I am in my 50s and a keen cyclist. Since my twenties, when I spent a lot of time in France, I have followed racing at a distance and in the press. And in the 80s on TV in French cafés, when all eyes were on the screen and everyone had an opinion. In all those years it has not been a clean sport and I do not think many people really expected it to be. That does not mean it has been a bad sport. Pantani blowing everyone away on a climb is a scene of majesty. Abdudjaperov (sp?) tearing it up in a sprint was just magical. All the big names for many decades... many of the riders who shone for one tour and never again.... All of the beauty and brutality is there. Yes, they dope. They dope terribly. All my heroes doped. But my God! The racing was magnificent. And it often still is. Doping will always find a way and as I look at Ineos and other teams at the top of the tree, I find myself even more convinced that that is so. And still.... I find myself drawn to this wonderful and brutal spectacle.
It is a gorgeous sport. It is breathtaking and brilliant, brutal, unforgiving and often terribly dangerous. Landis is right mostly, the entire peloton is on the juice, or they would not be in the peloton. And yet I still hate Pharmstrong and wish him trouble. Not because of his wins, but because of his lying, bullying, hideous behavior. Really Lance? Had to win 7 times? That's what took you down, idiot.
Armstrong said that of all the physical challenges involved, the 'naughty' thing was miniscule . . . he didn't have some of the physiological (prodigy) traits of LeMond, but he won seven Tour de France races and set the speed record . . . he stuck out, got noticed, jealousies grew, got into a fight with LeMond, . . . lost the fight . . . and the wins went to an inferior rider who most likely was doping harder than Armstrong. Life isn't Fair, but We Ate Up the Drama.
@@leonarddaneman810 Well.... Yes and no. The wins didn't go to "an inferior rider'. No wins were awarded for those Tours. Certainly Lance was an impressive rider but hen he burst onto the scene. He didn't register much with me pre-cancer... despite the world championship and other things. I was just aware of a fast young American but couldn't have named him. His first two TdF wins were something. I watched both in France and there was a lot of disquiet about doping allegations pretty soon after that.... But it was the era. Lance did impress me greatly in his early Tour wins. But there was a deeply unpleasant side to him that almost invited the schadenfreude after his exposure. And as to "Lance said'.... Lance said a lot of things. Many of them were lies or deeply unpleasant personal attacks. I believe little of what Lance says. He arrived (on his post-cancer return) le a whirlwind... But for all his speed, grit and skill, he left a sour taste. The speed record you refer to, if that was Ventoux.... That was always a tell. If it seems unlikely, it is unlikely. I do still revere many proven dopers as heroes of two wheels. LA certainly impressed me on many occasions, but he leaves a sour taste. The others, for the main part, do not.
@@BanjoLuke1 Like Landis said, it was more the drama than the doping, so many were doing it, it almost wasn't cheating anymore. The LeMond vs Armstrong controversy brought out the worst, mostly in Armstrong and his team . . . so, good points all . . . surprised the 'win' wasn't given to the runner up . . .
And they are called the Olympic "games". It used to be all amateurs, then the money started to happen. It just all got too serious and not just a sport, but a way to make a living.
I was in the 1980 for 1 year a professional. If you don't use drugs your not accepted in this sport. I never used drugs and people using drugs even by the amature tour de lavenir. It is a desision you make and I am still healthy at age 68 with a clear mind and feeling like a real sportsman. Most professional sportsman have a obsession with the sport and many used experimental drugs that killed them. 96% of de 1980 pro cyclists used drugs. Lance was a super junkie
Lance made a call which led to them REALLY going after Landis after that stage. He told them exactly what to look for, what he did etc...of COURSE they were tipped off. They modified the protocol in order to find the level and type of "T" he used.
Interested to know where you got this info from? Also I'm pretty sure they would have gone after him anyways ,especially when you consider he put 9 minutes into a pro peloton of riders by himself. I think landis doomed himself with that performance.
Floyd's stage win (the day he returned his positive test) was one of the best stages I have ever seen in the TDF. Epic and awesome. I was gutted at the time to see that he failed a test when Lance/Liepheimer/Hamilton and a bunch of others had made it through unscathed for years. For me Landis seemed the most talented of all of them and was the most entertaining. I hated his denials and all the subsequent lawsuits etc but I am glad he has come clean about it all. For sure Contador was using (although I like the way he races) but I do wonder whether Evans was. I honestly doubt it as he had phenomenal (physiological) testing numbers and never really blew the race apart, rather struggled to hold on and win. I think he may have been a clean one. Wiggins, no, Sastre, doubtful. Froome? Maybe although you have to doubt Sky's ethics.
Yes, one of the greatest sporting days of all time. He (and his competitors) doped, but there's no way the bigger doping he did in one night was able to create that day. That was Floyd.
the massive influx of testosterone would have created the aggression and unwavering belief to carry out such an ostentatious attack. Pretty sure cadel was juiced up. He was BEATING highly talented juiced up guys. Sastre - a spaniard, riding for bjarne riis. You figure the rest. Contador - don't say 'was', say 'is'. He'd still be on the juice, along with all the others. Sky rides like the posties used to right? In fact they look just like them, with classics guys towing the peloton over the mountains. Gosh I wonder how they do that. Oh that's right, we know how they do that.
as I watched that day, all I could think was Floyd must be doping because that was just too good of a performance. I like the fact that he seems honest and candid about what he did during the doping days.
If the subject of professional cycling interests you, Tyler Hamilton’s book is a must read. The UCI according to Tyler’s account, allowed EPO levels to be at 50...this was a legal reading, but not to exceed.
Floyd's comments starting around 4:23 are spot on. "Just watch cycling for what it is." I think it's too easy to put winners on a pedestal as gods, and people who get caught doping are evil. At the end of the day, they're all just humans like you and me trying to do the best they can in life. I don't mean doping is ok, but lets not all get too worked up over a bike race that has zero bearing on the viewer's actual day-to-day life.
I suspect that the physical effort to compete in cycling is not possible without the use of performance enhancement of some kind. To ride at those speeds for 3 weeks in a row, completing 150-250km per day is one of the most difficult and challenging sporting events of any sport. More than most sports this may be the single biggest contributing factor.
It's possible if the whole field was clean and you would see much slower times than you are currently seeing but if a huge contingent of them are doping then it would be impossible to compete without using it. Tyler Hamilton has said that in a one day race like some of the classics its possible for a clean rider to beat a doped rider if he does everything right as far as his tactics and if they fine tune how the team rides with him to support his efforts. However, he said a clean athlete beating a doped rider in a 3 week race like the Tour would be impossible. This is because the doping in cycling doesn't necessarily enhance peak effort but what it does is allow you to do is recover faster so if you go all out today and then your doping allows you to feel completely fresh to be able to go all out tomorrow and then again the next day. A doped rider's power and speed output towards the end of the Tour would not have much drop off from how they were riding on day 1 vs day 21 whereas a clean rider may be able to match the power of a doped rider on the first couple of days but that is it. They would have to hold back in order to have enough at the tank by the end but that would be giving up too much ground early to be able to make it up since doped riders are not really holding back early.
