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  1. #1
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    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000..._whats_news_us


    Cyclist Armstrong Denies Doping

    Statement Comes After Former Teammate Landis Admits to Banned Performance-Enhancing Measures, Accuses Others


    By REED ALBERGOTTI And VANESSA O'CONNELL


    Cyclist Lance Armstrong denied allegations that he participated in banned performance-enhancing measures, questioning the credibility of former teammate Floyd Landis, who admitted his own use of drugs and other practices in recent emails.


    Mr. Landis, the American cyclist whose 2006 Tour De France victory was nullified after a positive doping test, in recent weeks sent a series of emails to cycling officials and sponsors admitting to, and detailing, his systematic use of blood transfusions and performance-enhancing drugs during his career. The emails, which follow years of denials by Mr. Landis, also claim that other riders and cycling officials allegedly participated in such practices, including seven-time Tour de France winner Mr. Armstrong.


    Mr. Landis's accusations prompted Mr. Armstrong to hold an impromptu press conference Thursday at the Tour of California.




    "If you said, 'Give me one word to sum this all up:' credibility,'' Mr. Armstrong said, according to the Associated Press. "Floyd lost his credibility a long time ago.''


    With his longtime coach Johan Bruyneel next to him, Mr. Armstrong said Mr. Landis seemingly pointed the finger at everyone still in the sport. "We have nothing to hide," he said.









    "I'd remind everybody that this is a man that's been under oath several times and had a very different version,'' Mr. Armstrong said. "This is a man that wrote a book for profit that had a completely different version. This is somebody that took, some would say, close to $1 million from innocent people for his defense under a different premise. Now when it's all run out the story changes.''


    Mr. Armstrong later quit the race after crashing just outside of Visalia, Calif. A race official said he received s ches under his left eye and suffered a contusion on his left elbow, but no fracture.




    Mr. Armstrong has faced a number of doping accusations during his career, which he has denied. He has never been sanctioned.



    Mr. Landis's charges couldn't be independently verified. Mr. Landis did not respond to a request for comment. But he told ESPN.com: "I want to clear my conscience. I don't want to be part of the problem any more.''


    It's unclear how many emails Mr. Landis sent. Three emails, dated between April 30 and May 6, have been reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Landis copied seven people on these three emails, including officials with USA Cycling and the International Cycling Union. Three people who have seen the emails and spoken to Mr. Landis about them say they are authentic.



    In the emails, he expressed frustration about the inability of antidoping officials to clean up the sport.




    After the Tour De France stripped Mr. Landis of his 2006 victory for testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone after one crucial stage of the race, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned him from the sport for two years. From the moment the positive test was revealed, Mr. Landis has publicly denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs.



    The emails are particularly focused on American riders. Mr. Landis said in them that during his career, he and other American riders learned how to conduct blood transfusions, take the synthetic blood booster Erythropoietin, or EPO, and use steroids. All these practices are banned in cycling.


    Mr. Landis said he started using testosterone patches, then progressed to blood transfusions, EPO, and a liquid steroid taken orally.



    In one of the emails, dated April 30 and addressed to Stephen Johnson, the president of USA Cycling, Mr. Landis said that Mr. Armstrong's coach, Mr. Bruyneel, introduced Mr. Landis to the use of steroid patches, blood doping and human growth hormone in 2002 and 2003, his first two years on the U.S. Postal Service team.


    He alleged Mr. Armstrong helped him understand the way the drugs worked.



    He and I had lengthy discussions about it on our training rides during which time he also explained to me the evolution of EPO testing and how transfusions were now necessary due to the inconvenience of the new test," Mr. Landis claimed in the email. He claimed he was instructed by Mr. Bruyneel how to use synthetic EPO and steroids and how to carry out blood transfusions that doping officials wouldn't be able to detect.

    Mr. Bruyneel said Thursday that "I've always known Floyd as an angry person ... somebody who's basically angry with the world,'' Associated Press reported. "To me it sounds like he just wants to drag down people who are still there and enjoying this.''


    In the same April 30 email, Mr. Landis wrote that after breaking his hip in 2003, he flew to Girona, Spain—a training hub for American riders—and had two half-liter units of blood extracted from his body in three-week intervals to be used later during the Tour de France.


    The extraction, Mr. Landis claimed, took place in Mr. Armstrong's apartment, where blood bags belonging to Mr. Armstrong and his then-teammate George Hincapie were kept in a refrigerator in Mr. Armstrong's closet.


