Levi Leipheimer

[oncehadhair]

Levi did what they all do: he confessed when that was his only way out. Hamilton was the same, but he followed it up by actually doing something that helped. Levi just gave a half-arsed confession, kept on riding, said nothing when he saw Landis and Hamilton attacked publicly, and still wants us to believe he's one of the good guys. Hell, he even says coming clean wasn't an option! And still has the cojones to say he's all for clean cycling and changing things.

is that what it will take for armstrong to fess up? more cojones? the one he has left must be pretty small cause he doesn't even sound close to admitting doing any wrong.

 

[sairyder]

"USADA was concerned with protecting those who contributed to the Armstrong file, but there was only so far the agency could go. USADA officials carefully guarded their case in the weeks prior to its unveiling, but now the information is in the very hands of those who allowed the sport to reach its failed state.

“We’ve been worried from day one about witnesses getting influenced, intimidated, their feet cut out from under them. We’ve been very clear about that, because we know it happens. We’ve seen it happen,” he said, pointing to Armstrong’s text messages to Leipheimer’s wife Odessa, which appear in the dossier, as an example.

Leipheimer finds himself the first casualty since the USADA report went public last week.

“It’s just classic omerta — actions speak louder than words,” Tygart repeated. “I think it’s the narrow-sighted lack of leadership within the sport that has led to the problem to begin with,” he said, adding that those in control of the sport seemed to be interested only in “short-term” profits rather than the long-term health of professional cycling.

“It’s disappointing. We have shown what the culture was, the pressure that kept it… to see it crop up so instantaneously just further perpetuates the problem,” he said.

Now, USADA’s work is largely done. It’s up to the sport’s governing body and teams how it to proceed. “We’re at a juncture, I think,” Tygart said. “We’ve done our job, we’ve handed it off. But they’re at a pivotal point in their history, and we only hope they go in the right direction.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/10/news/tygart-code-of-silence-claimed-leipheimer_261684

Travis gets straight to the point as usual - this interview really deserves its own thread

 

[Fatclimber]

The stage where Cunego chased and caught the lead group then finished with a narrow descent with varied road conditions was sick. That is how stage races should be won.

The last 30 minutes of the stage are on Youtube if you missed it.

Vino won an exciting Liege and gold medal too.

 

[Maxiton]

"USADA was concerned with protecting those who contributed to the Armstrong file, but there was only so far the agency could go. USADA officials carefully guarded their case in the weeks prior to its unveiling, but now the information is in the very hands of those who allowed the sport to reach its failed state.

“We’ve been worried from day one about witnesses getting influenced, intimidated, their feet cut out from under them. We’ve been very clear about that, because we know it happens. We’ve seen it happen,” he said, pointing to Armstrong’s text messages to Leipheimer’s wife Odessa, which appear in the dossier, as an example.

Leipheimer finds himself the first casualty since the USADA report went public last week.

“It’s just classic omerta — actions speak louder than words,” Tygart repeated. “I think it’s the narrow-sighted lack of leadership within the sport that has led to the problem to begin with,” he said, adding that those in control of the sport seemed to be interested only in “short-term” profits rather than the long-term health of professional cycling.

“It’s disappointing. We have shown what the culture was, the pressure that kept it… to see it crop up so instantaneously just further perpetuates the problem,” he said.

Now, USADA’s work is largely done. It’s up to the sport’s governing body and teams how it to proceed. “We’re at a juncture, I think,” Tygart said. “We’ve done our job, we’ve handed it off. But they’re at a pivotal point in their history, and we only hope they go in the right direction.”

http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/10/news/tygart-code-of-silence-claimed-leipheimer_261684

Travis gets straight to the point as usual - this interview really deserves its own thread

Like I said up thread - and some of you numbskulls don't get it - firing riders when they spill the beans, as LL spilled the beans and was fired, is nothing more than omerta. Shame, shame, shame on Omega-PHARMA Quickstep.

