The Bobby Julich files

[Aleajactaest]

Where are the rest of the Sky "confessions?" Is Julich the only guy who decided when the "sign this saying you never doped or get fired" edict came down it was better to throw in the towel on his own terms or was everyone else clean?

This atitude will make it harder to fix the issues, not easier. They really need to develop a really aggresive test campaign, declare amnesty to get all the secrecy gone and move forward. An uneding witch hunt just prolongs the events and make the sport look dirty for longer.

 

["Jeff"]

Landis testimony (and his previous e-mails and interviews) are very clear in this. Dauphine was not a "break", he has several times described how he started to doping - it started after Dauphine, not before, not during, but after.

You may believe it or not, but thats his story.

Dude please, this is pure dumbness. That rapport was nice and well and they all want to tell the truth but you still have to deal with witnesses who shared stories of years ago.

There's not much time between the Dauphine and the Tour. Ferrari started to work with Landis in 2002. You think Landis started to use doping just before the Tour of 2002, halfway the year ? In the USADA rapport it was said that Landis had a blood extraction just before the Tour and that Landis was told (in 2001 already) that Armstrong had taken EPO in the Tour of Switzerland 2001. Why woud they tell him if he was just a clean rookie ? You dont think Landis had received any EPO or other stuff before going to start with blood doping ? You think Landis was riding clean for a full year after hearing about Lance' positive test in 2001 ?

Dont kid yourself. Landis was going to be a member of the US Postal squad in the Tour of 2002. He started to dope much earlier already and not AFTER 16 june 2002 when the Dauphine Libere ended. Give me a break

 

[Benotti69]

Yes the few who didnt really have a long peak (Landis, JV, Hamilton).

Those with a longer cycling career (Leipheimer, Julich) did say they quit with doping and everyone knows why. They have much more to hide.

Hamilton, Landis and JV were only a product of doping anyway, barely talented.

Well the biggest donkey we know of was Armstrong.

 

[Von Mises]

Dude please, this is pure dumbness. That rapport was nice and well and they all want to tell the truth but you still have to deal with witnesses who shared stories of years ago.

There's not much time between the Dauphine and the Tour. Ferrari started to work with Landis in 2002. You think Landis started to use doping just before the Tour of 2002, halfway the year ? In the USADA rapport it was said that Landis had a blood extraction just before the Tour and that Landis was told (in 2001 already) that Armstrong had taken EPO in the Tour of Switzerland 2001. Why woud they tell him if he was just a clean rookie ? You dont think Landis had received any EPO or other stuff before going to start with blood doping ? You think Landis was riding clean for a full year after hearing about Lance' positive test in 2001 ?

Dont kid yourself. Landis was going to be a member of the US Postal squad in the Tour of 2002. He started to dope much earlier already and not AFTER 16 june 2002 when the Dauphine Libere ended. Give me a break

Come on, I am not native english speaker, but I can read pretty well. In USADA report: "Armstrong’s conversation with Landis was in
2002, and Landis recalled Armstrong saying that, “he and Mr. Bruyneel flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement to keep the positive test hidden."

Landis testimony confirms it. It is very clear. His first talk with Bryneel happened at the end of 2001. His second and now already specific, what and when, happened during last days of Dauphine. And his first actual dope happened between Dauphine and Tour.

Again, you may believe it or not, but at least get your facts right.

Btw, I believe Landis in this case, I do not see what should be his motivation to lie, he goes so much into detail about his doping practises, why should he lie in this particular case, is Dauphine so dear to his heart that he wants to protect his 2nd place there?

 

[benzwire]

I think Julich's half-assed confession is to cover Riis and his time at CSC in hopes of working with Riis again in the future. He loved working with CSC after he retired and he clearly still has admiration for Riis. I think he was trying to admit to his doping past, but not throw Bjarne under the bus. I guess faced with getting a "regular" job, his hope is to stay working in professional cycling in some capacity. I can't say that I blame him.

 

["Jeff"]

Come on, I am not native english speaker, but I can read pretty well. In USADA report: "Armstrong’s conversation with Landis was in
2002, and Landis recalled Armstrong saying that, “he and Mr. Bruyneel flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement to keep the positive test hidden."

Landis testimony confirms it. It is very clear. His first talk with Bryneel happened at the end of 2001. His second and now already specific, what and when, happened during last days of Dauphine. And his first actual dope happened between Dauphine and Tour.

Again, you may believe it or not, but at least get your facts right.

