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Cycling , Suffering and The Floyd Landis Interview
By spokesman | February 2, 2011
Professional cycling, especially the multi-day stage races, is one of the most difficult sports for athletes. Sam Abt, the great sports journalist, wrote “Suffering is what professional cycling is all about, and champions suffer the longest.”
Paul Kimmage, the ex-professional racer turned journalist, interviewed Floyd Landis for seven hours in November and wrote an article for the London Sunday Times that was published last Sunday. The complete transcript of the seven hour interview was posted by NYVelocity.com.
Talk about suffering. There are very few people that are worth listening to for seven hours and Landis is not one of them. Since he was caught doping and stripped of his Tour De France title, Landis went from proclaiming his innocence and criticizing the validity of testing programs to making accusations about everyone in cycling. He has no credibility.
Paul Kimmage is a serious journalist that cares very much about cycling. I believe that he would like to get to the truth behind the numerous high profile doping cases and allegations. He is the author of the book Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel With a Pro Cyclist
However, talking to Floyd Landis can’t shed any light on doping in the sport. All the Kimmage interview did was give Landis the chance to rage against the sport and cast allegations against a new set of people. Since the interview, there have been a series of statements by people contradicting Landis’ newest version of the “truth”.
After Landis was caught, he proclaimed his innocence and wrote a book entitled “Positively False: The Real Story Of How I Won The Tour de France”. He claimed he never doped. In the Kimmage interview, Landis complains that all of the money from the book went to pay for legal bills. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? I don’t. Maybe all of these new allegations and interviews is his attempt to get a publishing contract for another book. Ironically, he can use the same title again.
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Topics: Professional Racing |
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