The affects of PEDs on American football is even greater. Until steroids were perfected (by the Soviet bloc) NFL linemen averaged 250 pounds. It then jumped to 315. With no loss of speed. Huh.
@@RamaSivamaniemember that you are listening to cheaters, scammers, people who lied professionally. Landis, hamilton, everyone of them is a scumbag, they are not people you can trust. By saying that "everyone is doped", they are just trying to defend themselves, to take off the blame from their shoulders. 😮So don't take their word for granted. Probably the truth is in the middle. Were there a lot of cheaters? Yes, of course. But they were not the majority of the group, they were just the "excellence". And there were also different grades of doping, different stadiums. Armstrong and us postal were the most efficient one, they had obviously the best programs and protection. But don't think that every cheater was doping like armstrong did. Lance was literally the reincarnation of doping.
Great interview. Just google the history of drugs in the Tour and Wikipedia will pop up and show you drugs have been in a key part of this event since it began.
What about shortening the stages so that a normal healthy person could be competitive without EPO, steroids and other PEDs or killing themselves from exhaustion?
UCI turned a blind eye on the Lance Armstrong saga, absolutely unforgivable behaviour for a body that was meant to be laying down the law. And Floyd is right, if the rules are not across the board then cycling and sport in general is and will be a joke. Armstrong used and then abused his celebrity destroying lives in his wake, the perjury he committed should have carried a jail sentence. I do hope that the UCI get they're act together for the sake of all sports, the Armstrong saga should have been a wake up call long overdue.
Espress is actually a pretty poor way of delivering caffeine. Drinking a coffee made in a french cafetiere is a better way. And yet better is taking a caffeine pill as caffeine content in coffee beans can vary wildly from next to nothing to 150mg in a cup.
I like what they are doing. test them, and then test them again. No one should have to take hormone growth, steroids, HGH, etc or do blood doping just to compete.
An observation Graham did not make and thus probably did not consider because he isn’t a cyclist and does not fully understand is the physical cost of competing in an event like the Tour de France. It is an event that is sadistically brutal. Probably the most inhuman sporting event of all and something that those who judge and moralize those who use illegal PED’s in this event is that they finish in significantly better health than those who don’t. Think about that. In most high level sports those who use PED’s very often harm their health. It’s largely why PED’s are illegal. It’s not just that they provide an unfair competitive advantage. They are usually unhealthy to use. Yet the tour is so over the top unhealthy to attempt that those who use PED’s are often healthier than those don’t.
Greg LeMond rode for the La Vie Claire cycling team in the 1980's & won the Tour with them, i.e. a team managed by Bernard Tapie. That's the same guy who did prison time when he was caught bribing opposition players in the 1993 French football season when he owned Marseille football club. So if some people want to pretend a convicted criminal who was caught cheating in football also ran a clean dope-free cycling team in the 1980's (when doping was widespread in other sports like athletics), I can only shrug.
Tapie only paid the bills. Paul Koechli was the trainer. He was antidoping. My friend was on La Vie Claire and I saw the training documents- pure brilliance using natural methods - periodization with macrocycles and microcycles. Way ahead of his time, Paul was.
I really liked his thoughtful response on Greg Lemond - doping in the peloton pre-dated Lemond's domination yet Lemond was still at the top of the peleton.
I rode with Landis at a charity event a couple years before this interview, and my take-away: he can drink A LOT of beer. I was amazed by his carb-loading abilities, frankly.
im just finishing this guys book where he vehemently denies drug use. he even has a whole appendix section in the book where he gets a professional MD to go over the various findings and invalidate them. haha
Lemond won the TdF in 85, 89, and 90. EPO was first released, in very small quantities for extreme medical conditions, in 1989. At that time it was extremely difficult to obtain. It's impossible for him to have used EPO for his first 2 tours, and unlikely in 1990. Landis was 15 years old when Lemond won his third Tour, and wasn't near the pro ranks in the pre-EPO years. It's great that Floyd is willing to admit his EPO cheating, but it's BS that he wants people to believe that he didn't do anything that absolutely everyone else did.
It was not the same juice. EPO and blood doping changed everything. Lemond struggled to keep up in his end Tours, and couldn't figure out why -- it was the dope the other guys were on.
EPO was first studied in 1905. And proceeded from there. 1977 was the human EPO year I believe......so that was/is.....50 years ago.....do the math....look at the winners.......
@@cheetahobx From Wikipedia: "Synthetic EPO was first successfully used to correct anemia in 1987.[31] In 1985, Lin et al isolated the human erythropoietin gene from a genomic phage library and used it to produce EPO.[32] In 1989, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone Epogen for use in certain anemias.[33] "
Escartin has been the only podium contender in the GC that never used performance enhancing drugs. If you see how miserable he looks riding compared to others it's easy to believe it.
It's impossible that he was clean in those days. I thought the same of Paco Mancebo, who had a similar style. And he was a client of Doctor Fuentes ...
So he's in affect saying there is still illegal drug use in pro cycling, what's the use of having testing and rules if it's still going on. You might as well give Lance back his 7 tour wins if the elite riders are are still doing the same thing as he was doing.
I mean it really is great that Floyd finally found the courage to talk about his own mistakes twenty years ago. But the sport really does look a hell of a lot cleaner today. Top performers get tested at every big race. Some riders might dope just to hang on in the peloton, without ever getting tested positive. But pro cycling is way more see-through today, which was sorely needed tbh. And it works well with all the cycling nerds, who can take away a lot of interesting info with the more audience friendly approach of the teams out there today. And on top of that we are blessed with maybe the most likable peloton of all time in terms of personalities. But always nice to hear Floyd anyways. He is very down to earth and all that.
Trying to gain an advantage started the first time there was a competition...we are uneasy with cheating but the definition is ever changing as it relates to PEDs...to me the whole idea of illegal drugs is a losing battle...it is time for a rethink
Yeah, the only thing that makes it cheating versus, say, eating a potassium-rich banana, is the agreement to not do it. It seems unfortunately to declare some things illegal without having effective testing--it simply creates the situation where good ethics loses races. It seems to also create an opportunity for the ruling organization to receive kickbacks.
If you want sports... pro sports...to be ' fair', you're gonna have to take the money....giant bags of money, out of it. And Floyd is right, that'll never happen.
So long has people are involved there is no way to prevent corruption at EVERY level....Though I do agree --- Dole out the punishment equally once a rider has been found to test positive if you strip one persons "Wins" all others should be as well....Also I think it's fair to say Lance was made an exception because he was such an @hole to everyone and was basically challenging people to prove he wasn't clean.....
Why isn't there the same rigor of drug testing for every professional sport? Yes there are a ton of cheats in cycling and the sport has a terrible reputation, but how about football, soccer, hockey, basketball, etc
I think Landis' comments on LeMond are fair... but I'll say this to LeMond's credit: he won the tour multiple times and then has been ultra outspoken about cheaters. If he actually had cheated back in the day, don't you think someone would have called him on his hypocrisy? We love the rise of champions, but we love more the fall of champions...