 

[webvan]

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20121016/ARTICLES/121019643/1350?p=1&tc=pg

Is it me or has the interview grown from 5 to 9 pages? Makes for a better read and more appreciation of LL. I still wish the interviewer had asked him how he could finish 2nd in the Vuelta being clean...

An interesting passage :

And you didn't think about not testifying and going to jail?

LL: Over this? No.

Kaeske: One of the things I never really understood is Lance's reaction to all this is especially not understanding the position these guys were in. One, Levi always wanted to tell the truth but even more so there wasn't a choice. If a federal prosecutor shows up at your house with two armed agents and serves you with a subpoena your ability to make decisions is over. There's one decision: Answer truthfully every question they ask or go to jail. It's the only decision.

Also that he thinks that doping at the TDF went from 50+% in 1999/2007 to 5% in 2012, that's quite comforting and consistent with what I was thinking.

 

[taiwan]

Could the Olympic medal have something to do with the claim that 2008 was clean? I feel that credible statements are being combined with not so credible ones...

 

[webvan]

Well since he lied for years without blinking an eye I certainly wouldn't past him to still be able to lie about stuff he wasn't asked about by the GJ.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Could the Olympic medal have something to do with the claim that 2008 was clean? I feel that credible statements are being combined with not so credible ones...

why the f*** would he lie under oath? if it turns out he's lieing and by now even leechheimer has got to realise that truth prevails. he would go to jail.

 

[taiwan]

why the f*** would he lie under oath? if it turns out he's lieing and by now even leechheimer has got to realise that truth prevails. he would go to jail.

All he says in his affidavit about 2008 is: I rode for Astana in 08, I trained with Lance in 08-10, when Lance asked me in 08 whether there was anything new on the market I said "I had not done anything"(nothing or nothing new?).

So he doesn't explicitly claim he was clean in 08 in his affidavit, as I understand it.

 

[webvan]

Correct, unlike others he did not explicitly say in his affidavit that he had stopped doping, besides you only go to jail if you lie to the Grand Jury not in a sworn affidavit to the USADA...unless of course he said something different to the Grand Jury in which case a judge might go after him, but would he really bother ?

On another matter, I still hope Trygart explains one day why Levi loses everything from 1999 to 2007 and George only from 2004 to 2006. SOL for George I guess but why not for Levi?

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

All he says in his affidavit about 2008 is: I rode for Astana in 08, I trained with Lance in 08-10, when Lance asked me in 08 whether there was anything new on the market I said "I had not done anything"(nothing or nothing new?).

So he doesn't explicitly claim he was clean in 08 in his affidavit, as I understand it.

ok, that could be true then.


still he will never find a team after all this. lol. of all the dopers of that era I hate him as one of the most because even doped he rode like a goddamn coward

 

[hrotha]

All he says in his affidavit about 2008 is: I rode for Astana in 08, I trained with Lance in 08-10, when Lance asked me in 08 whether there was anything new on the market I said "I had not done anything"(nothing or nothing new?).

So he doesn't explicitly claim he was clean in 08 in his affidavit, as I understand it.

In his acceptance of sanction he explicitly says he doped from 2000 to 2007.

 

[taiwan]

Sorry, when was it he went clean again?

@hrotha again though he doesn't explicitly say he stopped in 08. presumably he wasn't required to.

 

[webvan]

Hum...so that means he would have done better in GTs if there had been no O2 vector doping then? That's the only conclusion you can come to if you look at the 2008 Vuelta where he nearly beat Contador in his prime. I have a bit of a hard time believing that but stranger things have happened I guess.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Sorry, when was it he went clean again?

www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/graphRiderHistory.asp?riderID=84

The graph seems to indicate that in 2008 the bio passport kicked in, and even though there were anomalies with Rob Hayles and a dutch rider the day before track Worlds, on the road the peloton slowed down to a crawl, allowing the cream that is Levi to rise to the top.



This has been a Unicorn Christmas Initiatives announcement.

 

[taiwan]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cavendish-for-quickstep

Well it seems Quickstep's results won't suffer too much from Lefevre's efforts to clean up cycling. Phew.

