Floyd Landis is going to be doing a panel, that supposedly he got together, to discuss doping in cycling. The panel is going to have Jonathan Vaughters, Garmin, Travis Tygart, USADA, and Thomas Murray, a professor and serves as the Chair of the Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency. This could be interesting. I haven’t seen a link, but I hope there is some live internet coverage of the event. It would nearly be worth the plane ticket to attend in person, just for entertainment sake.
The quote I agree with the most from the announcement is by Floyd. He says – “All I can talk about is what I know from when I was racing. For me it doesn’t appear that the risk and reward structure has changed. Nor has the management of cycling. There’s not a lot of reason, other than taking people at their word that anything has really changed. We’ve seen where ‘taking people at their word’ leads us.”
All these current riders that got their asses kicked by these guys that were doping keep telling us that was is the past and that isn’t the current generation of riders now. But many, if not most of the guys winning the races currently are from this past generation, so the statements seem illogical at best and most likely just outright fabrication.
Unless some outside source, governing body get into the mix, us, as a sport, are not going to be able to solve this problem. I’ve been writing it here for years, the sanctions have to be super severe. I used the word draconian once to describe how severe. The punishment has to be more severe than the offense. And, personally, I think the offenses are serious on their own merit, so the punishments need to be almost ridiculously severe.
I think that it is interesting that the only way that riders tend to fess up is when they are subpoenaed and have to testify under oath. Athletes don’t like the idea of serving jail time. I doubt that the societies of most modern countries want to throw their idols/athletes, into jail for breaking the rules of sport. But, the harm to and interest of, society is not small. The stakes are very high in many of these sports. The amount of money changing hands, even in cycling is enormous to the average guy. There needs to be a way to “convince” the participates that doping isn’t a viable alternative. I think more legal options need to be considered when addressing the sanctioning of the offenders. Civilly and criminally.
I don’t think that Floyd has an agenda right now. He is just sitting around, maybe trying to race some Nascar, twiddling his fingers while this whistler blower law suit runs its course. He is potentially in line for over 10 million dollars, depending on how the thing plays out. That would very much surprise me if that is the case, but you never know in this day and age.
Anyway, this forum might be interesting, depending how forthcoming all the participates can be. It’s on Thursday at Yale if your nearby.
I thought this was an interesting picture of Floyd. I’m not sure if the photographer just asked Floyd to pose in this position on a chair or what, but it is very unusual.
This was from July of 2011.
Stream link
http://www.law.yale.edu/news/16639.htm
I bet Floyd is mimicking his TT position at that time. If you remember when everyone was going low, he had that bars at 45 degree- “shielding his head position”.
I agree, hope this symposium brings some input from outside the cycling world point of view.
Steve,
I will be there at Yale this Thursday.
When I first got the flyer sent to me from the owner of The Devil’s Gear Bike Shop in New Haven it was about 6am. As I began to look thru my contact list to forward the flyer I could not help but notice my emotions were getting a little heated up. Realizing that I still had not adequately dealt with this current doping fiasco, I called another old timer Doug Dale to let him know that I was still dealing with this bullshit and needed to find a place to put it all to rest. This Yale thing was a great opportunity to put this behind me and he agreed that we should keep an eye on each other at this event, so that 2 old guys in their middle to late 60’s don’t rush the stage and start kicking some serious ass.
In all the USA press about this, no one bothers to ask the guys from the 1960’s and 70’s who went over to the continent on their own dime to set the tone for what is going on today, what they think. Yeah, we are “old guys” and we are scattered about the country living different lives, many still riding, but as a brotherhood we know where we are and what we did and I can tell you to a man we are not a happy lot with this crew.
oh, floyd has an agenda! millions of them, actually.
and while i appreciate having come clean and the info provided, don’t forget what a tedious process that was, including bilking friends and supporters.
as to doping penalties, after establishing some means to differentiate minor offenses (i think it is “possible” to take a tainted supplement, for instance) from the major, intentional offenses (blood doping, epo, hgh, etc and whatever is next), you hand out severe (say 12 months) sanctions for the minor, mandatory life bans for the major.
