This is what the ninth circle of hell is like

Mr. Landis said that Mr. Armstrong’s longtime coach, Johan Bruyneel, introduced Mr. Landis to the use of steroid patches, blood doping and human growth hormone in 2002 and 2003, his first two years on the U.S. Postal Service team. He alleged Mr. Armstrong helped him understand the way the drugs worked. “He and I had lengthy discussions about it on our training rides during which time he also explained to me the evolution of EPO testing and how transfusions were now necessary due to the inconvenience of the new test,” Mr. Landis claimed in the email. He claimed he was instructed by Mr. Bruyneel how to use synthetic EPO and steroids and how to carry out blood transfusions that doping officials wouldn’t be able to detect. –WSJ.com

Lance had been in the steroid conversations a couple of years ago, but has managed to keep his reputation in tact. Well, as much as he could after banging Sheryl Crow. Read the rest of this entry »

Have I got a deal for you: four for the price of one this week!  Who would've thunk it?  First, Ivan Basso may not be cycling competitively for a while:

Defending Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso should be banned from cycling for 21 months because of his involvement in the Spanish doping scandal, Italian Olympic Committee prosecutors recommended Friday.

Can you blame Italians for applying Machiavelli's tenets to their athletic pursuits?  Next, an American enters stage right:

American cyclist Joe Papp, who was one of the US Anti-Doping Agency's key witnesses in the Floyd Landis case, has been slapped with a two-year suspension.

I assume this guy's playground moniker was "Smear".  Then we have a massage therapist stating he administered an EPO injection (hopefully not like this) to 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich:

"Only once in France, I administered the shot. I injected it into his arm, it lasted about 10 seconds — like giving insulin to a diabetic patient."

Hmm, maybe I'll tell the ladies I'm a diabetic to account for my quick (but ever so thorough) performance.  Finally, Danish cyclist Bjarne Riis admitted to doping during his 1996 Tour de France win:

"I have taken doping. I have taken EPO," Riis said at a televised news conference. "I have made errors and I would like to apologize."

So that makes 3 of the last 4 Tour winners cheaters unless the Floydster and Ullrich are exonerated.  It's possible they didn't do it.  It's as possible as a sport where hemoglobin addicts race an antiquated conveyance capturing the hearts of the world. -KD

Okay.  Where to begin here?  We all know Floyd Landis won the Tour de France but tested positive for doping, yes?  Good.  Well, Landis has been going through an arbitration / hearing held by the USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) following the positive test of his Tour de France "B" sample, and former 3-time Tour champion Greg LeMond arrived to testify against Landis.  The two had previously been close enough to share secrets: Landis admitted to LeMond that he doped, and LeMond told Landis that he had been sexually abused by his uncle as a child.  Ugh.  Why is it always an uncle?

From this web came yesterday's bombshell: Landis's manager called up LeMond the night before he testified, claiming to be LeMond's uncle, and threatened him, telling him that if he testified against Landis his secret would come out in the open.  The manager's words: "Greg, this is your uncle and I'm going to be there tomorrow. I'm going to be there and we can talk about how we used to hide your weenie."

First: gross.  Second — and I cannot stress this enough — "Hide the weenie" is not a game to be played with relatives. 

Anyway, Steroid Nation has been all over the biggest drama in sports since the first season of The O.C., when Ryan went out for the soccer team as a striker, the same exact position as Luke!  It was all fun and games until Kirsten's model home got burned down.  But the most in-depth read in the bloggerhood, if you have the time, is Nathan Fowler's long-form narrative at the FanHaus.  It details the whole backstabbing, bitchy history of American cycling in the doping era, which makes it a much longer-running drama than The O.C.  All it's missing, really, is Rachel Bilson.  But that's my solution for everything. "You know what we need to stop global warming?  More Bilson, that's what."