I’ve put off posting this awhile to let some of the facts percolate a little bit. I guess it’s time to summarize my views on things.
I make no bones that watching Lance Armstrong (and the rest of US Postal) is what lead me to pick up cycling in the first place. I watched that 2004 TdF while I was in transition between jobs. The stage where Landis and Azcevedo set such a brutal pace and the time trial up Alpe d’Huez were the memorable points of that tour. It made me sad to think just a few years later that Landis was caught doping.
For awhile, I liked to believe that he was right. But when his B-sample came back positive, that sealed the deal for me. I scoffed with other riders at the amount of time, effort, and most importantly, money, that he pumped into his defense.
Fast forward to the start of the Tour of California this year, when Landis made his claims of systematic and routine doping practices within US Postal. Lance’s camp fired back with a series of emails between himself and Floyd that paints Floyd in an even more negative light.