Kimmage interviews Floyd Landis: Sunday Times + Bombshell NYVC transcript [merged]

[Granville57]

I don't know about that. Most of these people desperately want to get paid to do *something* in the peloton. If they say anything, it is a career-ending move.

What I meant, simply, was that there was nothing concrete preventing the info from coming out. It wasn't as if no one could get their hands on a data-disc, or a certain file, or was physically prevented in any way. It was just the sheer pressure of the implications. Which I don't doubt are tremendous for someone protecting not only their reputation but their very livelihood. Obviously, this would be the same in many different settings, but it is curious.

I just meant that everything really did revolve around "no one talking."

 

[flicker]

Just finished it all. I feel drained. There were tears in my eyes for the last part.
It's all such a mess. I hope he gets a job outside of cycling and once the investigation is over, never looks back. He's too good and honest for cycling. I can't be bothered arguing with the Flickers of this world about him. He has paid enough of a price. Not easy to articulate, but that piece is bloody powerful, fascinating, troubling and sad. It's a f***ing tragedy and I just hope to God he gets some peace in the future. The pain leaps out of the words. Anyways that's my take on today. I shall leave it to the rest of yee to argue it out amongst yourselves.

I would think the real pain would be yours digger. You just wasted X amount of your life listening to the whining of a convicted doper, interviewd by another admitted doper.
Telling!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

This thread is moving as fast as a chat room.

Good post Digger. I feel the same way. Regardless of Flicker's interpretation.

Could the test have been a false positive? Sure. Would a false positive have mattered inside the UCI? No. It was only a matter of time before there was a positive and the opportunity to fire FL for not being an obedient racer.

I think you bring up an interesting argument. Which is why I don't feel Lance set Floyd up. Someone could hypothesize that Floyd doped, everyone doped, and it was a matter of time perhaps before the UCI wanted to get rid of him. With the flat knowledge that there's likely 49 out of the top 50 riders doping, it makes it easy for the UCI to find a positive in riders they'd like to get rid of, and keep riders they want. Conspiracy? Perhaps. But does anyone really trust the UCI?

 

[Roland Rat]

Just finished it all. I feel drained. There were tears in my eyes for the last part.
It's all such a mess. I hope he gets a job outside of cycling and once the investigation is over, never looks back. He's too good and honest for cycling. I can't be bothered arguing with the Flickers of this world about him. He has paid enough of a price. Not easy to articulate, but that piece is bloody powerful, fascinating, troubling and sad. It's a f***ing tragedy and I just hope to God he gets some peace in the future. The pain leaps out of the words. Anyways that's my take on today. I shall leave it to the rest of yee to argue it out amongst yourselves.

+1. I've felt completely flat all day after reading that. Could barely find the motivation to go to the gym tonight.

Maybe it's just me, but the stuff about there being two realities, and how openly doping is discussed in the peloton, has really made me wonder why I even care about having a clean sport any more.

And I'm also wondering where the pro's see the fans in all this. Without the fans they couldn't live the lifestyle as there'd be no sponsors to pay for it, yet it seems like they are laughing at us, treating us like idiots.

And if the UCI survive through this then we might as well all give up and go home.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I just meant that everything really did revolve around "no one talking."

Ok, good!

Same observation can be applied just about everywhere.

 

[BotanyBay]

My question concerned this part of the interview:

Barrus, thanks for providing proper context.

I think he is a particularly eloquent dodger of questions. Bottom line is that he told Floyd to be honest, but only about himself. And that means half-truths, and thus, dishonesty. The reason he was advising Floyd to tell the truth (but only about Floyd himself) was for the sake of damage control. Not for the sport. Not for Floyd. But because he was working JV's angle. JV still wants to earn a buck in pro cycling. He was "playing" Floyd.

People, this is the precise crux of what I was trying to say about JV. He is a charlatan. He just admitted to you that he works toward his own personal goals within the system. In other words, he is out for himself. He prefers dishonesty and distortions of truth, and encourages others to carry on his tradition. He's figured out how to play the politics and keep out of trouble, but all he's doing is holding. He's risking zero to "help the sport from the inside". And thus, he is not helping anything. Clean racing is nothing but his positioning. His façade.

 

[DirtyWorks]

...Someone could hypothesize that Floyd doped, everyone doped, and it was a matter of time perhaps before the UCI wanted to get rid of him. With the flat knowledge that there's likely 49 out of the top 50 riders doping, it makes it easy for the UCI to find a positive in riders they'd like to get rid of, and keep riders they want. Conspiracy? Perhaps. But does anyone really trust the UCI?