Btw, I believe Landis in this case, I do not see what should be his motivation to lie, he goes so much into detail about his doping practises, why should he lie in this particular case, is Dauphine so dear to his heart that he wants to protect his 2nd place there?

Hey, just ignore everything I said. Well done.

 

[Von Mises]

Hey, just ignore everything I said. Well done.

No, I am just pointing out that there are factual errors in your story. And if you are not even able to get your facts right (and not able to admit that you got it wrong), why the hell I should take seriously other things you said.

 

[spetsa]

Yes the few who didnt really have a long peak (Landis, JV, Hamilton).

Those with a longer cycling career (Leipheimer, Julich) did say they quit with doping and everyone knows why. They have much more to hide.

Hamilton, Landis and JV were only a product of doping anyway, barely talented.

I am confused where you are coming from here. How often did you race against FL in his pre USPS days. To say the guy had no talent is a far stretch. On the other hand, I am somewhat confused by the omission of his Mercury tenure from any doping admission. He was either very talented and left out of the loop while willfully keeping his eyes and ears shut, or there has been some selective memory on his part. In my opinion, he has much more to answer to .

 

[perico]

Err, not really, JV said he doped at CA, Leipheimer said he kept doping, obviously Landis kept doping and so did Tyler. Seems like your "everyone" is a subset.

Vande Velde and Zabriskie both admitted to doping past USPS as well, through 05-06.

 

[perico]

I think Julich's half-assed confession is to cover Riis and his time at CSC in hopes of working with Riis again in the future. He loved working with CSC after he retired and he clearly still has admiration for Riis. I think he was trying to admit to his doping past, but not throw Bjarne under the bus. I guess faced with getting a "regular" job, his hope is to stay working in professional cycling in some capacity. I can't say that I blame him.

Reread the confession, he basically calls out Riis as a "figurehead/piece of sh!t" without actually saying it.

I know that much has been said about what allegedly happened there and about the man that is the figure head of that team. I am not going to defend him as a person but rather as an organisation and what it did for me personally.

Then he goes on to insinuate that he had been naive about Riis:

That being said, what happened before the 2006 Tour de France changed my outlook into what we all thought we were buying into when we joined that team.

He may be trying to latch on somewhere else, but I highly doubt with Saxo Bank.

 

["Jeff"]

No, I am just pointing out that there are factual errors in your story. And if you are not even able to get your facts right (and not able to admit that you got it wrong), why the hell I should take seriously other things you said.

Your facts are Floyd Landis' blue eyes and no, I dont have my facts wrong and no, you cant answer my questions because that makes you look dumb. Saying Landis started to dope in June 2002, two weeks before the Tour...lovely...

 

["Jeff"]

I am confused where you are coming from here. How often did you race against FL in his pre USPS days. To say the guy had no talent is a far stretch. On the other hand, I am somewhat confused by the omission of his Mercury tenure from any doping admission. He was either very talented and left out of the loop while willfully keeping his eyes and ears shut, or there has been some selective memory on his part. In my opinion, he has much more to answer to .

Now we have to be a rider as well, to say that someone is not talented ? Dude did nothing his whole career until he arrived @ US postal at age 26/27. You seriously say that my statement is far fatched ? I think the facts speak volumes. The Hamilton's, Landissen, Leipheimer's, Horner's are products of massive doping abuse. In the '80s there were several North-American riders who tried it in Europa but most failed. Things like EPO and blooddoping on a large scale, also well-organised, makes the difference compared to stuff that was availabe in the '60s/'70s/'80s. No way people like Landis etc had any chance of a succesfull career in the '80s.

 

[Sarcastic Wet Trout]

Your facts are Floyd Landis' blue eyes and no, I dont have my facts wrong and no, you cant answer my questions because that makes you look dumb. Saying Landis started to dope in June 2002, two weeks before the Tour...lovely...

Facts are fun when you make up your own.

Why would Landis lie in his affidavit? He'd already selected the nuclear option.

 

["Jeff"]

Facts are fun when you make up your own.

Why would Landis lie in his affidavit? He'd already selected the nuclear option.

It don't neccessarily have to be a lie. Like I already said, to forget things that has happened years ago is more than human. Leaving out facts because people dont ask for it is not lying either.

 

["Jeff"]

Facts are fun when you make up your own.

Why would Landis lie in his affidavit? He'd already selected the nuclear option.

It don't neccessarily have to be a lie. Like I already said, to forget things that has happened years ago is more than human. Leaving out facts because people dont ask for it is not lying either.

 

[skidmark]

Hey, just ignore everything I said.