Just like Levi, it was the praying mantis position.
not for covering face/helmet but to obscure needle tracks in forearms.
Please ask Tygart why Leiphiemer, Vande Velde, Danielson and Zabriskie got the vacation-style of suspension when they didn’t need them since George sang, and Vaughters can sit up their staight-faced about having Dekker on his team all while claiming to be part of the solution.
care to comment, or is Och your broker?
http://reader.roopstigo.com/view/roopster/story/653/#/chapter/2/
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/02/news/bmc-not-appropriate-for-ochowicz-to-comment-on-landis-claim_275979
He is not gonna get $10 mill ! No way ! So good luck and buy yourself a Amish girl to have kids with !
Bike Guy,
I bet you guys are p!ssed.
What was USA Cycling at the time got to the point the U.S. was developing legitimate world-class talent, including Lemond and Tilford, Hampsten and others despite the organization’s problems. Then it goes off the rails. I’m not even talking about EPO here either, just USA Cycling. It gets worse when Wiesel takes over and it’s never coming back. To be fair, there are some people with good intentions at USAC, but they don’t have any power.
USAC runs a government-blessed monopoly that cannot be voted out or otherwise fired. We need another federation. OBRA is all that’s left. You guys should be furious.
since when cyclists don’t breathe? 1992?
they don’t breathe anymore , even in 2013
What about Och?
Doug Dale? An interesting fellow to bring up when ethics and cheating are the topics. Those that know him probably remember his retailing adventures in Northampton, MA.? I had the misfortune of working for him for a brief period back-in-the-day. I look forward to a post from you on the Yale conference. I agree with Tilford, ONLY an independent body can do antidoping as the UCI and national federations have a natural conflict of interest.
As to penalties, it should be you’re OUT for good if caught, with reduction ONLY if you rat out everyone else involved and the investigation reveals you told the whole truth. Once a few guys sing, the crooked docs, managers, etc. can be removed from the sport. Eventually all that will be left is the clean guys and those who ratted out the cheaters – so the omerta should finally be ended.
Date
Thu Feb 28, 2013 4:30pm EST — Thu Feb 28, 2013 6:00pm EST
About
A panel discussion with Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency; Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda Professional Cycling Team; Tom Murray, bioethicist; and Floyd Landis, former professional cyclist.
Livestream link for Thursday is http://new.livestream.com/yalelaw/SpinningOurWheels
Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Time to come clean Och.
It’s funny. The NFL is loaded with dopers and they’re prospering. Two dozen guys get hit for steroids, they get a significant penalty (don’t kid yourself, a 4 game suspension is a lot of money), they get to lie that it was adderall or some such, and it’s the game and not the dope that is in the headlines. The NFL is run by smart people.
Tennis is loaded with dopers and tennis is prospering. The testing is designed to not catch anyone, players load up and the fans *love* watching jacked up people playing jaw dropping games. And the sport prospers beyond anything that cycling could imagine. Tennis is run by smart people.
NBA? Yep, same story. Jacked up guys doing jaw dropping stuff that the fans love. The smart people that run the sport are watching it prosper.
Cycling is run by morons. Guys like Travis Tygart are allowed to tell people they can expect a clean sport knowing full well the testing is inadequate. Why do we tolerate that kind of dishonesty? Guys like Lance are pilloried for lying and Tygart gets a free pass because we *like* the lie he tells. We want to believe it.
This is a recipe for failure. Maybe one of the things that draws people to a fringe sport like cycling, and one of the things that keeps cycling from prospering like sports that are not run by morons is an acceptance of guaranteed failure as a strategy.
Cycling does not require lot of talent. Just look at Rasmussen. He literally couldn’t handle a bicycle but still had the yellow jersey in the TdF. If someone would suffer from the same lack of talent in tennis, basketball or even football no drugs would be able to fix that. This fact attracts a lot of scumbags to cycling and is killing the sport.