Floyd Landis Alleges Lance Armstrong Drug Use

Former cyclist Floyd Landis sits down for his first extensive television interview since admitting to drug use. The 2006 Tour de France winner, who was later stripped of his title, talks about the doping scandal that ruined his career. During the exclusive interview, Landis discusses former teammate Lance Armstrong, claiming that the superstar is guilty of using illegal performance enhancing drugs while providing detailed, first-hand accounts to support these allegations. Landis also raises questions on whether the world's current best cyclist, Alberto Contador, could have used illegal performance enhancing drugs during his past three Tour de France wins. Additionally, Landis exposes possible corruption within cycling and talks about his NASCAR future.

Highlights:

Landis details first-hand knowledge of Lance Armstrong's alleged doping while Landis was on Armstrong's U.S Postal Service team and helped Armstrong win three consecutive Tour de France titles. Detailed allegations include Armstrong smuggling drugs through an airport, Landis watching over Armstrong's refrigerator of blood packs, and blood transfusions on the team bus during the Tour de France. Watch Clip:

Landis on former teammate Lance Armstrong: "He's a bully... He has a sense of entitlement that defies any kind of reason... The difference between Armstrong and I is he got satisfaction out of making people lose. He likes to see people lose. I got satisfaction out of winning and it didn't really have anything else to do with other people." Watch Clip:

Landis on whether he believes the world's current best cyclist, Alberto Contador, used illegal performance enhancing drugs in winning the past three Tour de France titles: "I can't give you a statistical likelihood, but I know for sure that his coach is my previous drug dealer." Upon following up, "What does that tell you?" Landis replied, "Maybe he found Jesus, you can figure it out." Watch clip:

Landis suggests that Armstrong reached a secret money deal with the UCI (International Cycling Union, cycling's governing body) to cover up his positive drug test and how he believes Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael, was never actually his coach but "a smokescreen." Watch clip:

Landis also reveals why it took him so long to reveal the truth about his doping, why he says that for as long as he's been in the sport cyclists have been unable to win the Tour de France without using illegal performance enhancing drugs, and why he thinks the problem within professional cycling will never get fixed. Below are two more clips and the one hour Landis interview episode.

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Comments

[iridium53]

08:04 PM on 07/24/2011

Thanks for reporting on the annual Floyd Landi "around the Tour", no evidence, Lance Armstrong allegations.

Not a shred of proof. Not a bit of real evidence.

Just the annual allegations event.

Frankly, I don't much care if professional athletes (dancing monkey entertainers) use performance enhancing drugs, have testicles the size of bb's, get so many concussions they turn to jello, or hit 150 home runs a season.

I don't care. It's their choice. Let 'em play Rollerball.

It's entertainment. Always has been.

The bigger and bloodier and meaner it gets - the more entertaining.
Does anyone at this point actually believe they're not all on drugs?
Or, that calls are fair?

If I want entertainment, I can go see Harry Potter or Captain America - the ending will be just as predictable.

[Corbel]

07:54 PM on 07/24/2011

Is it any wonder why no cyclist was banned from any grand tour by the UCI during Lance's reign. yet 2 of the biggest bans sandwiched his run.

[mrfreeze]

07:52 PM on 07/24/2011

Athletes are "entertainers." Professional athletes are paid to win and the more they "entertain" the more crucial it is that they do everything in their power to stay on top. (It's like capitalism.....maximize shareholder returns....familiar stuff really).

The fact that so much time, effort, money and attention is paid to "entertainers" rather than discussing and addressing our real problems proves how off-track our priorities are.

[Aesculus glabra]

08:07 PM on 07/24/2011

Some of us can do two things at once.

[mrfreeze]

11:54 PM on 07/24/2011

Congress can't.........................

[jaggok]

07:07 PM on 07/24/2011

Lance Armstrong may have used drugs but he never got caught despite having been tested every time he raced. Floyd Landis used drugs and got caught. That is the difference. Armstrong's tests never cam back positive. Heresay does not hold up in court.

[cinesimonj]

07:56 PM on 07/24/2011

And here I was thinking this web page was a court room.

[juls1314]

12:52 PM on 08/17/2011

This is not accurate. Lance Armstong has returned positive doping controls during his career.
He returned a positive during the 1999 tour - which his team sent in a back dated TUE for.
He then returned a positive EPO control in the 2001 Tour of Swiss - which we now know the UCI covered up.

So, yes. He has got caught. His team was just able to pay the UCI off. Which is also proven.

Please research before posting on the subject. You are confusing people.

[bbbbjr]

06:53 PM on 07/24/2011

lances doping or the possibility thereof has about the same impact as Merckx doping or Coppi's doping or Anquetil's doping. just different flavors.

but, i am sure glad the floyd landis is demostrating the episodic courage and strength of character to somehow report these details only after his own bs career ended up in the dumper due to a stunning lack of brains.

i think that he may even believe that he is being brave.

[bbbbjr]

06:46 PM on 07/24/2011

hmmmm. Floyn witnessed a regimented program of sophisticated doping over a period of several years supervised by the best minds.

and when it was his turn to do it solo, he stuck a testosterone patch on his sack?

really?

and NOW he remembers intimate details?

really?

[swoosie1]

04:13 PM on 07/24/2011

Lance Armstron, Floyd Landis, and all the others...just a bunch of professional drug addicts. Lance Armstrong is so full of himself and in denial, that when he was riding around with George Bush at the Bush ranch, he was entertaining the idea of running for govenor of Texas. That is the mark of an egocentric sports star who begins to believe he is more than what he actually is...a guy that rides a bike for 10 hours a day and gets money. That is the sum total of him. So what is really surprising to me is that people think that sports stars are clean. Armstrong is as dirty as they come. Nobody and I MEAN NOBODY wins the Tour de France after extensive Chemo/radiation cancer treatements without the help of juicing up. Get real people. He is just another arogant sports star manufactured for our viewing pleasure.

