music, so I can admire the music even if I don’t necessarily admire the man.
Larry,
Not sure if this will answer your questions or not, but here goes:
I think we need to be very careful about the people we put on pedestals and worship as heroes. Doesn’t matter the field. Whether it is science, or politics, or religion, or sports, or the music or the arts. Once we elevate someone above the level of being a regular human being, we open ourselves up to colossal disappointment when circumstances remind us that this person is, in many ways, just like you and me. Capable of great things in his/her respective field, perhaps, but otherwise human and capable of making all the same mistakes any of the rest of us make in our lives.
In this country, we seem to make a sport of first elevating someone to a level approaching deity status, and then delight in tearing that person down to less than he or she was at the start. It’s a sickening sport, to say the least.
Speaking only for myself, when I first started seeing the stories about Landis’ positive test, I was concerned about how it was being reported. Much was being misrepresented, and there were reporters within the media who were falling prey to whatever agenda certain folks had when leaking information.
Turns out, in the bigger picture, Landis was guilty of doping, even if he wasn’t caught for the things he was doing at the 2006 Tour. That is a huge disappointment on many levels. And for each of us who supported Floyd and spoke out, we feel whatever we feel about that situation and draw our conclusions and lessons.
As you said, Lance has millions of people whose opinion of him and his works will change drastically if the allegations in the Sports Illustrated article turn out to be not only true, but the basis of a prosecution for whatever crime or crimes can be pinned on him.
Personally, I take no pleasure in seeing someone fall from grace. Not Lance, not Alberto, not Floyd. Beyond the impact on those who fall, there is the impact on their supporters.
From my perspective, WADA is about protecting the Olympic brand. I don’t see a real concern for athletes’ welfare or safety in how they approach their responsibilities. Athletes get thrown under the bus to save the IOC’s collective behind, and to ensure that massive amounts of cash keep rolling into their coffers to do heaven knows what.
Sports is just a part of the overall entertainment industry, really. The athletes are there to entertain us, to earn money, and to do the things that we, the general public, are not capable of doing on our own. The sponsors don’t really care how that happens, as long as it doesn’t cast them in a negative light. Somehow, the public has been sold the idea that not only should amateur athletes be pure as the driven snow, pros should be so too.
While I’m not in favor of using performance-enhancing drugs, I think Landis is on to something when he suggests giving up the current anti-doping enforcement model. I don’t think that the way anti-doping establishment works right now is sustainable. And I do think that the cheats will always be far enough ahead that the testers will be lucky to catch them.
On the fan side of the equation, I think we need to take a slightly different view of achievements on the playing field. Just because we can appreciate or enjoy watching cyclists or other athletes do things that us mere mortals can’t, doesn’t mean we have to worship them. More to the point, we shouldn’t. We should appreciate the magic of what happens in the game or on the road, but not expect these people to be saints in the rest of their lives.
If Lance takes a tumble courtesy of Jeff Novitzky and others, his fans should take it as a lesson in why hero worship of athletes and entertainers is a bad idea most of the time. I don’t envy how those folks will feel in the aftermath, but perhaps it will lead to a more balanced view of the role of sports in our society and in our lives.
On the subject of whether a clean athlete could win the Tour. I still believe it’s possible. Can’t say when, or if, it’s ever happened, though.
Interesting bidness today.
The news of Vaughter’s sacking white. I read thru all that and was thinking how great a job he’s doing, making a bold statement by following team policy.
Then I read this.. which is an image, as the original article was pulled by VS! Story by Neil based on emails attacking Vaughter’s credibility: http://i53.tinypic.com/keuf5w.png
Story keeps on getting weirder..
AC,
I didn’t get to Neil’s post before it got pulled. Everything that’s been going down in the last week keeps bringing me back to a quote from the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
I still can’t believe that idiot principal who thought it was okay to violate the school dress code to support the Seattle Seahawks but not the Pittsburgh Steelers. Coincidence . . . or karma?
This item Versus pulled — this is about the artificial assistance Jonathan Vaughters had getting up Mont Ventoux in record time? Oh, tell me something I don’t know. While the Browne/Landis/Wiggins item Mr. A. Cyclist helpfully provided doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else )yes, it’s gone from http://www.versus.com/blogs/the-experts-opinion/the-inside-story-of-matt-whites-firing/), I did find similar video commentary by an interested party —
http://neilbrowne.com/2011/01/floyd-landis-on-bradley-wiggins-interview/
(His name’s NOT Wolverine? I’m crushed.)
Yeah, Vaughters’ eccentricities don’t endear sponsors or audiences like he thinks they would. And the ‘Zero Tolerance’ protocol for the simple act of setting up a Vo2max test, well, that’s overkill in the extreme. I guess Vaughters was compelled to do it, but just like the Tom Zirbel case, a lot of good athletes are getting dragged down because of this sport’s nihilistic approach to punishment.
First: William and Rant, thanks for responding so honestly. It’s nice to know that the Landis case has not made you feel vindictive. Sorry that this does not seem to extend to Landis himself.
Landis 2.0 thinks that Vaughters 2.0 is running team USPS 2.0? That’s ironic, since I’m sure many of you remember that Landis 1.0 (1.0 being the Landis version who claimed he never doped and defrauded thousands of people out of millions of dollars to support his claim) ALSO disliked Vaughters 2.0. http://bit.ly/dI2eQe Landis 1.0 disliked Vaughters 2.0 because Vaughters 2.0 claimed to be running a “clean” team (Landis called them “Team High Horse”), thus implying that others (like Landis?) might be riding dirty. Landis 2.0 dislikes Vaughters 2.0 because Vaughters 2.0 still claims to be running a “clean” team, thus implying that others (like Landis) could also have cycled clean if they’d only had the right kind of courage and morals.
It’s no great secret that Vaughters 1.0 doped during his cycling career — http://thetim.es/Tf9Kh — and that Landis (in any version) has no great love for Vaughters (in any version). http://bit.ly/gXE7F0. It’s easy to forget, but when Landis announced the release of Landis 2.0 (i.e., he confessed to having doped throughout his cycling career), Landis leveled doping accusations at both Lance Armstrong AND Vaughters rider Dave Zabriskie. http://bit.ly/ijvLyB Landis also said that Matthew White had been involved in doping. In response, Vaughters was pretty diplomatic but Vaughters rider David Millar 2.0 was not. http://bit.ly/b0AiKq.
Vaughters (in any version) is no angel (you want to read some really bizarre Vaughters quotes on Landis, see here: http://nyti.ms/i8Y6SW). It’s not hard to understand: he wants to lead a clean team, and he wants his team to win, and those two goals are in conflict. Also, while it certainly appears that Vaughters doped and that he knows a good deal about the U.S. Postal team of the late 1990s, Vaughters has decided (for whatever reasons) to keep what he knows a secret (though Vaughters may have talked to Jeff Novitsky). R Wharton is right, Vaughters has his eccentricities.
But by any calculation, Vaughters is one of the good guys in this sport. He’s proven that a team can set up the best internal anti-doping program in cycling and STILL win races. If Landis 2.0 is now on the side of clean sport … why does he still hold such animosity against Vaughters?
I think it gets back to that vindictive thing I mentioned at the top of this comment. Landis 2.0 feels that his life has been destroyed and he now wants to destroy others.
Landis 2.0 is beginning to feel a lot like LeMond 2.0.
Larry,
I always thought that the “Team High Horse” moniker was meant as a slap at a different US-based team: Team High Road. 😉
Rant, you’re right. Landis was actually criticizing both Vaughters’ team AND the then Team High Road.