    Mr. Landis said he was asked to check the temperature of the blood daily. According to Mr. Landis, Mr. Armstrong left for a few weeks and asked Mr. Landis to make sure the electricity didn't go off and ruin the blood. George Hincapie, through a spokesman, denied the allegations.

    In the email sent April 30 to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Landis said that in 2006, after leaving the U.S. Postal Service team for a team sponsored by Swiss hearing aide manufacturer Phonak, he told Andy Rihs, the team's owner, that he had been involved in a blood doping program in the past with his old team and wanted to continue doing so with Phonak.

    He said Mr. Rihs, the chairman of Sonova Holding AG, the Switzerland-based parent company of Phonak, agreed to pay for the same doping operations at Phonak. After Mr. Landis's positive test—which was for testosterone and not blood doping—the team disbanded in 2006.
    Mr. Rihs, through a spokesperson, declined to be interviewed. He said Thursday in a written statement that neither he nor the management of the team "knew that Floyd Landis was doped," and described the email statements by Mr. Landis as "lies" representing "a last tragic attempt of Landis to once again gain public recognition" that he has lost.


    Mr. Johnson issued a statement Thursday saying members of USA Cycling would not discuss doping allegations. "There are many accusations being circulated and we are confident these will be thoroughly investigated by the appropriate authorities."


    In addition to these allegations, Mr. Landis's emails called current anti-doping efforts "a charade," detailed how to use EPO without getting caught and claimed he helped former teammates Levi Leipheimer and Dave Zabriskie take EPO before one Tour of California race. Mr. Leipheimer and Mr. Zabriskie could not be reached for comment.

  2. #2
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    Landis e-mail:

    2002: I was instructed on how to use Testosterone patches by Johan Bruyneel
    during the During the Dauphine Libere in June, after which I flew on a
    helicopter with Mr Armstrong from the finish, I believe Grenoble, to San
    Mauritz Switzerland at which point I was personally handed a box of 2.5 mg
    patches in front of his wife who witnessed the exchange. About a week
    later, Dr Ferrari performed an extraction of half a liter of blood to be
    transfused back into me during the Tour de France. Mr Armstrong was not
    witness to the extraction but he and I had lengthy discussions about it on
    our training rides during which time he also explained to me the evolution
    of EPO testing and how transfusions were now necessary due to the
    inconvenience of the new test. He also divulged to me at that time that in
    the first year that the EPO test was used he had been told by Mr Ferrari,
    who had access to the new test, that he should not use EPO anymore but he
    did not believe Mr Farrari and contin
    ued to use it. He later, while winning the Tour de Swiss, the month before
    the Tour de France, tested positive for EPO at which point he and Mr
    Bruyneel flew to the UCI headquarters and made a financial agreement with
    Mr. Vrubrugen to keep the positive test hidden.

    2003: After a broken hip in the winter, I flew to Gerona Spain where this
    time two units (half a liter each) were extracted three weeks apart. This
    took place in the apartment in which Mr. Armstrong lived and in which I was
    asked to stay and check the blood temperature every day. It was kept in a
    small refrigerator in the closet allong with the blood of Mr Armstrong and
    George Hincapie and since Mr. Armstrong was planning on being gone for a few
    weeks to train he asked me to stay in his place and make sure the
    electricity didn't turn off or something go wrong with the referigerator.
    Then during the Tour de France the entire team, on two different occasions
    went to the room that we were told and the doctor met us there to do the
    transfusions. During that Tour de France I personally witnessed George
    Hincapie, Lance Armstrong, Chechu Rubiera, and myself receiving blood
    transfusions. Also during that Tour de France the team doctor would give my
    room mate, George Hincapie an
    d I a small syringe of olive oil in which was disolved andriol, a form of
    ingestible testosterone on two out of three nights throughout the duration.

    I was asked to ride the Vuelta a Espana that year in support of Roberto
    Heras and in August, between the Tour and the Vuelta, was told to take EPO
    to raise my hematocrit back up so more blood transfusions could be
    performed. I was instructed to go to Lances place by Johan Bruyneel and get
    some EPO from him. The first EPO I ever used was then handed to me in the
    entry way to his building in full view of his then wife. It was Eprex by
    brand and it came in six pre measured syringes. I used it intravenously for
    several weeks before the next blood draw and had no problems with the tests
    during the Vuelta. Also during this time it was explained to me how to use
    Human Growth Hormone by Johan Bruyneel and I bought what I needed from Pepe
    the team "trainer" who lived in Valencia along with the team doctor at that
    time. While training for that Vuelta I spent a good deal of time training
    with Matthew White and Michael Barry and shared the testosterone and EPO
    that we had and discu
    ssed the use thereof while training.