La Vie Claire (the team LeMond won the Tour with) was owned by Bernard Tapie, i.e. a man who later did prison for cheating in football (he bribed opposition players in 1993 to get his Marseille team to win the French league). That's something that's barely mentioned but is absolutely important in the debate regarding whether LeMond (or Hinault) were clean, especially when suspect characters & proven cheats/liars are used all the time to discredit those who associated with them.
To be honest, I don't think we'll ever know. They weren't drug testing rigorously back then. Even if there was rampant drug use in the late 80s similar to the 90s, the riders from the 80s can say whatever they like today because there is zero chance now that anything could be proven if there was shady business going.
Lemond produced his results when EPO was in clinical trials by a California upstart 30 miles from his home, and he set the fastest time trial (20+ km) ever 3 weeks after the drug was launched in the US and Europe. He very likely could have recieved the drug while being treated for his shooting accident. The time trial after EPO was launched he rode 16-18% faster than in any time trial he has ever ridden - VERY impressive
Why do performance enhancing drugs need to be illegal? I agree with Floyd. It’s never going away. Why not just make it legal? It seems that a lot of money and resources are going into enforcement of these rules and it’s not working and will never work. It’s a sport, not life and death. It’s entertainment. Floyd and Lance won the TDF on a level playing field. We’re going into a fourth decade trying to enforce rules that aren’t enforceable. An indicator of foolishness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. There are much worse problems in the world that need solving than PHDs in professional sports!
Doping is a shame. A shame for Landis cause similar to Jan Ulrich his Landis one of the most talent cyclers in the last 15 years. A tour without doping and Landis had won the tour 4 - 5 times. So sorry for him
Floyd is being honest but he is not familiar with the history of doping in cycling. recombinant human EPO was approved and introduced to the market in 1989 and did not make it's way to the Tour in a significant way until 1991.
@david ross There are oodles of performance-enhancing drugs, but in endurance sports, EPO (and other erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs)) was a game-changer because it was so much more effective than the steroids, stimulants, growth hormone, etc. available up to that point. To use the 10,000 meter run as an example, the record in 1966 was 27:39, it improved to 27:22 by 1984--with the switch from cinder to artificial surfaces barely a "real" improvement at all in 18 years. Yet from 1984 to 1998 it improved by a nearly a full minute--to 26:22!
The TDF is a grueling endurance event 21 150km-200km stages with just two rest days. It is physically impossible for the body to perform to it's maximum every single day. Back in the 1980's you could see after 4.or 5 days how the speed of the race would slow as fatigue set in and everyone had to recover. In the 1990's the speed increased 10-20km/hr and there was no longer any slow days to recover. The race has only increased in speed year on year breaking speed records each year! It is physically impossible to perform to the maximum going faster and faster each day, at some point your body will simply let you down and be unable to perform! Having said all that it still remains a wonderful and exciting spectacle
I still think that the use of performance enhancement drugs should be a federal offence. That will make people stop cheating. It should also be a world wide federal offence for a spectator to interfere in races such as pushing a rider up a mountain or knocking them down accidentally. That will also stop the crazy spectators from ruining the sport.
What's the likelihood that the world's top athletes across the spectrum of high profile sports (cycling, soccer, tennis, American football, track/athletics, cross-country skiing, swimming, etc.) are still incorporating pharmaceutical assistance in training and event prep? I love the aforementioned sports, but I suspect the use of PEDs remains widespread/endemic. Not sure how it gets fixed. Maybe it's not fixable, as Floyd has speculated. Maybe the best we can hope for is a relatively level playing field where the governing bodies enforce policies equitably. They could eliminate preferential treatment for superstars who test positive (it has happened in cycling in recent years--reversal of a positive finding for a multiple grand tour winner). If there are no free passes, there's less freedom to go full nuclear in doping--i.e., the dosages must be monitored and lower-level to avoid the testing trip wires.
There are a variety of them, with a variety of health risks. Possibly the most prevalent example was EPO which increased oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Even as intended it thus thickens blood and can cause typical heart, vascular or pulmonary diseases including simple death, embolisms, stroke. The effects of these conditions would all be long-term. Is the risk progress based on duration of use? I don't know, but for some drugs the answer would definitely be yes--testosterone is common and can cause impotence, heart damage (progressive increase in risk of heart attack), enlarged prostate (difficulty urinating and ultimately increased bladder/UTI infections), liver disease. But the possibly larger risk is the nature of using these drugs "under the radar" without proper controls and with a desire to hide side effects. For example, blood transfusions with athletes' own blood are common, but it can be challenging to handle the blood properly with storage, border crossings and administration all being done in secret. Some athletes, thus, become infected when injected with materials that have become unsafe. Again the risks are diverse and do include death in some cases so it's hard to give a single quantified answer.
My question is how did commentators Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and (most of all) Bob Roll (who claimed to know Lance well) NOT know about his drug use and blood transfusions. I know Phil was defending Lance all the way up to 2008! I mean, okay maybe at the first Tour win but after two or three? It seems inconceivable that they could be that out of the loop. It seems like all of organized professional cycling was casting a blind eye.
They didn't care, they just wanted to keep profiting by not rocking the boat. These guys get paid a lot of money, more than many of the cyclists competing. For guys who were mediocre riders like Paul and Bob , this was a huge way to finally cash in.
It isn't unfair that someone wins. That's the one thing he was mistaken on. It's perfectly fair as long as it's done honestly. Great interview though; I came here after looking at this documentary Icarus; what a rabbit hole! Lance Armstrong intimidated, threatened and abused his own teammates.
Like in many physical sports, it's something that most if not everyone is doing not to win, but just to be competitive. Winning is still difficult like he said, because everyone is doing it your at no real advantage, your just on the level playing field. The ones that aren't doing it just don't stand a chance in hell. The ones that win are the ones that have right combination of factors, fitness PED's, genetics, management etc. It's hard to make regular people who have never competed understand his point of view, but this is the reality, your not cheating anyone if everyone is doing it.
Is it not fair if everyone’s doing it? Is it cheating if everyone’s doing it? Is it wrong if everyone’s doing it? You’d think the answer would be an overwhelming NO. Not the case though...
That’s the bottom line. Every elite cyclist, that had a real shot at the Tour de France, were all doing the same things. There is an incredible sports science article which explains how superior lance armstrong was as a cyclist. His body makeup and mental edge were the ultimate reason he won. It was the true advantage he had over everyone else who were all doping.
Different drugs when Lemond rode though. Far less effective. So "clean" possibly had a fighting chance back then. And some usage was in the open e.g. "hormone rebalancing".
Most guys who become professional cyclists, are clearly naturally talented, they just have this natural ability to turn the pedals quickly in the most extraordinarilly adverse conditions. You can't just take drugs and win the tour de france, you have to have an incredible natural ability to push a bicycle fast, train really fucking hard, watch everything you eat. Flyod paints a picture of cycling which is not representative of the truth, and did his own talent a huge disservice.
Just ask a journalist who is reporting on drugs in sport: if suddenly they outlawed cell phones for new reporters, but every network and new outlet was using them, would you use a cell phone or just leave the profession? Yep, just like Lance said, he took a gun to a knife fight, but everyone else brought guns too.
I watched: "Lance Armstrong: stop at nothing," about seven times: it was despicable, almost top to bottom: let Armstrong keep his medals: I don't care what he does.