That is the smartest thing I've seen you say on this thread. I'll take that advice for sure (edit: I meant in the future, to be clear to those who don't have the ability to infer that from my sentence). Dude.

 

[Le breton]

The man in the elevator

In 1996 I went to Lugano to see the world road championship. It so happens that the US team was staying in the same hotel. In the elevator I found myself with one of the racers, unsure who he was, and started to talk about the article written in The Herald Tribune that day by Samuel Abt. The paper was about Bobby Julich and I then realized it was Bobby I was talking to.

We met and talked again later as we both knew Laurent Madouas, a good friend of his since their days together on the Motorola team. At the time I had long been aware of the existence of EPO (since Draijier's death in 1990 or even before) but didn't fully realize how efficient it was.

Anyway I must say Bobby Julich seemed to me like a decent fellow and a rather nice guy. I figured he had to be anyway if he was friend with Madouas (nicknamed Madouce). At the table he talked to teammates about the possibility opening up of a good contract (I guess with Cofidis) and the other option of going back to school if things didn't work out. A decent group of people and not slouches like Ochowicz who was chaperoning them supposedly.

Anyway, I don't know anything about his doping and I share other people misgivings about his CSC days.

I had my bike with me and rode the course where I chatted with then under 23 Hungarian competitor Lazlo Bodrogi, surprised to hear his perfect French ( he lived in Besançon where his father worked as a surgeon, Lazlo is now French)

Talking with the US mechanics was also interesting as they knew David Mayer-Oakes whom I had once raced with while in the US when he was very young and met again in France when he did the Tour de l'Avenir or some such race.


Sorry for the digression but I thought it was worth saying a few good words for Bobby Julich.

 

[pmcg76]

It don't neccessarily have to be a lie. Like I already said, to forget things that has happened years ago is more than human. Leaving out facts because people dont ask for it is not lying either.

You think he forgot!!! He told the exact same thing to Paul Kimmage that he declared in his affidavit.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage


Its hard to know how to discern natural talent over the last 20 years but to declare Landis and other's had no talent is a bit much. It is possible they had limited talent but really hard to quantify. Give us an example of a known doper who had definite cleat cut talent from the start.

Did you ever consider the reason they didn't show up until later years is because they were not doping to begin with, so were nowhere but when they did start, they made it to the top level.

The likes of Hamilton and Landis in particular didn't exactly have the natural route into cycling that most people did.

Hell, Landis only left his Meenonite community at almost 20yo and only began racing on the road at age 22, one year on the road was enough to see him earn a pro contract with Mercury. A top 5 placing in the Tour de l'Avenir in his European racing debut is not a bad start at all considering he came to road racing so late.

I too find it hard to understand why Landis would reveal so much about doping and then lie about when he started, to what purpose??? He clearly didn't forget as I am sure most people would remember such a thing clearly and Landis has confirmed it a few different times.

I am not a Landis or Hamilton fan at all, I just find your reasoning for declaring who was or was not talented as strange.

 

["Jeff"]

That is the smartest thing I've seen you say on this thread. I'll take that advice for sure. Dude.

Apparently not, because you did reply and read everything I said.

 

["Jeff"]

You think he forgot!!! He told the exact same thing to Paul Kimmage that he declared in his affidavit.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2011/landiskimmage


Its hard to know how to discern natural talent over the last 20 years but to declare Landis and other's had no talent is a bit much. It is possible they had limited talent but really hard to quantify. Give us an example of a known doper who had definite cleat cut talent from the start.

Why ? Again, dude did nothing, absolutely nothing until he started to dope. Is this so hard to swallow for some of you ? The facts are there. The man even won the Tour de France while being minutes behind in the GC. Unreal and another example how his body responded on doping.

There are a truckload of known dopers who sure had massive talent. Dont get me started.

Did you ever consider the reason they didn't show up until later years is because they were not doping to begin with, so were nowhere but when they did start, they made it to the top level.

No never, see example above.

The likes of Hamilton and Landis in particular didn't exactly have the natural route into cycling that most people did.

Correct, neither did Steve Bauer and Jonathan Boyer. I think this a silly argument anyway. Landis has nothing to show that he was a good rider without PED's.

Hell, Landis only left his Meenonite community at almost 20yo and only began racing on the road at age 22, one year on the road was enough to see him earn a pro contract with Mercury. A top 5 placing in the Tour de l'Avenir in his European racing debut is not a bad start at all considering he came to road racing so late.

Tour de l'Avenir was not the same race anymore as it was in the past and he was close to being 24 years old.