    Again, during the Vuelta we were given Andriol and blood transfusions by the
    team doctor and had no problems with any testing.

    2004: Again the team performed two seperate blood transfusions on me, but
    this time Bruyneel had become more paranoid and we did the draws by flying
    to Belgium and meeting at an unknown persons appartment and the blood was
    brought by "Duffy" who was at that time Johans assistant of sorts. The
    second of which was performed on the team bus on the ride from the finish of
    a stage to the hotel during which the driver pretended to have engine
    trouble and stopped on a remote mountain road for an hour or so so the
    entire team could have half a liter of blood added. This was the only time
    that I ever saw the entire team being transfused in plain view of all the
    other riders and bus driver. That team included Lance Armstrong, George
    Hincapie and I as the only Americans.

    2005: I had learned at this point how to do most of the transfusion
    technicals and other things on my own so I hired Allen Lim as my assistant
    to help with details and logistics. He helped Levi Leipheimer and I prepare
    the transfusions for Levi and I and made sure they were kept at the proper
    temperature. We both did two seperate transfusions that Tour however my
    hematocrit was too low at the start so I did my first one a few days before
    the start so as to not start with a deficit.

    2006: Well you get the idea....... One thing of great signigicance is that
    I sat down with Andy Riis and explained to him what was done in the past and
    what was the risk I would be taking and ask for his permission which he
    granted in the form of funds to complete the operation described. John
    Lelangue was also informed by me and Andy Riis consulted with Jim Ochowitz
    before agreeing.

    There are many many more details that I have in diaries and am in the
    process of writing into an intelligible story but since the position of USA
    Cycling is that there have not been enough details shared to justify calling
    USADA, I am writing as many as I can reasonably put into an email and share
    with you so as to ascertain what is the process which USA Cycling uses to
    proceed with such allegations.

    Look forward to much more detail as soon as you can demonstrate that you can
    be trusted to do the right thing.

    Floyd Landis

  3. #3
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    Good for him for finally confessing it. I wonder what are those re s who believed his fairty-tale and donated him $2 millions feeling now.

    I also think an apology to Greg Lemond for the stuff said is in order.

    Anyway, I wonder if this open a can of worms of the Ormeta code will once again prevail. UCI, the press and Pharmstrong are already trying to discredit him.

  4. #4
    Ragecycling.com Vinnie_Johnson's Avatar
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    Landis wins Douch Bag of the year congrats.

  5. #5
    Shutty.. Bukefal's Avatar
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    Man, all cyclists use doping. That's not the matter. It's just about those who get caught. Normally they don't get caught and it's not so hard to hide it, the ones who get caught made some stupid mistake in hiding it and that's why it comes out. But, everyone and really everyone of the big cyclists are using doping.

    I think it's a shame, they ruined the whole sport, it's not fun anymore. I used to like it and watch it a lot, but now I don't really care anymore. It's ridiculous.

  6. #6
    Ragecycling.com Vinnie_Johnson's Avatar
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    Man, all cyclists use doping. That's not the matter. It's just about those who get caught. Normally they don't get caught and it's not so hard to hide it, the ones who get caught made some stupid mistake in hiding it and that's why it comes out. But, everyone and really everyone of the big cyclists are using doping.

    I think it's a shame, they ruined the whole sport, it's not fun anymore. I used to like it and watch it a lot, but now I don't really care anymore. It's ridiculous.
    I would say that a few years back they were using a lot where. I really think not a lot are doping anymore testing is getting very hard to beat.

  7. #7
    ಥ﹏ಥ DAF86's Avatar
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    I ing hate Armstrong, he's seen as such a hero and sportman while in reality he's a ing cheater. I really ing hate his guts.

  8. #8
    Shutty.. Bukefal's Avatar
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    I ing hate Armstrong, he's seen as such a hero and sportman while in reality he's a ing cheater. I really ing hate his guts.
    Yeah, that's why nobody will believe he could be one of those (all) who use doping too. Because, he is seen as a national hero and worldwide even. 'The great athlete who beat cancer and went on to multiple victory'

    I dont hate him, but I do know they all use doping, even Lance, the hero.

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