[jetscan]

06:28 PM on 07/24/2011

Well said. I'm a cancer "survivor" myself and know first hand what the treatments do to your body. I used to work out 6 days a week. Now, 5 years later, I can only dream of what it felt like.

Fanned and faved.

[MrOctober]

10:49 PM on 07/24/2011

Steroids or Performance enhancing drugs are so rampant in Sports nowadays. Baseball took a lot of heat, but we're supposed to believe the guys in the NFL are clean? All these other cyclists admit to blood doping, yet Lance Armstrong beat the whole lot of cheaters after surviving cancer?

[juls1314]

12:54 PM on 08/17/2011

Baseball hasn't even scratched the surface with their drug problem. The need to test during the off season - when the all use PEDs to aid in recovery, which helpd them work out more and longer.

[BigOrangeBoehner]

12:48 PM on 07/24/2011

Landis, I can only imagine how betrayed and used you must feel. But you got caught breaking the rules, and then tried to lie your way out of it. So you are exactly the wrong person to deliver this message.

It's not that I doubt that Armstrong cheats as much as everone else. To believe otherwise is to believe in unicorns.

But you are in no position to throw stones. Shut up and go away.

[Grandma Koolfinger]

11:04 AM on 07/24/2011

Floyd Landis is a individual with no class. On many levels.

[scholasticus]

08:45 AM on 07/24/2011

Landis.

[Bueno Hombre]

06:51 AM on 07/24/2011

Enough of this. The country has enough to worry about rather than which athlete did or did not take drugs. Most athletes will do anything to get an "edge" or try anything to make them stronger, faster, and swifter. I don't think this is right and I think it is foolish from a personal view but I know it happens. As long as an athlete is provided financial rewards for winning there will always be someone looking for an edge to make him/her a little better than the next person even if it is a body suit, spandex, gator aide, better athletic shoes, oxygenated blood, a lighter bike, spit balls, golf balls, or undetectable drugs. We should spend more time trying to educate atheletes in taking care of themselves and not doing things that will cause them future problems but as long as the rewards out weigh the risks atheletes will do what ever it takes to get that edge over another athlete.

[f0rTyLeGz]

02:57 AM on 07/24/2011

Floyd Landis... don't you think if Greg was cheating the French would have busted him?

[cinesimonj]

07:58 PM on 07/24/2011

Because EVERYONE who cheats gets busted, right?
Of course, this guy was busted all those times he cheated.
We just didn't hear about it - the cops covered it all up!
Unbelievable.
Actually, quite believable how naive some people are.

[f0rTyLeGz]

08:22 PM on 07/24/2011

That's it. It is a conspiracy. shhh....

[BlackhawkDesign]

02:15 PM on 07/23/2011

Here is the FACT that everyone needs to just accept and move on. Lance Armstrong WAS a professional cyclist. He raced for teams under the governance of the UCI, and was tested and overseen by the WDA and the USDA. He was tested more than any other cyclist. Those tests were designed to determine whether his physical characteristics were within the accepted parameters of the sport at the time of his racing. He passed the tests (if they were covered up, they were covered up by the people who governed the sport) so if he was doping he was very good at covering it up, AND here is the main point. At the point at which he left the starting line, to the time he finished, his hermatocrit, testosterone, cortisone and other readings were within the same range as the rest of the riders he was riding against that day. The races were raced, tests were done. Lance won 7 tours, by training hard, avoiding crashes, and good team management. That is history. Rewriting history is ugly. How do you re-write it, do you give his tour victories to Jan Ulrich, Beloki, Vinokourov, Pantani? Find me someone who isn’t linked to doping.

[datenutloaf]

09:41 AM on 07/24/2011

PLUS

Lance Armstrong gave America someone to be proud of ---- He helped assuage the ignominy of the JarJarBush years.

[WILLIEMOJORISIN]

11:51 AM on 07/24/2011

He competes in a sport that 90% of Americans don't watch , and what does politic's have to do with this story ?

[BlackhawkDesign]

02:14 PM on 07/23/2011

Cycling has always had a culture of taking drugs to improve performance. It’s the dark side to the sport, accept it or don’t watch it. People like scandals. They also like heroes. The fact that he took Testosterone doesn’t make Floyd’s stage 17 ride any more epic. Heart, not Testosterone made him ride that day.
Floyd and Tyler made one crucial mistake. They were caught and they lied, and they REALLY pushed those lies. Floyd says that if you tell the truth you are banned from cycling and sued. But the truth is, they dug their own graves with their grand protests. “Positively False” sits on my bookshelf, and I spent quality time learning about the “Vanishing Twin” theory. Meanwhile other high profile cyclists like David Miller, Alexander Vinokourov and others have been busted and taken their punishment and returned to cycling, and even TdF winner Bjarne Riis said that he doped during his TdF win… he was forgiven in 2008 and is still listed as the official winner. So to say that you admit the truth and you are out, is incorrect.

[BlackhawkDesign]

02:13 PM on 07/23/2011

What is the real story here? Is it that people want to know if Lance took performance-enhancing drugs, or if he cheated, or if he lied…what is the question? If you dope in a race full of people who dope… who did you cheat? If everyone says they are not doping, and yet this year’s TDF is just as fast as the TDF in heart of the doping era…. Tell me does that make sense? The bikes are not that much faster… so if you conclude that everyone was doping then, then they are doping still. Everyone is still lying. If riders are willing to risk getting caught doping then the advantages of whatever “doping” they are doing must be extreme. You would have needed to see a dramatic drop in times from the “doping” days to the “clean” days.