A Cheater Or A Helper?

When I was writing for a local newspaper, I talked to police officers as well as their commanders.  One of the brass I saw regularly was, as it turned out, very well-read.  He told me his favorite novel was Les Miserables.

"It poses a question that we, in law enforcement, always deal with."  That question, he said, is this:  "Is redemption possible?"

Was Jean Valjean the thief and escaped convict Inspector Javert pursues from one end of France to another?  Or was he the industrious benefactor and kindly benefactor of Montreuil-sur-Mer who had to be coaxed into accepting its mayoralty but still declined the king's offer to make him a chevalier in the Legion d'honneur? 

There's a parallel, I think, in Floyd Landis' story.  He was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory after failing drug tests. Later, he was involved in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit against Lance Armstrong.  It was settled this past spring, and he is scheduled to receive about $1 million.

So, is he going to ride off into the sunset?  Or is he going to fund his business? (More about that later.)

No, he plans to fund his Floyd's of Leadville Pro Cycling Team with one of his former teammates, Gord Fraser.  He is seeking a UCI Pro Continental license for the team, which will be based in Canada.

His motivation, he explains, is that he likes the sport.  Referring to what he and his fellow riders did, he explains that it is "part of the reason" the bicycle racing "is at a low point now."  Though he "can't fix what happened in the past", he says, he wants "to help."

"I understand I hurt the cycling community," he admits.

He believes that starting a team is the thing to do because "teams are going away."  He was referring, no doubt, to the recent dissolution of two longtime US teams, Jelly Belly-Maxxis and UnitedHealthcare. 

Floyd's of Leadville is, as you've probably guessed, his business, based in the Colorado town where he lives. It offers soft gels, tinctures and creams for pain relief.  The common ingredient in all of them is...cannabis.

As you probably know by now, Colorado was one of the first US states to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes.  But, in most other states--and in the eyes of the Federal government-- it's still not legal for medical or recreational purposes. 

The irony of being a pot purveyor (well, all right, it's not quite as simple as that) doesn't seem to be lost on Landis.  His website points out that his business was borne of a "crossroads" when he realized he could no longer depend on opiods to relieve his pain.

So...Is Floyd the guy who tried to claim that the unusually high levels of testosterone found in his blood were "natural"?  Or the guy who helped to bring down a team and a generation of riders?  Or the man who, apparently, is trying to rebuild a sport--to be a benefactor, if you will?

And should we see him as someone who used some substances to gain an unfair advantage--or one who will use others to help young riders win, and more important, ride, in ways he never did?

What Do They Need To Believe?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I believe that the first major work of American fiction in the new millennium was The 9/11 Commission Report.

If that is the case, then the last major work of American fiction of the previous century may well be It's Not About The Bike.  And another major work of American fiction from this millenium may well be Positively False.

Matt Hart did not echo my opinion about The 9/11 Commission Report in his Atlantic Monthly article last month. He did, however, say that INATB and PF are narratives that "now read more like fiction" than the autobiographical narratives they purported to be.

Now, I'll make a confession:  I was a Lance fanboy/fangirl (I underwent my transition during the time Lance was racing.) almost until the time Oprah interviewed him.  At least, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because--call me naive--I still adhere to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."  Though the rumors echoed everywhere (or so it seemed), he had not failed any drug tests--or, if he did, the results hadn't been made public.

I started to entertain doubts about him a couple months before the interview, when the US Anti-Doping Agency released its report. Even then, I took the stories about Lance's doping with a grain of salt because many of the accusations came from his rivals, including Tyler Hamilton and, yes, Landis.  

Armstrong and Landis in the 2004 Tour de France.

Reading Hart's article didn't change my opinion about any of those riders, the USADA's report or the whole sad story.  If anything, it re-enforced something I already believed:  that Tour de France, UCI and other officials looked the other way while those riders were doping, much as Major League Baseball did when bulked-up players like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds shattered home run records.  

In 1998, MLB was in a very similar position to that of professional bicycle racing:  Both were trying to recover from public relations fiascos.   The Festina team was expelled from the Tour de France that July for doping and the team's soigneur was arrested as he re-entered France from Belgium.  People were understandably upset and angry:  They felt betrayed by athletes they, if not idolized, then at least admired.

For the previous few years, US baseball fans felt betrayed, but for a different reason:  the players went on strike in August of 1994, cutting the season short by nearly two months.  Worst of all, in fans' eyes, there was no World Series that year for the first time in nearly a century.  The strike continued long enough to delay the 1995 season opening.  When play resumed, resentful fans stayed away through the rest of that season, and the two that followed.

So, MLB and the UCI were faced with a similar problem:  bringing the fans back.  That is why I believe both organizations did nothing while McGwire, Armstrong and others were "juicing".  McGwire's epic season, in which he and Sammy Sosa battled to become baseball's new home-run king, generated excitement and brought fans back to the park.  The following year, the story of Lance rising from his deathbed to the peaks of hors de categorie climbs in the Tours piqued interest in old and new cycling fans, especially in the US.  Skeptics--especially those in France--were seen as resentful curmudgeons who simply couldn't accept a brash American winning the Tour.

Although Hart paints Landis more sympathetically than he does Armstrong, it's clear from the articles that there are no heroes in the whole sordid saga of professional bicycle racing in the past two decades. 

It's been said that we tell the stories we need to believe--or have others believe. (Every nation in history has done this.)  Perhaps the sport, and others, will find another compelling story to get people interested again.  Then, if that story--like Lance's--is revealed to be that of a cheat and liar, or simply a fiction, some fans will walk away but those who remain simply won't trust the athletes or sport as they once did.  Thus, it remains to be seen whether those sports and leagues* will ever emerge from the cloud of suspicion that shrouds them. 

*--As bad as the UCI is, it can be argued that FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and other sports authorities are even more corrupt.