WADA do about Bjarne Riis???

Hello Bjarne!

I want to thank you, Bjarne Riis.

I want to share the burden you've made part of the public discussion about doping in the World's Greatest Sport: cycling.

I want to let you know, that there is nothing to me that would equal what you've done. (Photo credit: www.hiboox.com, edited by ZENmud)

You, who have felt the innocent desire that pushed you, adolescent, towards being the best athlete you could be. You, who began his career long before Lance or Floyd, you said this last Friday:

"I don't want the mistakes of my personal past to stand in the way of the work we are doing today. I did what it took to compete at the highest level back then, and it's a deep satisfaction for me that those days are long gone and the sport has moved in the right direction. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be here today."

I have long stressed the hypocrisy in a sporting world (that is ALL sports, which merit TV contracts, equipment sponsors and lucrative media interactions) that demands so much from its competitors: that hypocrisy, is that we want to 'believe' that you, 'they' are clean... and we demand this, to the point of ignoring the signals.

Bjarne, I believe your statements are cathartic.

I believe you have done the right thing. Whether a flood of confessions would follow is up to the KARMA of the other riders of your days. And those riders still, from epochs prior or post-Riis; will they contribute to this soul-cleansing?

Further, are we going to hear from the Futball stars, the hockey stars, the American-sports stars (football? Basketball? Field and track?), the Tennis world?

The worst thing that will come of this, Bjarne, is if your 'accomplishment' is not used to render positive the current, globally supported push for a clean, dope-free sporting world.

As you said:

"It's possible that I'm not a hero anymore," he said. "I'm sorry if I've disappointed people. And for those for whom I was a hero, I'm sorry. They'll have to find new heroes now."

You are more my hero now, than in these last years of 'did he/didn't he' debates! After all, look at those who followed you: Ullrich, Jan (same team, same suspicions for the rider from the former EAST Germany); Virenque, Richard (FESTINA team leader; confessed after two years of insinuations and denials: need we say more?); Dufaux, Laurent (Also FESTINA, but confessed nearly instantaneously (in itself a good, courageous confession)

That could be perverted, if the Christian Prudhomme's of the world attack your confession, if your 'mea culpa' is used as cannon-fodder to offer, disingenuously, 'proof' that the powers-that-be (DICK POUND, this means YOU; Travis Taggart, this means YOU) are themselves the source of the solution.

After all, Prudhomme's actions since taking over the Tour from preceding Director Jean-Marie LeBlanc have not produced a cleaner tour. One who never suffered on his own cycle, Prudhomme dances to the tune his paycheck offers...

Bjarne, let us think and be reasonable:
what could be worse, than having someone else who MIGHT confess, see what happens to you, and then decides for him or herself, against a similar cathartic moment of truth?

The World loses, and the world of SPORT would be the lesser.

You will sleep better and we, your fans, will also sleep better, in finding new hopes through the lessened hypocrisy of these times -

When the PAST generations tell the PRESENT athletes, as you have now done:

"We were wrong to win as we did, and we were wrong to insist that you speak the truth now, to incur this wrath that you haven't earned alone ..."

Then the FUTURE can be awash in heroic sporting accomplishments again.

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

WADA do about L'EQUIPE?? BOYCOTT!!!

ZENfriends:

There comes a time when the people of a country must rise against the oppression...

Doesn't sound like we're talking about a Sports-newspaper? Well, in France the tradition to take to the streets is omnipresent, and with the latest scandal-ridden spew published by L'Equipe, the French journal that was the original sponsoring paper behind the Tour de France, the farce continues...

Floyd Landis, valiant and memorable victor of the 2006 Tour de France, has been spared no pain in the on-going witch-hunt produced by the following listed entities:

LNDD: the French Laboratoire nationale du dépistage du dopage;

WADA: the World Anti-Doping Agency;

USADA: the United States Anti-Doping Agency;

L'EQUIPE: French sporting journal.

My various in-depth articles have described in depth how each of these agents has individually failed to officiate over any process of drug-testing, based on what is happening to Floyd Landis.