@@MM-mx8sr notice the people he attacked always said something about him first and only him. Did you ever hear Greg lemond or David Walsh speak about Ulrich or basso?
Tiago I agree that SKY have probably pushed the rules to the limit, but until they find something akin to EPO/Testosterone/growth Hormone and the like in any of their riders samples then I think it's all VERY small potatoes compared to the Festina and then US postal eras. I'm an old school (sort of)roadracer/time triallist I started in 1989 after the Lemond/Fignon battle and I'm not as big a fan of current racing mainly because my golden era has already gone and I'm 42 now- I am English but the point is I'm not a Team Sky lover or a massive fan so I am speaking very neutrally not defending them- I know Wiggins a little and his father in law is an old club mate of mine in the North West (Lancashire) but I'm still not a massive fan just because of that- However I do think the French and Italians HATE Brits winning "their" races and would also love to destroy Froome even if he was purer than Jesus Christ.
@@SuperDannyb1975 froome r doing races with a pc in his bike and using salbutamol overdoses without be a real ashmatic patience (he said is an ahtlete), so him its not exactly a clean rider!! right!!
They always talk about doping in this surprised tone as if drug use in professional sports is unheard of. They're likely all doing it. In all top-level sports. It's not going to stop. People want to see freaky, next-level stuff, and A lot of pros are willing to take the risks for the money and glory. If we all know they're doing it, just let them do it and enjoy the race.
LeMond is a real phenom of physiology so maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But I admire that he wants to expose PEDs for the sake of the riders. Psychologically it’s terrible and sponsor pressure is worse. The riders are the victims when everyone pretends professional sport is clean
What Landis is suggesting, the best cheater wins. It is not the most talented\skilled rider, it the teams and cyclists that are the best at cheating that cross the finishing line in first place. It's not true that all pro-cyclists are cheaters, thus an even playing field. Those that do not cheat are like starting the race 15 minutes behind the cheaters.
I watch cycling for the beautiful places, the scenery and the drama just like he says! And I absolutely don’t believe that they are clean. EPOGACAR in the TDF this year ripping the legs off the rest of the elite (doped) peloton on climbs while grinning and smashing TT… without gear…. Really !!!!!🤣🤣🤣
Sadly, the cynicism in the sport is so deep it's very hard to see 2 Slovenians, not just 1, as true champions, esp Roglic, who was a former ski jumper ffs....never trained as a cyclist and at that magical age of 27 (Indurain/Lance/Froome) suddenly found winning easy, or as Landis said, found Jesus.
The drugs could be untraceable in their system by race day . The test need to occur during their traing camps and on the weeks leading up to a big race.
Any rider entering the TdF. Giro Italia. or other major race should be tested every day , every 4 hours. For the whole year. And at the start and finish of every stage. That mightug be tug he only way you'd get a clean race and even then it would be questionable
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One of the best subjects of interview.
Floyd Landis, wright or wrong, gave thoughtful answers and gave it fodder to the broached topics.
I am in my 50s and a keen cyclist. Since my twenties, when I spent a lot of time in France, I have followed racing at a distance and in the press. And in the 80s on TV in French cafés, when all eyes were on the screen and everyone had an opinion.
In all those years it has not been a clean sport and I do not think many people really expected it to be.
That does not mean it has been a bad sport.
Pantani blowing everyone away on a climb is a scene of majesty.
Abdudjaperov (sp?) tearing it up in a sprint was just magical.
All the big names for many decades... many of the riders who shone for one tour and never again.... All of the beauty and brutality is there. Yes, they dope. They dope terribly. All my heroes doped. But my God! The racing was magnificent. And it often still is.
Doping will always find a way and as I look at Ineos and other teams at the top of the tree, I find myself even more convinced that that is so.
And still.... I find myself drawn to this wonderful and brutal spectacle.
It is a gorgeous sport. It is breathtaking and brilliant, brutal, unforgiving and often terribly dangerous. Landis is right mostly, the entire peloton is on the juice, or they would not be in the peloton. And yet I still hate Pharmstrong and wish him trouble. Not because of his wins, but because of his lying, bullying, hideous behavior. Really Lance? Had to win 7 times? That's what took you down, idiot.
Well said
Armstrong said that of all the physical challenges involved, the 'naughty' thing was miniscule . . . he didn't have some of the physiological (prodigy) traits of LeMond, but he won seven Tour de France races and set the speed record . . . he stuck out, got noticed, jealousies grew, got into a fight with LeMond, . . . lost the fight . . . and the wins went to an inferior rider who most likely was doping harder than Armstrong.
Life isn't Fair, but We Ate Up the Drama.
@@leonarddaneman810 Well.... Yes and no. The wins didn't go to "an inferior rider'. No wins were awarded for those Tours. Certainly Lance was an impressive rider but hen he burst onto the scene. He didn't register much with me pre-cancer... despite the world championship and other things. I was just aware of a fast young American but couldn't have named him. His first two TdF wins were something. I watched both in France and there was a lot of disquiet about doping allegations pretty soon after that.... But it was the era.
Lance did impress me greatly in his early Tour wins. But there was a deeply unpleasant side to him that almost invited the schadenfreude after his exposure. And as to "Lance said'.... Lance said a lot of things. Many of them were lies or deeply unpleasant personal attacks. I believe little of what Lance says. He arrived (on his post-cancer return) le a whirlwind... But for all his speed, grit and skill, he left a sour taste. The speed record you refer to, if that was Ventoux.... That was always a tell. If it seems unlikely, it is unlikely. I do still revere many proven dopers as heroes of two wheels. LA certainly impressed me on many occasions, but he leaves a sour taste. The others, for the main part, do not.
@@BanjoLuke1 Like Landis said, it was more the drama than the doping, so many were doing it, it almost wasn't cheating anymore. The LeMond vs Armstrong controversy brought out the worst, mostly in Armstrong and his team . . . so, good points all . . . surprised the 'win' wasn't given to the runner up . . .
BEST interview on the topic in a LONG LONG time!! Finally some honest talk about the actual culture and ubiquity of PEDs in cycling.
His Mennonite upbringing perfectly explains his naivete when young and his honesty when mature.
This dude is so well spoken
"People watch sports not to complicate their lives"
And they are called the Olympic "games". It used to be all amateurs, then the money started to happen. It just all got too serious and not just a sport, but a way to make a living.
I was in the 1980 for 1 year a professional. If you don't use drugs your not accepted in this sport. I never used drugs and people using drugs even by the amature tour de lavenir. It is a desision you make and I am still healthy at age 68 with a clear mind and feeling like a real sportsman. Most professional sportsman have a obsession with the sport and many used experimental drugs that killed them. 96% of de 1980 pro cyclists used drugs. Lance was a super junkie
Bro, you had an 89 ml/KG VO2 max. You ARE the two year old than can play the piano. You ARE the prodigy.
Why tex was so threatened by him
I collected a £250.00 win from the bookies the day before he was stripped!!!
The one and only time I have ever bet on the tour.
Lance made a call which led to them REALLY going after Landis after that stage. He told them exactly what to look for, what he did etc...of COURSE they were tipped off. They modified the protocol in order to find the level and type of "T" he used.
