Just when you though that the Floyd Landis case couldn’t get any stranger, things took a turn for the worse today. You can read all the sordid details over at ESPN.com.
In a nutshell, the doping committee asked former three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond to testify regarding a conversation that he and Landis had last August in which LeMond alleges that Landis all but admitted that he doped. Those allegations alone would probably draw a few headlines, but then the story takes a turn for the worse, as it was revealed in court that Landis’ former teammate and close friend Will Geoghegan, who had been helping him with his defense, called LeMond the night before and made a threatening phone call. The tale continues to spiral down from there with the threat involving hints at sexual abuse that occured in LeMonds past, and Landis distancing himself from Geoghegan personally and professionally.
This story comes on the heels of Landis claiming that officials tried to cut a deal if he would provide information against Lance Armstrong that would implicate his use of performance enhancing drugs during his string of seven Tour wins. Add to that the stories of impropriety in the testing labs in France, months of “did he or didn’t he” speculation, and a bitter rivarly between LeMond and Armstrong, and you’ve got one crazy story.
It should be interesting to see how this plays out. The question is, should I just wait for the ABC Movie of the Week version?
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I blogged about this today too. It’s sad that cycling is becoming a soap opera. Maybe it’s time to re-invent cycling as a sport and bring some real credibility.
But with a job like that, all I have to say is “not me”.
Yeah, it’s crazy. Cycling has always had a doping problem and an image problem, but this just continues to take it to another level.
Plus, this has nothing to do with that huge doping scandal from Spain last year either. They haven’t even begun to sort that one out yet.