Floyd Landis continues to have his name surface in cycling media, and it is doubtful that will change any time soon.  Ever since he leveled his original allegations at several American pro cyclists, he has garnered nearly as much media coverage off of the bike as he did on the bike.  Whistle blower to some, crack pot to others, and witness for the federal government – Landis will continue to be central in the world of doping investigations for the foreseeable future.  In that environment, it is no surprise at all that he would have representatives – legal and otherwise – working for him.

But this is Floyd we’re talking about here, and things are often not what they seem.

Enter Grey Manrod Associates:

Grey Manrod Associates dynamic Power-of-Attorney professionals deliver innovative solutions to the challenges encountered by some of the world’s most important people and Fortune 2000 companies.

In fact, reported communications between Floyd Landis and UCI officials have involved members of Grey Manrod Associates:

From: [email protected]
Subject: Thoughts
Date: February 18, 2011 12:41:06 AM EST
To: [email protected], Rolf Ditesheim, [email protected], [email protected]
Cc: floyd landis

Dear Sirs,

I’m finally back in my NY office and able to access my corporate email account so I’ll take this opportunity to let you know that I represent Mr. Landis in the matter referenced in your recent emails received by him. I hope we can establish a relationship in order to bring this matter to a swift conclusion.

In the interim, while I await your response to my earlier emails I’d like to hear your thoughts on this article: http://road.cc/content/news/31…ry-him-texan-retires

As I suggested before, please let me know which part of Mr. Landis’ statements were untrue and provide evidence to support your assertion.

Also my colleagues at the firm will be corresponding with you on this matter as you’ll see by our website greymanrod.com that I am very busy dealing with fortune 500 companies and don’t have too much time to take on this matter. Please expect to hear from them as well.

Chade O. Grey

Are your red flags at full mast now? A lawyer named Chade O. Grey would be hysterically funny.  One that worked with Richard T Manrod – well, that defies belief.  And the fact that Grey Manrod Associates has a rather odd collection of “specialties” further adds to the confusion:

Areas of Focus inclde:

– Airspace Dispute Resolution
– Tribal Diplomacy, Bargaining and Agreements
– Vegetable Rights Abuse Advocacy
– Pronunciation Mediation
– Power-of-Attorney Solutions

Yup – the whole thing is a farce folks.  A ruse created by Floyd Landis (and apparently others) to add even more misinformation and obfuscation to this whole mess.  A recent posting to Outside magazine’s website actually goes into a lot more detail on this whole thing – and possibly sheds some light on Floyd’s motivations.

Some will argue that many of the points and details that Landis has communicated through this ruse are worthy of note.  That may very well be true.  However, what is most apparent to me is that Floyd Landis may have actually missed his calling when he started racing bikes.  Some of the stuff is pretty damned funny.  Maybe instead Floyd should have gotten into Comedy.  At least in Comedy “doping” won’t get you kicked out of your profession.  In fact, it may make you more popular.

Floyd Landis, in what should have been a completely expected move, has chimed in on the Alberto Contador Clenbuterol issue.  Not only has he expressed his doubts about Contador’s explanation of the failed test, he has taken the opportunity to again point the finger to the UCI, reiterating his claims of wide-spread cover-ups.  Speaking to German television, he stated:

In the peloton, everyone knows that Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen and other UCI officials have protected some riders, and not others, for the past 20 years.  It was manipulation, and their way of creating stars.

I still can’t decide – is Landis a press-hungry moron out to cause terminal, or is he becoming to doping what Kevin Mitnick became to computer crimes?  No matter what evidence may come to light, I suspect the answer to that will always be a mostly personal – and emotional – one.

According to an article posted at Wall Street Journal online, Floyd Landis has engaged “in hours of interviews with The Wall Street Journal in May.”  This article is apparently a distilled transcript of those interviews with little to no commentary on any other points of view aside from a couple “no comment” or “I deny everything” quotes.  To be fair to the Wall Street Journal, however, those accused in Landis’s statements have been fairly tight lipped on the issue by choice.

I’ve approached this issue with some skepticism since it first broke.  I’ll agree with other statements that have been made that the credibility of Floyd Landis is somewhat in question.  However, I’m neither a Texas flag waving Armstrongian, nor a Texas flag burning anti-Armstrongian.  While I would find it very disappointing, I concede the possibility that Lance Armstrong may have a couple of bags of blood hanging in his closet next to whatever skeleton may also be there.  It was with this open mindset that I was actually looking forward to reading this article – hoping journalistic impartiality would prevail at the WSJ and I could get some compelling information.