Interested to know where you got this info from? Also I'm pretty sure they would have gone after him anyways ,especially when you consider he put 9 minutes into a pro peloton of riders by himself. I think landis doomed himself with that performance.
I find this a flat out honest interview.
His coach is my previous ped dealer OK then 'nuff said! lol
Floyd's stage win (the day he returned his positive test) was one of the best stages I have ever seen in the TDF. Epic and awesome. I was gutted at the time to see that he failed a test when Lance/Liepheimer/Hamilton and a bunch of others had made it through unscathed for years. For me Landis seemed the most talented of all of them and was the most entertaining.
I hated his denials and all the subsequent lawsuits etc but I am glad he has come clean about it all.
For sure Contador was using (although I like the way he races) but I do wonder whether Evans was. I honestly doubt it as he had phenomenal (physiological) testing numbers and never really blew the race apart, rather struggled to hold on and win. I think he may have been a clean one. Wiggins, no, Sastre, doubtful. Froome? Maybe although you have to doubt Sky's ethics.
Yes, one of the greatest sporting days of all time. He (and his competitors) doped, but there's no way the bigger doping he did in one night was able to create that day. That was Floyd.
I agree! I still remember watching that and listening to Phil and Paul..
the massive influx of testosterone would have created the aggression and unwavering belief to carry out such an ostentatious attack. Pretty sure cadel was juiced up. He was BEATING highly talented juiced up guys. Sastre - a spaniard, riding for bjarne riis. You figure the rest. Contador - don't say 'was', say 'is'. He'd still be on the juice, along with all the others. Sky rides like the posties used to right? In fact they look just like them, with classics guys towing the peloton over the mountains. Gosh I wonder how they do that. Oh that's right, we know how they do that.
as I watched that day, all I could think was Floyd must be doping because that was just too good of a performance. I like the fact that he seems honest and candid about what he did during the doping days.
This is why Lance is still Patron 👌🏼
If the subject of professional cycling interests you, Tyler Hamilton’s book is a must read. The UCI according to Tyler’s account, allowed EPO levels to be at 50...this was a legal reading, but not to exceed.
Floyd's comments starting around 4:23 are spot on. "Just watch cycling for what it is." I think it's too easy to put winners on a pedestal as gods, and people who get caught doping are evil. At the end of the day, they're all just humans like you and me trying to do the best they can in life. I don't mean doping is ok, but lets not all get too worked up over a bike race that has zero bearing on the viewer's actual day-to-day life.
Lemond said the guy in charge of drug enforcement was selling drugs to the riders.
Including him lol. Imagine winning the tour de France and the world road race in the same year and still have the audacity to claim natty.
@@abone2pick what is natty in English
@@PInk77W1 natural
@@qwerty-rh6ht thx.
@@abone2pick lemond won many many races as a kid against men.
I guess he was doping young
Good job he never won the Giro, otherwise he'd be known as "Pink" Floyd Landis.😂😂
Dark humor, there.
How about Floyd "Jose Canseco" Landis?
Great interview
Credit to Landis for his directness. Just let the riders take anything, and stop trying to legislate morality.
I suspect that the physical effort to compete in cycling is not possible without the use of performance enhancement of some kind. To ride at those speeds for 3 weeks in a row, completing 150-250km per day is one of the most difficult and challenging sporting events of any sport. More than most sports this may be the single biggest contributing factor.
It's possible if the whole field was clean and you would see much slower times than you are currently seeing but if a huge contingent of them are doping then it would be impossible to compete without using it. Tyler Hamilton has said that in a one day race like some of the classics its possible for a clean rider to beat a doped rider if he does everything right as far as his tactics and if they fine tune how the team rides with him to support his efforts. However, he said a clean athlete beating a doped rider in a 3 week race like the Tour would be impossible. This is because the doping in cycling doesn't necessarily enhance peak effort but what it does is allow you to do is recover faster so if you go all out today and then your doping allows you to feel completely fresh to be able to go all out tomorrow and then again the next day. A doped rider's power and speed output towards the end of the Tour would not have much drop off from how they were riding on day 1 vs day 21 whereas a clean rider may be able to match the power of a doped rider on the first couple of days but that is it. They would have to hold back in order to have enough at the tank by the end but that would be giving up too much ground early to be able to make it up since doped riders are not really holding back early.
The affects of PEDs on American football is even greater. Until steroids were perfected (by the Soviet bloc) NFL linemen averaged 250 pounds. It then jumped to 315. With no loss of speed. Huh.
@@RamaSivamaniemember that you are listening to cheaters, scammers, people who lied professionally. Landis, hamilton, everyone of them is a scumbag, they are not people you can trust. By saying that "everyone is doped", they are just trying to defend themselves, to take off the blame from their shoulders. 😮So don't take their word for granted.
Probably the truth is in the middle. Were there a lot of cheaters? Yes, of course. But they were not the majority of the group, they were just the "excellence". And there were also different grades of doping, different stadiums. Armstrong and us postal were the most efficient one, they had obviously the best programs and protection. But don't think that every cheater was doping like armstrong did. Lance was literally the reincarnation of doping.
Great interview. Just google the history of drugs in the Tour and Wikipedia will pop up and show you drugs have been in a key part of this event since it began.
I love how he says life isnt fair.
What about shortening the stages so that a normal healthy person could be competitive without EPO, steroids and other PEDs or killing themselves from exhaustion?
Great questions any cyclist would ask Floyd.
Floyd you are the man.respect.
UCI turned a blind eye on the Lance Armstrong saga, absolutely unforgivable behaviour for a body that was meant to be laying down the law. And Floyd is right, if the rules are not across the board then cycling and sport in general is and will be a joke. Armstrong used and then abused his celebrity destroying lives in his wake, the perjury he committed should have carried a jail sentence. I do hope that the UCI get they're act together for the sake of all sports, the Armstrong saga should have been a wake up call long overdue.
Meh, it still goes on. Just look at how they go hard on some no-name cyclist who gets caught but does nothing on the top-ranked guys.
Love the honesty. If you want to fix it there are two options: make it amateur (no money) or live with it. Drinking an expreso gives you an edge...
Espress is actually a pretty poor way of delivering caffeine. Drinking a coffee made in a french cafetiere is a better way. And yet better is taking a caffeine pill as caffeine content in coffee beans can vary wildly from next to nothing to 150mg in a cup.
I like what they are doing. test them, and then test them again. No one should have to take hormone growth, steroids, HGH, etc or do blood doping just to compete.
If you think caffeine and HGH, testosterone, steroids, and of course EPO are on the same level, you're a moron.
total respect for Floyd Landis. when / if there is no rule of law, there is no law. rubber up and run amok. Col de Floyd.
Which is worse: Lie to others or lie to self?
An observation Graham did not make and thus probably did not consider because he isn’t a cyclist and does not fully understand is the physical cost of competing in an event like the Tour de France. It is an event that is sadistically brutal. Probably the most inhuman sporting event of all and something that those who judge and moralize those who use illegal PED’s in this event is that they finish in significantly better health than those who don’t. Think about that. In most high level sports those who use PED’s very often harm their health. It’s largely why PED’s are illegal. It’s not just that they provide an unfair competitive advantage. They are usually unhealthy to use. Yet the tour is so over the top unhealthy to attempt that those who use PED’s are often healthier than those don’t.