I too find it hard to understand why Landis would reveal so much about doping and then lie about when he started, to what purpose??? He clearly didn't forget as I am sure most people would remember such a thing clearly and Landis has confirmed it a few different times.

I am not a Landis or Hamilton fan at all, I just find your reasoning for declaring who was or was not talented as strange.

I dont. There's barely any time left between the Dauphine Libere and the start of the Tour de France 2002. He was going to be a member of the US Postal squad for the Tour. A team that was well prepared for everything and would avoid all kind of risks and starting to dope for the 1st time of his career, right before the Tour is a risk. Starting with blood doping makes no sense either and it would mean he would get his first blood transfusion while being in the Tour. It's also a known fact that it takes time before doping starts to work. I dont understand why Landis is saying he started to dope just before the Tour. Well maybe not, he finished 2nd in the Dauphine, clean according to him. He must have known that he was pretty awful without, perhaps this was his moment of fame that he had at least some talent in his left toe. No sorry Floyd, I dont believe it one bit.

I think that the USADA rapport was a nice read but a couple of things were highly debatable and sometimes there was no real timeline. What people are saying here now was also part of the rapport. Things like "why would he act/say this and why would he act like that, whatever". I think that was pretty **** poor and amateuristic...stay with the facts in such an official document. Sometimes they were guessing and speculating as well. Let us speculate because we are good at it.

 

[131313]

Landis has nothing to show that he was a good rider without PED's.

You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. He didn't race in Europe, so you don't know anything about his results--therefore, he didn't have any...

He was national mtb champ as a junior, was second at Cascade in his first year as a pro (Check out Talansky's results there to give you some idea of how "easy" of a race it is), and he won a stage race in Europe while riding for a domestic US team, his second year on the road. I actually can't think of another US domestic pro to pull of that feat? Flandis was a doper, but he was always a massive talent from the beginning...way more than Armstrong.

 

[spetsa]

Now we have to be a rider as well, to say that someone is not talented ? ...... snip the remainder of the nonsense.

It sure helps.

 

[Escarabajo]

I have stated it before and I will state it again. Hamilton in his book never claimed there was teamwide doping program within CSC. All he said was that Riis was very candid about doping and helped him along.

Now you can say that logically Riis will have done that with all others too, but equally it is possible that he discusses it and then leaves it up to the rider to make their own decision in the same way he made his onn decisions on doping as a rider. Riis strikes me as very intelligent and is very much into empowerment and adult people making their own choices and owning those choices. Naturally it being his team, if they do decide to go over to the dark side (or in case of Hamilton remain there) he will be very interested in safeguarding his own investments, meaning he makes as sure as possible they won't get caught.

For me this also clicks with this part of Julich's statement:



This leads me to believe that he probably did discuss doping with Riis, but that the way the team was organised he was allowed not to dope if he chose to do so.

Perhaps I am being naive, but so far I haven't seen any statement (also not by Hamilton) that makes me see this differently. Naturally this will get me jumped upon as being a Riis-apologist, but I don't care. Show me some proof, some statement and I will change my view.

Regards
GJ

+1 this.

the csc results are questionable i have to admit.

however, the precipitous drop in performance after 1998 is stunning and would appear to follow julich's storyline.

wow, how hard it must have been in 1999 when he was actually touted as a possible winner, but knowing he couldn't perform again to that level...and then have to watch as armstrong shot by all suped up...must have been unbelievably disheartening.

And this. Agreed on the bolded.


Actually I agree with you. And I am not Riis apologist. Always thought Riis left it up to the riders to make their own free decision.

 

[Escarabajo]

...

"I really don't want my wife to kill me, lose my Olympic medal or be completely ostracized from working in the sport. Living in the real world would totally SUCK!".
...

Bobby, I know you're reading this, so I'm gonna make it simple: either you're the most talented guy to ride a bike, probably EVER, or the drugs don't actually work that well. This is evidenced by the 2004 Olympic TT, the Paris Nice and Criterium International wins and some other results, against some absolutely top-fueled competition. .

I am having second thoughts because of this post. Well explained and redacted.

On the other hand we have known for some time that one day races and short races can be won cleaneashly as opposed to GT's. That's if you are extremely talented. So how talented was Julich??

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I am having second thoughts because of this post. Well explained and redacted.

On the other hand we have known for some time that one day races and short races can be won cleaneashly as opposed to GT's. That's if you are extremely talented. So how talented was Julich??

Where was that extreme talent in 99-2003?