Instead, I got hundreds of words of direct quotes from Floyd Landis, followed by this gem:

One evening during the camp, a handful of team members piled into a black Chevrolet Suburban for a night on the town, with Mr. Armstrong serving as the master of ceremonies.

Mr. Landis had met Mr. Armstrong briefly in the past, but most of what he knew about the world’s most famous cyclist was what he’d read in Mr. Armstrong’s 2000 memoir, “It’s Not About the Bike.” Mr. Landis had devoured the book, in which Mr. Armstrong chronicled his comeback from testicular cancer and portrayed himself as a modest and devoted family man.

Mr. Armstrong took the wheel of the Suburban and roared off through the streets. Stop signs didn’t rate more than a tap of the brake, Mr. Landis said. Some traffic signals were wholly ignored and speed limits went unheeded. In the middle of the trip, Mr. Landis said, another rider asked, jokingly, “Are there no cops in this town?”

The journey ended at the Yellow Rose, a strip club on the north side of town. Don King, the club’s general manager, said Mr. Armstrong and other cyclists on his teams have been coming to the club for about a decade. The riders were ushered into a booth. They ordered drinks and mingled with the dancers.

Later that night, some of the cyclists drove downtown to the offices of the agency that represents Mr. Armstrong. There, the party accelerated, according to Mr. Landis. Four strippers arrived at the offices with two bouncers and began performing a private show for the cyclists and others, he said. Mr. Landis and another young rider who attended, Walker Ferguson, said some people were snorting what appeared to be cocaine.

It is right here that any hope of honest journalism faded.  Notice it is no longer clear in the article that these allegations are the unsubstantiated words of Floyd Landis.  Instead, reporters Rhaveeed Albergotti And Vanessa O’Connell have shifted to present Landis’s claims as fact.  It was at this point my opinion started to shift towards one side of this debate.  Given that parties, strippers and cocaine actually have nothing to do with doping in pro cycling, this started to take on the odor of a smear campaign from a disgruntled Floyd Landis as some have claimed.  And of the Wall Street Journal realizing the sensational nature of those claims and throwing journalistic due diligence out the window in favor of sensational words.  Shameful.

All of this being said, there is definitely a part of me left with a nagging soundtrack of Perl Jam’s song “Jeremy” ringing in my head as I mull all this over.  “Floyd Landis spoke in… class today.“

There are probably few that would argue against the statement that Floyd Landis is tenacious.    No amount of controversy will seem to keep this guy out of bike races (although it has kept him out of a few teams) – and the recent media swarm is no exception.

True to form, Mr. Landis showed up in the Nevada City Classic.  Joe Lindsey had this to say in the Odds and Ends section of the June 21st Boulder Report:

-Way far away over there on the West Coast, Floyd Landis suited up for the Nevada City Classic. He got fifth [correction] fourth, racing as an independent and wearing – you choose whether it’s irony or not – an “Arrogant Bastard Ale” jersey. [sic]

It is with both frustration and great satisfaction that I watch the madness unleashed by Floyd Landis’s accusations of doping.  Despite my previous post to the contrary, I do in fact have opinions on this issue.

The frustrating/satisfying part for me, however, is the sheer number of investigations that have started as a result of his allegations.  I find it frustrating that the major headlines on cycling are again broadcasting to the mainstream audiences the idea that cycling is a drug-riddled sport.  However, it is satisfying to see the ghusto with which the cycling governing bodies are moving to address the accusations – to either confirm or deny the claims being made.  As stated in a VeloNews.com posting:

For Armstrong the U.S. anti-doping agency (USADA) has been mandated to carry out a probe while McQuaid has also asked the Belgian federation to probe the claims concerning Bruyneel.

The federations of Australia, Canada and France have also been asked to investigate after Landis’ claims respectively implicated professional Matthew White, Michael Barry and John Lelangue, Landis’s former manager at the Phonak team, who now manages the BMC team.

Read more: http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/05/news/pat-mcquaid-says-lance-armstrong-donation-was-no-conflict-in-interest-promises-investigation-into-landis-claims_118503?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=VN#ixzz0oxGQ9y46

That’s a whole lotta organizations, doing a whole lotta investigation, all without the impetus of a single positive test taken from a rider at this time.  If this doesn’t show that the cycling world is serious about stamping out PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) than I’m not sure what will.