Thank you for this comment, I have finally found the stupidest comment of the last decade
Possibly the most under spoken interview ever.
You want the sport to be honest...when money is involved it will always be dishonest
Even without money people would cheat . Let alone with a 5 million dollar sponsorship on the line
Greg LeMond rode for the La Vie Claire cycling team in the 1980's & won the Tour with them, i.e. a team managed by Bernard Tapie. That's the same guy who did prison time when he was caught bribing opposition players in the 1993 French football season when he owned Marseille football club.
So if some people want to pretend a convicted criminal who was caught cheating in football also ran a clean dope-free cycling team in the 1980's (when doping was widespread in other sports like athletics), I can only shrug.
Tapie only paid the bills. Paul Koechli was the trainer. He was antidoping. My friend was on La Vie Claire and I saw the training documents- pure brilliance using natural methods - periodization with macrocycles and microcycles. Way ahead of his time, Paul was.
Carter, are you implying LeMond was dirty? Why don't you grow a pair and come out and say it?
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
I really liked his thoughtful response on Greg Lemond - doping in the peloton pre-dated Lemond's domination yet Lemond was still at the top of the peleton.
@Leo D'Arcy thanks for the information. May I please ask if you think the peloton was doping when Lemond won the Tour de France?
Emily, if you think Lemond cheated, why don't you come out and say it? And if you do, please point to some evidence.
I rode with Landis at a charity event a couple years before this interview, and my take-away: he can drink A LOT of beer. I was amazed by his carb-loading abilities, frankly.
That’s great. I’d love to drink some beers with him.
if I was cornered into riding a charity event, I'd drink too.
Floyd is the man.he is true.I raced against him in so cal and he killed us no dope.
There needs to be a movie about Landis and Steve Zhan must play him. Haha
That's not gonna happen because it wouldn't make much money. Why you think greg lemond and David Walsh only make movies on lance
OMG that would be perfect casting if you could cast "that thing you do" era Steve anyway.
I googled it, Floyd Landis now selling Marijuana in Colorado
floydsofleadville.com/
whatever you think of the guy, he's legal in CO.
yep, he also have a store close to Sand Diego....Marijuana boi.
Where is "Sand Diego"?
San Diego u idiot ...i miss typed it !
He also has his team now...
im just finishing this guys book where he vehemently denies drug use. he even has a whole appendix section in the book where he gets a professional MD to go over the various findings and invalidate them. haha
Landis did a great job at remaining calm and making his case even though the interviewer was somewhat judgemental and naive.
Lemond won the TdF in 85, 89, and 90. EPO was first released, in very small quantities for extreme medical conditions, in 1989. At that time it was extremely difficult to obtain. It's impossible for him to have used EPO for his first 2 tours, and unlikely in 1990. Landis was 15 years old when Lemond won his third Tour, and wasn't near the pro ranks in the pre-EPO years. It's great that Floyd is willing to admit his EPO cheating, but it's BS that he wants people to believe that he didn't do anything that absolutely everyone else did.
Kevin Koch B
Mercxx was on the juice, Indurain too... come on
It was not the same juice. EPO and blood doping changed everything. Lemond struggled to keep up in his end Tours, and couldn't figure out why -- it was the dope the other guys were on.
EPO was first studied in 1905. And proceeded from there. 1977 was the human EPO year I believe......so that was/is.....50 years ago.....do the math....look at the winners.......
@@cheetahobx From Wikipedia: "Synthetic EPO was first successfully used to correct anemia in 1987.[31] In 1985, Lin et al isolated the human erythropoietin gene from a genomic phage library and used it to produce EPO.[32] In 1989, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone Epogen for use in certain anemias.[33] "
Escartin has been the only podium contender in the GC that never used performance enhancing drugs. If you see how miserable he looks riding compared to others it's easy to believe it.
It's impossible that he was clean in those days. I thought the same of Paco Mancebo, who had a similar style. And he was a client of Doctor Fuentes ...
Cadel Evans.
Of course he did. He was part of EPO Tony’s Clas team. The big Spanish teams were early adopters of EPO
t think Carlos Sastre won the Tour and never got busted. No one ever seems to mention him.
Charly Mottet was known to be clean and his results suffered because of it
is graham a robot?
So he's in affect saying there is still illegal drug use in pro cycling, what's the use of having testing and rules if it's still going on. You might as well give Lance back his 7 tour wins if the elite riders are are still doing the same thing as he was doing.
I mean it really is great that Floyd finally found the courage to talk about his own mistakes twenty years ago. But the sport really does look a hell of a lot cleaner today. Top performers get tested at every big race. Some riders might dope just to hang on in the peloton, without ever getting tested positive.
But pro cycling is way more see-through today, which was sorely needed tbh. And it works well with all the cycling nerds, who can take away a lot of interesting info with the more audience friendly approach of the teams out there today. And on top of that we are blessed with maybe the most likable peloton of all time in terms of personalities.
But always nice to hear Floyd anyways. He is very down to earth and all that.
No way you think pogacar and vingard are clean lol
As long as money is involved, there will be drugs. Period.
Trying to gain an advantage started the first time there was a competition...we are uneasy with cheating but the definition is ever changing as it relates to PEDs...to me the whole idea of illegal drugs is a losing battle...it is time for a rethink
Yeah, the only thing that makes it cheating versus, say, eating a potassium-rich banana, is the agreement to not do it. It seems unfortunately to declare some things illegal without having effective testing--it simply creates the situation where good ethics loses races. It seems to also create an opportunity for the ruling organization to receive kickbacks.
So hilarious watching how much in the dark Graham actually is...
yeah I couldn't agree more, it's as though he knows nothing about cycling. And sports in general. It's really quite odd.
It seems you have no clue how interviews work. Do you think when an interviewer asks a question it is for themself or their audience?
The only way to level the playing field is to end all drug testing. When everyone uses the same stuff with established limits (e.g., hematocrit
Lance was a very arrogant liar and therefore good liar. Landis wasn't a good liar he actually had a conscience that bugged him.
If you want sports... pro sports...to be ' fair', you're gonna have to take the money....giant bags of money, out of it. And Floyd is right, that'll never happen.
So long has people are involved there is no way to prevent corruption at EVERY level....Though I do agree --- Dole out the punishment equally once a rider has been found to test positive if you strip one persons "Wins" all others should be as well....Also I think it's fair to say Lance was made an exception because he was such an @hole to everyone and was basically challenging people to prove he wasn't clean.....
Why isn't there the same rigor of drug testing for every professional sport? Yes there are a ton of cheats in cycling and the sport has a terrible reputation, but how about football, soccer, hockey, basketball, etc
Well said that man.
You forgot one of the worst, baseball.
those sports are so big, the clubs are too powerfull.
I think Landis' comments on LeMond are fair... but I'll say this to LeMond's credit: he won the tour multiple times and then has been ultra outspoken about cheaters. If he actually had cheated back in the day, don't you think someone would have called him on his hypocrisy? We love the rise of champions, but we love more the fall of champions...