Which is why I keep going back to holding samples for 10 years and back-test as protocols are added. The only ones left doping would be idiots. And there will be a few. But, it requires a federation that actually wants the doping to stop. Which, conspiracy or not, it is hard to argue they want a clean peloton.

 

[Cobblestoned]

This thread is moving as fast as a chat room.

Good post Digger. I feel the same way. Regardless of Flicker's interpretation.


I think you bring up an interesting argument. Which is why I don't feel Lance set Floyd up. Someone could hypothesize that Floyd doped, everyone doped, and it was a matter of time perhaps before the UCI wanted to get rid of him. With the flat knowledge that there's likely 49 out of the top 50 riders doping, it makes it easy for the UCI to find a positive in riders they'd like to get rid of, and keep riders they want. Conspiracy? Perhaps. But does anyone really trust the UCI?

I really trust my family.
Who do you trust ?

 

[webvan]

I have a hard time in believing in conspiracy theories in general (when was the last time a consparicy theory was proven?) and in this case in particular. Granted the UCI are a bunch of crappy people but no one needed a bust at the 2006 TDF, it served no one's interests. I still think Landis isn't coming completely clean about that bust.

I looked up the salary part again and the $60,000 was definitely not referring to a potential raise :

I was offended because I knew that I did the best job I could possibly have done for $60,000 a year. I was better than the guys making $800,000 a year

Questions Kimmage forgot to ask :
1. Why did you feel you had to dope? Did you realize you couldn't keep up? Sure you figured there was some kind of protection (Lance TDS bust) but that doesn't mean you had to do it?
2. What happened when you collapsed on the way to "La Toussuire"? Bad reaction to a doping program
3. What's the story behind the Lab's computer hacking? How can you justify that?
4. How can you justify the Lemond abuse by your friend/manager
5. Are you denying the Testosterone positive to somehow justify your fight and maintain that it was right?

 

[Sanitiser]

I don't see Lance setting up Floyd's positive. I just don't. Out of everyone that left Postal and then popped positive, the only one I think who may have been set-up was Heras, as Liberty was under huge pressure at the time, and that likely had zero to do with Lance, and everything to do with Saiz vs. the UCI. Though like Floyd, Roberto was hot regardless.

Let's throw in the UCI in as well.

 

[stainlessguy1]

Just finished it all. I feel drained. There were tears in my eyes for the last part.
It's all such a mess. I hope he gets a job outside of cycling and once the investigation is over, never looks back. He's too good and honest for cycling. I can't be bothered arguing with the Flickers of this world about him. He has paid enough of a price. Not easy to articulate, but that piece is bloody powerful, fascinating, troubling and sad. It's a f***ing tragedy and I just hope to God he gets some peace in the future. The pain leaps out of the words. Anyways that's my take on today. I shall leave it to the rest of yee to argue it out amongst yourselves.

Good post Digger !

 

[Anonymous]

I would think the real pain would be yours digger. You just wasted X amount of your life listening to the whining of a convicted doper, interviewd by another admitted doper.
Telling!

And I just wasted my last 10 seconds reading anything you ever post.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Cycling can be cleaned up, though not likely entirely, certainly to an extent. The problem really does stem at the UCI primarily, and the Hein-Pat coupling and all in that circle. They are as rotten as the US Congress. Followed by riders like Floyd and hopefully younger riders, speaking out.

I'd like to say that there's hope because if you look at FIS (skiing) while there are still doping issues in skiing, I'm mostly referring to cross-country, FIS has much more transparency, and uses more independent testing procedures. A few years ago US coach Justin Wadsworth made the almost casual claim that there was 100% doping in XC skiing - and if you look back to the 2002 Olympics it was as dirty as cycling ever could be. But FIS took situations like that seriously and by the last Olympics doping was by all counts way down. No, the sport wasn't clean. But definitely cleaner than it had been. I'd like to think if there's a full purge at the UCI, cycling could reach this level. I'll let you find links to 2002, FIS, and Wadsworth. They are easy to find.

Nice idea but who is going to do it? Who is going to reform the UCI? Where is the pressure and the impetus to reform going to come from?

