NYT: Lance Armstrong’s Wall of Silence Fell Rider by Rider

[marmar]

By JULIET MACUR
Published: October 20, 2012


Floyd Landis, the cyclist who had denied doping for years despite being stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for failing a drug test, went to a lunch meeting in April 2010 with the director of the Tour of California cycling race.

As they sat down at a table at the Farm of Beverly Hills restaurant in Los Angeles, Landis placed a tape recorder between them and pressed record.

Landis finally wanted to tell the truth: He had doped through most of his professional career. He was recording his confessions so he would later have proof that he had blown the whistle on the sport.

“How do you expect people to believe you when you lied for so long?” Andrew Messick, the race director, asked Landis. “Have you told your mother? Have you told Travis Tygart?” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/sports/how-armstrongs-wall-fell-one-rider-at-a-time.html?ref=sports&_r=0

[jsr]

1. But but they all did it too

[unblock]

2. no no no lance the miracle man honestly beat all the people who cheated to come in 2nd and 3rd!

[wilt the stilt]

3. Everyone from Pantini to Ulrich

did steroids. Cycling has been doing it forever and to single out Armstrong is ridiculous.

[marmar]

4. Cycling's biggest star and poster boy......

...... who had been endowed by a fawning press and adoring public with angelic qualities, is going to get a lot of attention when that illusion is shattered. I don't think he's been singled out -- Floyd Landis et all had been discovered long ago. But when the biggest (by far) star in the sport, who had vehemently maintained his innocence, is uncovered as a fraud, this kind of attention is to be expected.