La Vie Claire (the team LeMond won the Tour with) was owned by Bernard Tapie, i.e. a man who later did prison for cheating in football (he bribed opposition players in 1993 to get his Marseille team to win the French league).
That's something that's barely mentioned but is absolutely important in the debate regarding whether LeMond (or Hinault) were clean, especially when suspect characters & proven cheats/liars are used all the time to discredit those who associated with them.
To be honest, I don't think we'll ever know. They weren't drug testing rigorously back then. Even if there was rampant drug use in the late 80s similar to the 90s, the riders from the 80s can say whatever they like today because there is zero chance now that anything could be proven if there was shady business going.
Hinault winning the last sprint in Paris whilst wearing the yellow yersey says Everything you need to know about that era
Lemond produced his results when EPO was in clinical trials by a California upstart 30 miles from his home, and he set the fastest time trial (20+ km) ever 3 weeks after the drug was launched in the US and Europe. He very likely could have recieved the drug while being treated for his shooting accident.
The time trial after EPO was launched he rode 16-18% faster than in any time trial he has ever ridden - VERY impressive
lemond-vo2-numbers-aut-of-the-charts-none-come-close-expect-same-norwegian-gross-country-skiers@@jenspetersen5865
Why do performance enhancing drugs need to be illegal? I agree with Floyd. It’s never going away. Why not just make it legal? It seems that a lot of money and resources are going into enforcement of these rules and it’s not working and will never work. It’s a sport, not life and death. It’s entertainment. Floyd and Lance won the TDF on a level playing field. We’re going into a fourth decade trying to enforce rules that aren’t enforceable. An indicator of foolishness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. There are much worse problems in the world that need solving than PHDs in professional sports!
A bunch of young pros died in their sleep and had heart attacks in their twenties back in the 90s mostly in Europe. That's one reason.
These PEDs come with lifelong side-effects. Same applies to any sport.
Doping is a shame. A shame for Landis cause similar to Jan Ulrich his Landis one of the most talent cyclers in the last 15 years. A tour without doping and Landis had won the tour 4 - 5 times. So sorry for him
No way he would have won another tour after 2006. No one has ever gotten a hip replacement and came back the same.
You can guess what Floyd is trying to say by his many non answers but I took out of it he thinks Greg Lemond was a doper. That would shock me.
Likewise. LeMond fell out of competition rather quickly.
Floyd is being honest but he is not familiar with the history of doping in cycling. recombinant human EPO was approved and introduced to the market in 1989 and did not make it's way to the Tour in a significant way until 1991.
@@aarellanod2d and got shot.....
@@simonknowles4267 Then he went on to win the tour. He did get shot but it became irrelevant to him after two Tour wins.
@david ross There are oodles of performance-enhancing drugs, but in endurance sports, EPO (and other erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs)) was a game-changer because it was so much more effective than the steroids, stimulants, growth hormone, etc. available up to that point. To use the 10,000 meter run as an example, the record in 1966 was 27:39, it improved to 27:22 by 1984--with the switch from cinder to artificial surfaces barely a "real" improvement at all in 18 years. Yet from 1984 to 1998 it improved by a nearly a full minute--to 26:22!
The TDF is a grueling endurance event 21 150km-200km stages with just two rest days. It is physically impossible for the body to perform to it's maximum every single day. Back in the 1980's you could see after 4.or 5 days how the speed of the race would slow as fatigue set in and everyone had to recover. In the 1990's the speed increased 10-20km/hr and there was no longer any slow days to recover. The race has only increased in speed year on year breaking speed records each year! It is physically impossible to perform to the maximum going faster and faster each day, at some point your body will simply let you down and be unable to perform! Having said all that it still remains a wonderful and exciting spectacle
I still think that the use of performance enhancement drugs should be a federal offence. That will make people stop cheating. It should also be a world wide federal offence for a spectator to interfere in races such as pushing a rider up a mountain or knocking them down accidentally. That will also stop the crazy spectators from ruining the sport.
Why is he wearing a RICK WARE RACING SHIRT?
What's the likelihood that the world's top athletes across the spectrum of high profile sports (cycling, soccer, tennis, American football, track/athletics, cross-country skiing, swimming, etc.) are still incorporating pharmaceutical assistance in training and event prep? I love the aforementioned sports, but I suspect the use of PEDs remains widespread/endemic. Not sure how it gets fixed. Maybe it's not fixable, as Floyd has speculated. Maybe the best we can hope for is a relatively level playing field where the governing bodies enforce policies equitably. They could eliminate preferential treatment for superstars who test positive (it has happened in cycling in recent years--reversal of a positive finding for a multiple grand tour winner). If there are no free passes, there's less freedom to go full nuclear in doping--i.e., the dosages must be monitored and lower-level to avoid the testing trip wires.
What are the long-term health effects of performance enhancing drug use?
There are a variety of them, with a variety of health risks. Possibly the most prevalent example was EPO which increased oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Even as intended it thus thickens blood and can cause typical heart, vascular or pulmonary diseases including simple death, embolisms, stroke. The effects of these conditions would all be long-term. Is the risk progress based on duration of use? I don't know, but for some drugs the answer would definitely be yes--testosterone is common and can cause impotence, heart damage (progressive increase in risk of heart attack), enlarged prostate (difficulty urinating and ultimately increased bladder/UTI infections), liver disease. But the possibly larger risk is the nature of using these drugs "under the radar" without proper controls and with a desire to hide side effects. For example, blood transfusions with athletes' own blood are common, but it can be challenging to handle the blood properly with storage, border crossings and administration all being done in secret. Some athletes, thus, become infected when injected with materials that have become unsafe. Again the risks are diverse and do include death in some cases so it's hard to give a single quantified answer.
I would like to think the Sport is now clean of illegal drugs !
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Simple. You fail a drug test, ban for life.
How about life imprisonment for jay walking? You are brilliant.
Jan Ulrich and Floyd Landis are to me the best cyclers of the last 30 years.
My question is how did commentators Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and (most of all) Bob Roll (who claimed to know Lance well) NOT know about his drug use and blood transfusions. I know Phil was defending Lance all the way up to 2008! I mean, okay maybe at the first Tour win but after two or three? It seems inconceivable that they could be that out of the loop. It seems like all of organized professional cycling was casting a blind eye.
Yeah that must be it (unfortunately).
They didn't care, they just wanted to keep profiting by not rocking the boat. These guys get paid a lot of money, more than many of the cyclists competing. For guys who were mediocre riders like Paul and Bob , this was a huge way to finally cash in.
Ironray, you really think a top athlete confides with TV presenters about how he cheats? Do you actually have any idea how life works?
Come on they all knew. They were all on the same gravy train 🚂
I think floyd misses the mark in terms of how people view "sporting" and the people choices that are involved within it.
I would agree that he doesn't speak for everyone in that perspective but I do know plenty of people who just don't care about doping and cheating.
tue exemptions will never allow for fair racing. People abuse the system and unless they start from scratch it can not be fixed.
Nobody in 25 years has won clean but we have to be concerned mostly with LC?
