I watched most of the doping panel from Yale on Thursday. I thought that it was pretty interesting, but nothing new was revealed. I was disappointed that they didn’t let Floyd talk a little more. The question about how clean the peloton is now kept making its way into the fray, but it never got around to Floyd. But Jonathan made sure that he kept stressing, through charts, etc. how clean the peloton is nowadays. He seemed to have an agenda.
Travis Tygart kept stressing that as long as all the guys came in and told the truth that they would be treated fairly. The 6 month suspension was the result of this? More than fairly in my opinion. There is zero percent chance that you can convince me that all these guys decided independently to all quit doping at the same time. And less than zero percent chance that Levi quit in 2006, then started again in July of 2007, then done again. Click here for his wiki page. He gets to keep his National Road Championship, the Tour of Switzerland, a bronze medal in the Olympics, etc. To me it seems like if we are confessing, then it needs to be truthful.
And back to Jonathan. I’m sorry, but I’m not going with his premiss that the peloton is clean. I don’t doubt that it has less riders that are on a systematic program, but his assertions are not true. I truly think that Jonathan has good intentions here, but I hate the way he misleads and just outright lies about certain points. I’m sorry, but I’m not going with it.
If we go back to the Tour de France when the Dutch paper broke the story about all the riders working the deal and only getting a 6 month suspension of the winter, Jonathan comes out and tweets, “Regarding the Dutch media report: no 6mos (sic) suspensions have been given to any member of Slipstream Sports. Today or at any future date.” It turns out the report was absolutely correct, or maybe they just made a very lucky guess?
During the panel discussion he was explaining about his team and was saying that he has some riders that have doped, but regretted it, and also said, and I think this is nearly an exact quote, “We have some young riders that have never been exposed to doping.”
How absurd is that? It is impossible. If he has riders on his Pro Tour team, of course they are exposed to doping. I have no idea who is the youngest guy riding for Garmin, but he has to be in his early 20’s at least. And has to have been racing bicycles for years, many years. Just by being a member of the Garmin team, he is “exposed” to doping. Maybe Jonathan doesn’t know the definition of the word exposed. Well here it is-
ex·pose (k-spz)
tr.v. ex·posed, ex·pos·ing, ex·pos·es
1.
a. To subject or allow to be subjected to an action, influence, or condition: exposed themselves to disease; exposed their children to classical music.
b. To subject (a photographic film, for example) to the action of light.
c. To deprive of shelter or protection; lay open to danger or harm: troops that were exposed to gunfire.
2. To make visible: Cleaning exposed the grain of the wood. See Synonyms at show.
3.
a. To make known (something discreditable).
b. To reveal the guilt or wrongdoing of: expose a criminal.
4. To engage in indecent exposure of (oneself).
As far as I can tell, every competitive bicycle racer in the world is exposed to doping under one or more of the definitions of the word above. So, saying he has riders that have never be exposed is just plain wrong.
I understand Jonathan’s position somewhat. But for these guys to be here at Yale, supposedly to tell the truth and to discuss, honestly, the problem of the doping in the sport of cycling, I don’t think that this was the proper place to be spewing his agenda.
Anyway, the 6 month suspensions are over for Christian Vande Velde, Dave Zabriskie, and Tom Danielson, all Garmin, plus Levis, who all “came clean” and testified against Lance. Boy, they sure paid a high price for their years of cheating.
The discussion was interesting, but not very revealing in my opinion.
I saw the 90 min panel discussion, it was professional as one expects from Yale. At the end Q & A was disappointing.. the Q people talked to much before they addressed there Q. Floyd has a sense of humor which is good after all he went thru “mentally” and physically. I think Jonathan is not 100% normal after being a druggie, that takes time, therefore the confusion with the words. Levi is a little guy and his wife raises horses , she is strong and can smack Levi arounf if they get busy, so Levi needs some testosterone to keep up…..humor is important and as Jonathan said: a young rider who is super focused and basically in trance about his dream of winning, could easily become weak and consider a drug to put him on the mountaintop…..I guess it is hard to keep it clean and new drugs can’t be detected when they come out.
Seems like a deadly cycle. My 2 cents, if not all olympic sports world wide pull the same strings this problem will never be solved and as Travis mentioned, there is so little money to do testing or research..etc.. And because of that it is cool to finish 38th, if 1-37th is on something. On the other hand a clean rider can always beat a doper on any given day, but he can’t do it back to back or 3 in a row as a doper can . Quote of Peter Reid , former canadian Hawaii ironmanchamp!
remeber it is “Lent”, time for Starkbier-“strong beers”.
Levi, I don’t believe that you are the true winner of the tour of California, Pro Challenge, Leadville Etc. Same goes for Christian. Your “victories” are tainted. Also Tommy D.your two rides in the PC a joke not to be believed. A side note, Lance time to give that ore cart back. Cheating just to beat Dave, thats just lame. Time for you guys to go away. Strava with an alias is not going away. Have some great solo rides thinking about truth. Jim D.
Someone’s spectacles kept falling off his nose. What a spectacle! And, all this is becoming rather obsolete anyway. Doping will move on towards gene therapy. Good luck with testing that.
Landis. I remember watchin TdF long time ago while he was still a domestique for Lance. My first impression of him was: who is this guy who doesn’t look like cyclist? What is he doing here? Well, now we know. He was in this only for the money, and the dope. If he didn’t get caught I don’t think we would be here at all. I’m sure he saw himself as the next Armstrong. When that didn’t happen he decided to destroy everybody else’s lives too. Wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to blackmail Lance before blowing the wistle on him. I guess we’ll never know but it wouldn’t surpise me at all.
He was in this only for the money
No. Sorry. “the money” is very, very hard to come by in cycling. It appears any money is concentrated in the elite peloton, and even then there have been countless wage issues.
Landis, like other riders, had contracts and was never paid on his way up. Being a domestic Pro is awful. It’s even worse if you are not riding road. Baristas are getting paid more than most athletes that are cyclists.
You are missing the point of Floyd’s efforts to get the truth out there. The UCI/IOC is enabling the doping.
Really? Sorry. He IS in this only for the money. Not was. Still is. My bad there.
And by the way, you missed the dope…
hold on The Cyclist,
It seems like your mind is made up on Floyd. don’t see how your view fits with the narrative as well as we understand it, but okay.
For the interested reader, go back a few years when Floyd’s suspension is over and he’s asking Lance for a job. Based on the facts we know, the lawsuit money had, at best,lottery-like odds of coming true. Had Lance employed him, it’s very likely none of this would have happened.
6 months may have passed, but IIRC, Levi had to repay all of the prize money he won from the start (’00?) up to 2006 as one of the conditions of his suspension. I haven’t heard that he’s repaid any of it.
Re: repaying prize money – see: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/leipheimer-accepts-usada-sanction-following-doping-admission