Floyd Landis, Did he do it?
Floyd Landis' arbitration hearings ended on May 23rd. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to shed much light on whether Floyd did use synthetic testosterone during his impressive win of stage 17 of 2006 Tour. Unfortunately, this may never be proven. Only Floyd, and perhaps his personal trainer, Robbie Ventura, would know whether he doped or not.
It seems impossible that any sport, including cycling, will ever be free of abuses of performance enhancement drugs. However, a competent, credible and impartial monitoring organization can be effective in minimizing the abuses. With the long list of questionable practices by the French testing lab personnel, the administrators, the European and American anti-doping bureaucrats WADA and USADA, it is unlikely that this problem will go away. When critical electronic files get erased by the testing lab people, when the anti-doping buerocrats offer "deals" to Landis in order to implicate Lance Armstrong, etc. one must wonder if the issue is one of keeping the sport clean or score political points by these people and agencies.
I've heard a lot of complaints about Greg LeMond and his testimony at the hearings. As far as I know, Greg is a fine gentleman in addition to being a three time Tour winner along with an impressive career loaded with victories. He simply stated that if Floyd did dope then he should come clean. He never accused Floyd for using illegal substances.
It is a shame that a large number of extremely talented and super cyclists like Landis, Ullrich, Hamilton, Basso, Heras, and a long list of others have been forced to resign from the sport because of their alleged use of illegal performance enhancement drugs. Regardless of the outcome of Landis' case, perhaps, istead of blaming LeMond for his comments, or Armstrong for his silence, the professional cycling community should direct its priorities and focus on cleaning up the beuroctratic organizations and their systems so the current and future generations of talented athletes are able to compete fairly and be a clean and positive influence in promoting the sport.