Not the teams - too many vested interests and too many buried skeletons.
Not the sponsors - they want good publicity not bad. A clean up means a necessary purge and airing of dirty laundry - and bad publicity.
Not the riders for obvious reasons,
Not the national feds who are arm in arm with the UCI
Fans? It's pretty clear that no one gives a **** what the fans think. As long as we pay the money for the kit and watch the races we can **** off as far as cycling is concerned.
The media? bwahahahahaha. Kimmage, Walsh, SI and Bonnie Ford, and bloggers like NYVC are the only people media people to come out of this with any credibility

We saw where Sonia Schenk's reform based bid got her.

We've seen how McQuaid is busy building up a power base outside of Europe. He's got himself a nice long 'tail' of supporters to make sure there won't be any reform.

To quote George Orwell.

The only thing that will convince some people which century they are living in is dynamite

 

[flicker]

+1. I've felt completely flat all day after reading that. Could barely find the motivation to go to the gym tonight.

Maybe it's just me, but the stuff about there being two realities, and how openly doping is discussed in the peloton, has really made me wonder why I even care about having a clean sport any more.

And I'm also wondering where the pro's see the fans in all this. Without the fans they couldn't live the lifestyle as there'd be no sponsors to pay for it, yet it seems like they are laughing at us, treating us like idiots.

And if the UCI survive through this then we might as well all give up and go home.

If you want clean sport clean up the olympics. Look at the terrible price that Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton are paying, no body likes them anymore disgraced.

 

[MD FACG FACP]

Just finished it all. I feel drained. There were tears in my eyes for the last part.
It's all such a mess. I hope he gets a job outside of cycling and once the investigation is over, never looks back. He's too good and honest for cycling. I can't be bothered arguing with the Flickers of this world about him. He has paid enough of a price. Not easy to articulate, but that piece is bloody powerful, fascinating, troubling and sad. It's a f***ing tragedy and I just hope to God he gets some peace in the future. The pain leaps out of the words. Anyways that's my take on today. I shall leave it to the rest of yee to argue it out amongst yourselves.

+1

Yes it is certainly easy to ignore people who scream for attention like a child.

 

[MacRoadie]

I looked up the salary part again and the $60,000 was definitely not referring to a potential raise :

No, but you guys are missing a critical jump in the time line.

There is an early typo in the article (or possibly just a mistake by Kimmage) re: the $6,000. Landis was making $60,000 a year for Mercury in 2001:

I was supposed to paid $5000 a month all year, so I was paid for three months then they stopped.

He then says his salary at Postal (in a top-level team mind you, not Mercury) was $230,000 in 2004 (three years later) and that Postal had offered $300,000 in 2005. Those seem to be pretty proportional increases given Floyd's contributions to the team.

He mentions the $60,000 in relation to the training ride with Armstrong to point out that one, Armstrong new nothing of his background, and two, that had he known how strong Floyd's work ethic was, he'd realize that Floyd was giving 100% even when he was back at Mercury making that $60K a year.

...I was offended because I knew that I did the best job I could possibly have done for $60,000 a year.

It all depends on the when the "13 Cappuccino" story occurred. Floyd and DZ rode together starting in 2002, so it could have been as early as the year after he left Mercury. Keep in mind though, that Postal had tried to hire him away two years earlier (1999) so it's a pretty good bet that he got a raise between 2001 and 2002.

 

[mad black]

Just finished it all. I feel drained. There were tears in my eyes for the last part.
It's all such a mess. I hope he gets a job outside of cycling and once the investigation is over, never looks back. He's too good and honest for cycling. I can't be bothered arguing with the Flickers of this world about him. He has paid enough of a price. Not easy to articulate, but that piece is bloody powerful, fascinating, troubling and sad. It's a f***ing tragedy and I just hope to God he gets some peace in the future. The pain leaps out of the words. Anyways that's my take on today. I shall leave it to the rest of yee to argue it out amongst yourselves.

Seriously now! At what point did FL become the hero of our time?

His allegations may be true but aren't you forgetting that he was the one who got himself into this situation? It was solely his own decision to dope, his own decision to lie to himself, his own decision to lie to the public and his own dicision to live with the lies. On top of that he did manage quite well to live with his lies for 7 years without remorse. He lived with it as long as he could turn a profit for himself. When he realised there wasn't anymore profit to be made with the lies he backflipped 180 to turn a profit with the truth.

I bet he got at least a 5 figure sum for that interview. What's next a TV show??? I got the perfect title already: "Breaking Good - Tales from the Brotherhood of the Needle".

Zero sympathy from me!

 

[dbrower]

If you want clean sport clean up the olympics. Look at the terrible price that Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton are paying, no body likes them anymore disgraced.