 

[hrotha]

@hrotha again though he doesn't explicitly say he stopped in 08. presumably he wasn't required to.

Disqualification (...) from June 1, 1999 through July 30, 2006, and from July 7 through July 29, 2007

That sounds like he was pretty specific about the dates when he doped, and that he told them he stopped after the 2007 Tour.

 

[webvan]

Yeah but why from 1999 to 2004 with the SOL like George ?

 

[131313]

Yeah but why from 1999 to 2004 with the SOL like George ?

Good question. I was pretty glad to see that he fessed up all the way back to '99. My guess is that he didn't know who was going to say what, and it could have been thrown back to him that he was doping earlier than he claimed, thus invalidating the terms of his agreement with USADA. Remember he and Danielson had the same coach. Of course, I don't believe for a second that he got his results in the Vuelta clean, so it's hard to figure what's going on in his head. If it comes out later that he was doped then, he's banned for life. Lost in all of this is Rick Crawford, whom he called out in his testimony has supplying him with EPO. When is that shoe going to drop?

As far as Levi being dumped by QS, I have mixed feeling. I mean, I'm glad he's finally feeling some repercussions for a lifetime of cheating, and it also goes hand-in-hand with continuing to search out teams that have a tradition of both doping and lying about doping. OTOH, it sounds like QS is, like Sky, sending a clear message: if you're doping, don't get caught, and lie about it.

 

[webvan]

Yeah but George admitted to doping staring in 2000 and only got his results disqualified from 2004 onwards so we must be missing something...the only explanation is SOL but then why wouldn't it benefit guys like Leppy too? Trygart needs to spell it out for us.

 

[gearmasher]

The graph seems to indicate that in 2008 the bio passport kicked in, and even though there were anomalies with Rob Hayles and a dutch rider the day before track Worlds, on the road the peloton slowed down to a crawl, allowing the cream that is Levi to rise to the top.



This has been a Unicorn Christmas Initiatives announcement.

Exactly. If LL stopped doping in 2007, then he would be the first rider ever to post his best grand tour result post doping. No way. Furthermore his late career results, as well as those of Horner, scream of continued and probably intensified doping. He is, and always has been, a Weasel.

 

[hrotha]

Re-reading the interview with Leipheimer, I can't help but think he's trying to reassure the peloton that he's sticking to the omertà. "I confessed because I had to, there was no way out, it's not that I wanted to speak. But look! I'm sticking to the clean era mantra, I say I've been clean for 5 seasons, I even say dirty riders make up perhaps 5% of the peloton nowadays. I'm being a good boy. Please don't shun me".

 

[veganrob]

Re-reading the interview with Leipheimer, I can't help but think he's trying to reassure the peloton that he's sticking to the omertà. "I confessed because I had to, there was no way out, it's not that I wanted to speak. But look! I'm sticking to the clean era mantra, I say I've been clean for 5 seasons, I even say dirty riders make up perhaps 5% of the peloton nowadays. I'm being a good boy. Please don't shun me".

He does kinda look like a good boy. Don't ya just want to give him a squeeze.

Or maybe choke his eyeballs out

 

[ozerulz]

I dont see Omerta as the reason for LL being let go. I think Omega took advantage of an easy way to free up some cash for Cavendish. Its just a matter of timing and the fact that he hasnt done anything of real value for a while. Its not likely he will ever be top 5 material again.

 

[taiwan]

...it's hard to figure what's going on in his head. If it comes out later that he was doped then, he's banned for life.

Exactly. If LL stopped doping in 2007, then he would be the first rider ever to post his best grand tour result post doping. No way.

See, I thought Leipheimer's wording was fairly smart in that he doesn't explicitly deny doping after 2007, which I have no doubt he did do, for the reason quoted. However if you consider these quotes with respect to CVV, they're meaningful. Can you top 5 at the Tour clean? CVV clearly states that he has used nothing since April 2006. O rly?