Updated: May 20, 2010, 4:51 AM ET
Landis comes clean on PED use
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By Bonnie D. Ford
ESPN.com
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Nearly four years after he began waging a costly, draining and
ultimately losing battle to discredit his positive test for synthetic
testosterone at the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis told ESPN.com on
Wednesday that he used performance-enhancing drugs for most of his
career as a professional road cyclist, including for the race whose
title he briefly held.
In a lengthy telephone interview from California, Landis detailed
extensive, consistent use of the red blood cell booster erythropoietin
(commonly known as EPO), testosterone, human growth hormone and
frequent blood transfusions, along with female hormones and a one-time
experiment with insulin, during the years he rode for the U.S. Postal
Service and Switzerland-based Phonak teams.
[+] EnlargeFloyd Landis
Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesFloyd Landis says he used performance-
enhancing drugs for most of his career as a professional road cyclist.
Landis confirmed he sent e-mails to cycling and anti-doping officials
over the past few weeks, implicating dozens of other athletes, team
management and owners and officials of the sport's national and
international governing bodies. ESPN.com is seeking further evidence
and comment from those individuals.
Landis' doping conviction cost him his Tour title, his career, his
life savings and his marriage. He said he knows his credibility is in
tatters and that many people will choose not to believe him now. He
added he has no documentation for many of the claims he is making
about other riders or officials, and that it will be his word against
theirs.
However, Landis said he decided to come forward because he was
suffering psychologically and emotionally from years of deceit, and he
has become a cycling pariah with little to no chance of ever riding
for an elite team again. Prior to speaking with ESPN.com, he said he
made his most difficult phone call -- to his mother in Pennsylvania to
tell her the truth for the first time.
"I want to clear my conscience," Landis said. "I don't want to be part
of the problem anymore.
"With the benefit of hindsight and a somewhat different perspective, I
made some misjudgments. And of course, I can sit here and say all day
long, 'If I could do it again I'd do something different,' but I just
don't have that choice.'"
Landis said he takes full responsibility for having doped and added he
was never forced or threatened.
"I don't feel guilty at all about having doped," Landis told ESPN.com.
"I did what I did because that's what we [cyclists] did and it was a
choice I had to make after 10 years or 12 years of hard work to get
there; and that was a decision I had to make to make the next step. My
choices were, do it and see if I can win, or don't do it and I tell
people I just don't want to do that, and I decided to do it."
According to Landis, his first use of performance-enhancing drugs was
in June 2002, when he was a member of the U.S. Postal Service team.
The World Anti-Doping Agency's statute of limitations for doping
offenses is eight years, and Landis said that, too, is part of his
motivation for divulging his inflammatory information.
"Now we've come to the point where the statute of limitations on the
things I know is going to run out or start to run out next month,"
Landis said. "If I don't say something now, then it's pointless to
ever say it."
Landis, who began his career as a top mountain biker, had kept
detailed training journals since he was a teenager. He said he
continued the same methodical record-keeping once he started using
banned drugs and techniques. Landis said he spent as much as $90,000 a
year on performance-enhancing drugs and on consultants to help him
build a training regime. Landis said he has kept all of his journals
and diaries and has offered to share them with U.S. anti-doping
authorities in recent meetings. He added that he has given officials
detailed information on how athletes are beating drug testing.
As for his own positive test, Landis still maintains the result was
inaccurate and he had not used synthetic testosterone during the 2006
season -- although he now admits he used human growth hormone during
that time. At this point, he does not want to dwell on any of the
issues he and his lawyers hammered at during his case, he said.
"There must be some other explanation, whether it was done wrong or I
don't know what," he said.
"The problem I have with even bothering to argue it is [that] I have
used testosterone in the past and I have used it in other Tours, and
it's going to sound kind of foolish to say I didn't."
Landis exhausted most of his own savings in fighting his case, which
cost an estimated $2 million. He also raised funds for his defense in
a well-publicized effort. He said he would pay those donors back if he
could, but does not have the money. He said he did not level with the
people close to him, but declined to say whether he informed his
lawyers of his past drug use.
Bonnie D. Ford covers tennis and Olympic sports for ESPN.com
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