There are very large moneyed interests in keeping the Olympics going, and any cleaning up might look a lot like what is happening with cycling. That would be bad for business. What the UCI was doing was fully consistent with the Olympic way, which is why Hein is still a valued member of the IOC community.

The good news for Ullrich is that he knew when to vanish and keep his mouth shut, so he got to keep his money. Tyler kept his mouth shut, but not so good with the money. Floyd, well, not so much good at either, esp. taking "advice" from top guys at the UCI.

-dB

 

[Sanitiser]

Nice idea but who is going to do it? Who is going to reform the UCI? Where is the pressure and the impetus to reform going to come from?

Not the teams - too many vested interests and too many buried skeletons.
Not the sponsors - they want good publicity not bad. A clean up means a necessary purge and airing of dirty laundry - and bad publicity.
Not the riders for obvious reasons,
Not the national feds who are arm in arm with the UCI
Fans? It's pretty clear that no one gives a **** what the fans think. As long as we pay the money for the kit and watch the races we can **** off as far as cycling is concerned.
The media? bwahahahahaha. Kimmage, Walsh, SI and Bonnie Ford, and bloggers like NYVC are the only people media people to come out of this with any credibility

We saw where Sonia Schenk's reform based bid got her.

We've seen how McQuaid is busy building up a power base outside of Europe. He's got himself a nice long 'tail' of supporters to make sure there won't be any reform.

To quote George Orwell.

Basically you need to set a new cycling circuit up, similar to what happened with World Series Cricket. Maybe Murdoch can chip in?

 

[HelmutRoole]

...
Questions Kimmage forgot to ask (Landis) :
1...
5. Are you denying the Testosterone positive to somehow justify your fight and maintain that it was right?

Is he still denying the testosterone positive? I mean, is he saying still he was framed by the UCI while at the same time admitting to doping during the later stages of his career to include the 2006 TdF?

Just curious. I haven't been following this that closely, but my feeling was that Landis felt justified in denying the testosterone positive because (my words, not his) although he doped it wasn't with testosterone... meaning the UCI framed him in retribution for statements he made ref. non-payment from his previous team Mercury.

I don't buy into that 100 percent, but it seems plausible.

 

[jimmypop]

Do not continue with that debate here, you have been pointed to the correct part of the forum for that. Consider this your last warning

The rationalization to decouple the arguments is just that - a rationalization. Certainly, it's not backed in logic.

It's all good until it hits home, right?

Kindly permban or otherwise delete my account, please.

 

[sniper]

has this one been in here allready?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kimmage-landis-allegations-will-decide-the-sports-future

it probably has, but it is an interesting re-reading in the light of what came out today.

 

[mewmewmew13]

I was wondering the same regarding Morzine. But I guess he prepared as usuall, and an elevated motivation and attacking spirit did the rest.

@Granville: nice post.
I'm also blown away by the article.
Floyd's capacities to analyze the history from an emotional/psychological point of view. I think that's rare for public figures. And Kimmage's patience, understanding, but also his directness, not shoving anything under the carpet.
Moving stuff.

hats off to Paul and Floyd. I'm not a poster-guy, but I'd have their posters on my wall if I were.

I think this really shows that Floyd is quite intelligent and has a maturity and empathy that maybe many people don't give him cred for. His replies are thoughtful and make Wonderboy look all the more strange and twisted w/r to his social hangups and human relationships. Underscored by Kimmage's deft style and talent for interviewing....

 

[Darryl Webster]

In my fanboy years my main argument defending Lance was the size the conspiracy would need to be to protect him could not exist. I never believed that if more that a handful of people had knowlege of the doping/corruption it would be able to be concealed...

But you are right. It's as simple as no one saying what they knew.

How bizarre.

Everbody involved in Pro Cycling "Knows" within a season.
It`s never been a secret. No differant now than 20 years ago..as it was no differant 20 years before then.
The differance is the the drugs DO work...and nowadays better than ever.

 

[Darryl Webster]

There are very large moneyed interests in keeping the Olympics going, and any cleaning up might look a lot like what is happening with cycling. That would be bad for business. What the UCI was doing was fully consistent with the Olympic way, which is why Hein is still a valued member of the IOC community.

The good news for Ullrich is that he knew when to vanish and keep his mouth shut, so he got to keep his money. Tyler kept his mouth shut, but not so good with the money. Floyd, well, not so much good at either, esp. taking "advice" from top guys at the UCI.

-dB

But , as Floyd puts it "Who CARES about money?"