Embattled Tour de France winner Floyd Landis vowed on Monday to clear his name. “I have a new goal, to prove myself innocent,” Landis told ABC’s Good Morning America.
This might be difficult:
“If they want to prove him innocent from a scientific point of view, they will have to re-invent physiology,” Gerard Dine, a researcher and an expert with the national organization for scientific research, told Reuters on Monday.
That’s because the massive levels of testosterone found in Landis’ blood weren’t just 3 times over the limit, the hormone was synthetic to boot. Of course, this is coming from Reuters, who probably photoshopped Landis’ tests to enhance his testosterone.
Assuming Reuters isn’t doctoring the evidence, though, one would think Landis has absolutely no choice but to declare defeat. Sadly, he seems to be hinting at a conspiracy instead:
“There’s some kind of agenda there. I just don’t know what it is,” he said.
Before you scoff, remember we are talking about the French, who often work with Reuters to undermine American interests. But again, it seems hard to believe they would frame Landis for Lance Armstrong’s crimes.
I remember hearing about Landis’ near-collapse on the 16th stage, followed by his superhuman 17th stage, and because we’re talking about cycling, my first thought was, “I wonder if he juiced?” Nevertheless, that he was caught doing so on the test following that stage caught me by surprise. Even if he had doped, why do it in such an easily detectable way?
Maybe this was the only way to drug himself and achieve immediate results, and without an unbelievable 17th stage, he was probably finished in the race. What did Landis have to lose?
Everything, it turns out.
Like many guilty men, he’s flailing about for scapegoats:
Landis, asked whether he contradicted himself with his various reasons for the positive test, said, “Number one, the whisky idea was not mine from the beginning.
“And the dehydration was a theory from the lawyers, which I must say I hired in Spain to represent me at the opening of the B sample but was not authorized by me to say something like that.
“I’m disappointed with that. And something has to be done about that.”
I was forced into whiskey lies! My lawyers made unauthorized dehydration remarks! I must flap my arms and jump around to distract you from the simple truth that my body possessed 3x the acceptable amount of testosterone and that most of it was synthetic!
American athletes must feel a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed on the international stage. For Landis in particular, the shadow of Lance Armstrong must’ve made his 16th-stage failure doubly painful. I can understand why he would be tempted to cut corners. I would probably sympathize with him if he came clean upon confirmation of his test results.
But he didn’t. Thus, his actions reflect everything ugly about the US to the rest of the world. He’d do anything — anything — to win. He lies about simple, obvious truths. He makes up lies about why he was caught lying. He blames others for his mistakes. Everybody not with him “has an agenda.”
Landis is trying to impose his will on reality. Sound familiar?
Ugh. Just gotta say. Ugh.
So he’s a libertarian?
He was interviewed this morning on the BBC4 program “Today.” The BBC interviewer, lacking the patriotic deference shown by American interviewers, essentially picked his various defenses apart. It was painful listening to him flail about, but oddly refreshing.
Here’s a link to streaming audio of the interview. Here’s a link to the RSS feed of the “Today” program’s podcast (It’s today’s ten to eight interview).
To follow up: This morning, “Today” interviewed someone from “The Cycling Union.” Streaming audio here. Here’s a page of their recent podcasts. It’s the ten to eight interview for Aug 09.