It isn't unfair that someone wins. That's the one thing he was mistaken on. It's perfectly fair as long as it's done honestly. Great interview though; I came here after looking at this documentary Icarus; what a rabbit hole! Lance Armstrong intimidated, threatened and abused his own teammates.
Don't hate the players. Hate the game. Its been around forever
Like Floyd. Always did. Drugs is a sport issue not individual. He didn’t cheat anyone in the peloton by using? That I would agree with.
Like in many physical sports, it's something that most if not everyone is doing not to win, but just to be competitive. Winning is still difficult like he said, because everyone is doing it your at no real advantage, your just on the level playing field. The ones that aren't doing it just don't stand a chance in hell. The ones that win are the ones that have right combination of factors, fitness PED's, genetics, management etc. It's hard to make regular people who have never competed understand his point of view, but this is the reality, your not cheating anyone if everyone is doing it.
.....right but still its not fair-ok anyway!!
Snitches gets Stitches! Floyd Landis has always been sour for getting caught.
If they are all cheating then the playing field is pretty much even.
Is it not fair if everyone’s doing it? Is it cheating if everyone’s doing it? Is it wrong if everyone’s doing it? You’d think the answer would be an overwhelming NO. Not the case though...
No one should be surprised.
That’s the bottom line. Every elite cyclist, that had a real shot at the Tour de France, were all doing the same things. There is an incredible sports science article which explains how superior lance armstrong was as a cyclist. His body makeup and mental edge were the ultimate reason he won. It was the true advantage he had over everyone else who were all doping.
wait a moment...Isnt this the guy that played in the 2003 film "National Security" with Martin Lawrence
Landis is what's wrong. Fair is they are all clean. Fair is the winner won based on being the best, not by having the best doctors.....
Different drugs when Lemond rode though. Far less effective. So "clean" possibly had a fighting chance back then. And some usage was in the open e.g. "hormone rebalancing".
Most guys who become professional cyclists, are clearly naturally talented, they just have this natural ability to turn the pedals quickly in the most extraordinarilly adverse conditions. You can't just take drugs and win the tour de france, you have to have an incredible natural ability to push a bicycle fast, train really fucking hard, watch everything you eat. Flyod paints a picture of cycling which is not representative of the truth, and did his own talent a huge disservice.
@Lanterne Rouge I think this one have to see.
Just ask a journalist who is reporting on drugs in sport: if suddenly they outlawed cell phones for new reporters, but every network and new outlet was using them, would you use a cell phone or just leave the profession? Yep, just like Lance said, he took a gun to a knife fight, but everyone else brought guns too.
is this recent interview ?
Asked myself the same question, 2014 it seems.
it's from 2011 ...look here
www.the42.ie/landis-contadors-coach-used-to-be-my-drug-dealer-182844-Jul2011/
I watched: "Lance Armstrong: stop at nothing," about seven times: it was despicable, almost top to bottom: let Armstrong keep his medals: I don't care what he does.
Steven Durham so its not important for you that he tried to destroy other people just to get through with his lies?
@@MM-mx8sr notice the people he attacked always said something about him first and only him. Did you ever hear Greg lemond or David Walsh speak about Ulrich or basso?
The new euphemism for doping is called TUEs. Ask Bradley Wiggins and team Sky. Triamcinolone works from what i've heard.
Tiago I agree that SKY have probably pushed the rules to the limit, but until they find something akin to EPO/Testosterone/growth Hormone and the like in any of their riders samples then I think it's all VERY small potatoes compared to the Festina and then US postal eras. I'm an old school (sort of)roadracer/time triallist I started in 1989 after the Lemond/Fignon battle and I'm not as big a fan of current racing mainly because my golden era has already gone and I'm 42 now- I am English but the point is I'm not a Team Sky lover or a massive fan so I am speaking very neutrally not defending them- I know Wiggins a little and his father in law is an old club mate of mine in the North West (Lancashire) but I'm still not a massive fan just because of that- However I do think the French and Italians HATE Brits winning "their" races and would also love to destroy Froome even if he was purer than Jesus Christ.
@@SuperDannyb1975 They bloody slapped and spat on him at Alpe d'Huez.
@@SuperDannyb1975 froome r doing races with a pc in his bike and using salbutamol overdoses without be a real ashmatic patience (he said is an ahtlete), so him its not exactly a clean rider!! right!!
They always talk about doping in this surprised tone as if drug use in professional sports is unheard of. They're likely all doing it. In all top-level sports. It's not going to stop. People want to see freaky, next-level stuff, and A lot of pros are willing to take the risks for the money and glory. If we all know they're doing it, just let them do it and enjoy the race.
Reminds a bit of Dick Cavett. Lets people talk. For me at least, that's golden.
I agree with floyd, players will and always have used whatever advantages they can to win, so havw at it, it makes sports more exciting...
LA's 7 victories were the most boring TdF's ever. He had no competition.
LeMond is a real phenom of physiology so maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But I admire that he wants to expose PEDs for the sake of the riders. Psychologically it’s terrible and sponsor pressure is worse. The riders are the victims when everyone pretends professional sport is clean
And contador trashed lance for being caught
Karma does work
Contador himself was caught but everyone loves him because he still denied it . As long as you don't tell the truth you good .
What Landis is suggesting, the best cheater wins. It is not the most talented\skilled rider, it the teams and cyclists that are the best at cheating that cross the finishing line in first place. It's not true that all pro-cyclists are cheaters, thus an even playing field. Those that do not cheat are like starting the race 15 minutes behind the cheaters.
If there is no fair, there is no win
just make it legal -- superhumans sprinting up mountains is damn exciting
Fuck yeah! Let's watch hearts explode!!!
I watch cycling for the beautiful places, the scenery and the drama just like he says! And I absolutely don’t believe that they are clean. EPOGACAR in the TDF this year ripping the legs off the rest of the elite (doped) peloton on climbs while grinning and smashing TT… without gear…. Really !!!!!🤣🤣🤣
Sadly, the cynicism in the sport is so deep it's very hard to see 2 Slovenians, not just 1, as true champions, esp Roglic, who was a former ski jumper ffs....never trained as a cyclist and at that magical age of 27 (Indurain/Lance/Froome) suddenly found winning easy, or as Landis said, found Jesus.
@@marcusmaher-triskellionfil5158 Love the Landis quote ! 🤣
Marc, please cite evidence of Pogacar using PED's. I'd like to read it.
This and the Olympics etc. Open it up and lets see what we can do.
All sports from elite high school on up.
Not all riders need the same amount of drugs or even some at all. The fact that he needed them to perform doesn't mean shit about others.
Test every rider before the race,
The drugs could be untraceable in their system by race day . The test need to occur during their traing camps and on the weeks leading up to a big race.
Any rider entering the TdF. Giro Italia. or other major race should be tested every day , every 4 hours. For the whole year. And at the start and finish of every stage. That mightug be tug he only way you'd get a clean race and even then it would be questionable
Greg lemond would not be relevant if he started 10 yrs later?
Greg LeMond went from being a Tour winner to being a non-contender in the early 1990s because he raced clean while the peleton started to use EPO.
Just God Damn let everyone dope it up, lets see how far it goes, anything goes free for all. WTF ??"?