Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France by Floyd Landis
Three days after winning the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis was accused of doping. This is Landis’ side of the story.
Regardless of your view as to whether he’s guilty or not (it’s still working its way through arbitration, more than a year later), he makes a compelling and convincing case that the system is broken. It’s a system based on secrecy when it’s convenient to be secret, leaks when it’s convenient to leak, arbitrary, capricious, malicious, and so one-sided that there’s no chance whatever of getting to the truth and where the riders have few rights of any kind. WADA/USADA have only to accuse, it’s up to the rider to prove he’s innocent. WADA/USADA have won 100% of the cases that have gone to arbitration. It’s also a scathing indictment of Dick Pound who, on his own, has pretty much convinced everyone who’s been listening that he’s a nut job.
Landis quotes staff from other WADA accredited labs (Australia, UCLA) that the test results, as presented, would not constitute a positive test at their labs (test results of this kind are not absolute, they are interpreted by lab staff) and that LNDD, the French lab that did the testing, didn’t know what they were doing. That may well be the case. He convinced me, but then I don’t really know what I’m looking at.
Autobiographies have to be taken with a grain of salt. Authors want you to be convinced of their argument and sometimes cherry pick the information they choose to report. But I really do think this gives a pretty accurate portrayal of Landis himself, and of what’s been happening. Landis has made a point a along of being as transparent as possible (both on his website and others) and has been the only rider ever who has insisted on a public hearing. He pulls no punches in voicing his opinion of Armstrong, Pound, LeMond, or anyone else. He also issues several mea culpas and deals head on with several embarrassing episodes, notably Will Geoghegan’s bizarre phone call to LeMond.
The case really has no end in sight. The arbitration hearing was finally held in May, but no word on when any decision might come. Then either side can appeal to CAS and USADA has said that if they lose (which has never happened) they will definitely appeal.
