Tarnished hero spins a web of deceit
Published Date:
30 July 2006
ONE night during the Tour de France, Dave Zabriskie, an American riding with the CSC team, was making his way to his hotel room when he encountered Floyd Landis pacing the corridor. Landis was in a world of his own, oblivious to his countryman's presence. "I've got to win this bike race," he shouted to himself. "I've got to win this bike race."
Zabriskie thought it typical of Landis. A driven man, he was psyching himself up for the next day's stage.
The lengths to which Landis was prepared to go to win this bike race are now known. The sport of cycling has taken so many punches from the drug testers that you'd think it would be desensitised to scandal by now. The Festina Affair of 1998, Operation Puerto of 2006 and a heavy catalogue of disgrace and tragedy in between should have made people shock-proof, but still, when Landis's positive test for a performance-enhancer became known last week the cycling world reeled anew. It was instructive viewing.
After a miraculous performance on the killer mountain stage between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Morzine on July 20, Landis was tested and the test came back with high traces of testosterone, an old favourite of those who take short cuts to glory. Only the terminally gullible will have been surprised by this. The day before the climb to Morzine, Landis cracked horribly on the ascent to La Toussuire. He lost bags of time to his rivals and was in such a state of distress at the end of the stage that some thought him incapable of continuing the Tour. Twenty-four hours later he produced arguably the most powerful surge in the history of the race. Even Lance Armstrong's eyes were popping. Many of his rivals said, in coded language, that they had never seen anything like it in their professional lives.
Later, Landis said that listening to Metallica records helped get him in the right frame of mind. A heavy dose of testosterone might have helped, too. His positive test was reported as cycling's shame last week. Throughout the world it was written that the game was discredited once more. Not true. What it was, in fact, was a key day in cycling's salvation. So often the lines are blurred. Landis has been exposed as a cheat. That, surely, is a good thing. The message sent to the next generation of bike riders is a powerful one. If they didn't know it already then they know now that the testers these days mean business.
'Take the drugs if you like but realise that we're coming to get you if you do.'
What was surprising about the Landis business was not that he tested positive but that so many people believed in him in the first place.
"In its best, most redemptive moments, sports will shine a light on the unbending and indomitable human spirit," wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer just before the news broke last week, "and in so doing repair our sad sense of innocence lost. Just about the time we have given in to despair, when all seems irreversibly soiled by the dopers and head-butters and steroid freaks, someone will happen along to cleanse and disinfect. That current someone is named Floyd Landis."
You would expect this from the American media. We're not slow in acclaiming false sporting gods in this part of the world but they bring it to another level across the water. They need their heroes more than most and in Landis they saw another Armstrong. But others bought into the fairy tale of the hero with the degenerative hip triumphing over excruciating pain to realise his life's dream.
Lance beat cancer. Floyd beat the bone-on-bone hurt of a hip that was likened to a lump of rotten wood. And he beat other things, too.
Raised in the small village of Farmersville, Pennsylvania he was brought up as a Mennonite Christian by God-fearing parents. As a kid he did without radio and television and computers, he went to church twice weekly and was always dressed conservatively. He rebelled. In Amish Country, it didn't take much to earn a reputation for wildness and a fondness for riding a bike did it for Floyd. His parents disapproved. When Floyd left home after high school they were mortified but he won them over.
In their yard at home the Landis's have two signs hanging. One says 'To God be the glory', the other, 'Floyd's the man'. No doubt they will keep believing in their boy's innocence but his tale of schmaltz doesn't wash with too many others. That it ever did is a wonder. But it does no longer. And for that we give thanks.
Time for Le Guen to take a deep breath
WITH the possible exception of Brazil there can be no country in world football where the rush to judgment is more hair-raisingly swift than it is in Scotland, or in the Old Firm to be exact. Rangers play their first competitive match under Paul Le Guen at Fir Park this afternoon, a venue that brings back certain memories of Gordon Strachan's early weeks as Celtic manager. You might remember that a few days after his team were ransacked of their dignity by Artmedia Bratislava they went to Motherwell and drew 4-4 in the opening game of the league season. Strachan was portrayed as a nincompoop at the time.
Le Guen will get more understanding from the Rangers fans than Strachan did - or does - from the Celtic supporters, but he'd be as well starting with a win today all the same. Round about 2pm he should take a very deep breath. And he should hold it - until May.
The full article contains 985 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
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Last Updated:
29 July 2006 9:03 PM
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Source:
Scotland On Sunday
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Location:
Scotland
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Related Topics:
Tour de France