See:

Part One: WADA do about Floyd???

Part Two: WADA do about Floyd???

Part Three: WADA do about Floyd???

As well as these other subsequent, sequentially-listed articles:

FLOYD GOES FREE under the Pound Doctrine (March 7, 2007)

How not to Laugh with Floyd... Landis (March 8, 2007)

WADA do about WADA? (March 21, 2007)

WADA do about the (Landis) Chain of Evidence? (March 21, 2007)

Pound's new CRUSADE against justice in SPORT (March 22, 2007)

WADA do about Strict Liability... (April 5, 2007)

WADA do about USADA??? (April 13, 2007)


WADA has failed, the LNDD has failed, and the USADA also has; in its quest for success, the US taxpayer-financed Organization, has failed to protect the rights of a falsely-accused (so this legally-trained author believes) cyclist/athlete.

The ongoing case, slated for a hearing in two weeks, on May 14th, took a bizarre twist with the request by USADA for further 'B Sample' testing of remaining Landis urine samples, using IRMS technology designed to discern exogenous testosterone.
(Jacques de Ceaurriz, director of LNDD, Jean-François Lamour, and Colette Besson, president of CA; photo from French Gov't)

Any OBJECTIVE person may think, that with a Laboratory under the gun for past ... well 'shoddy' is the most scientific term I can think of... past shoddy work, with numerous errors at hand, well: that the USADA would have a compromise venue, another laboratory possessing a reputation of total integrity, to perform these 'longitudinal' studies, which could serve to allow a graphic display of Landis' naturally fluctuating Testosterone levels.

Didn't happen that way.

OH! Did I forget to mention, that the French l'Equipe has leaked each very prominent rider's result produced by LNDD? In every case presented to the Lab, in contravention (as to the Lab) of a WADA 'Code of Conduct', which places the strictest confidence on the Lab?

Here's what Netherlands attorney Emile Vrijman said about L'Equipe, writing about its collusion in the Lance Armstrong fiasco of 2005:

The investigator does not know how the research reports of the LNDD came into the possession of Mr. Ressiot, the journalist of L’Equipe. These reports however, must have been provided either by the LNDD, the Ministry or WADA, as WADA and the Ministry had received copies of reports drafted and sent by the LNDD. The investigator regrets the lack of cooperation of these three bodies. It is clear that only a thorough investigation within each of them might find the answer to this important question, that affects the confidence that athletes, ADO’s and the public are entitled to have in these bodies. (UCI Vrijman report, p.121: para 5.1)

So when l'Equipe published Monday (in FR), its most recent leak on the Landis case, its article was totally slanted towards erasing the memory of Landis' (as well as Lance Armstrong's) accusations of malfeasance:

"Floyd Landis, qui s'est évertué depuis plusieurs mois à décrédibiliser le laboratoire français, aura bien du mal, cette fois-ci, à user de cet argument : les nouvelles analyses, effectuées la semaine dernière et clôturées ce week-end, ont été réalisées en présence de deux experts désignés par le coureur américain, et de deux représentants de l'USADA."

[Floyd Landis, who has for several months lost all virtue in trying to discredit the LNDD, will have some illness, this time, to use the same argument again: these new analyses, which took place last week and finalized this last weekend, were undertaken in the presence of two experts designated by the American racer, and two representatives of the USADA.]

The article claimed that Landis' experts, as called-for in the WADA and USADA regulations, were to be allowed full and complete access to all aspects of the testing...

That is not what Floyd's named experts are claiming.

IF
... the world depends on one journalistic, European voice, for the source of the most important information from the world of cycling, that source IS the French l'Equipe;

IF
... the voice of that paper, its authority, its staff, is rank with the festering wounds of losing circulation, odoriferous with the pus of leaks, incapable of registering right from wrong, whether by potentially paying for information or providing a government sponsored and sanctioned violation of the WADA CODE and the ISL Code of Ethics;

IF
... the accusing French laboratoire in which Floyd Landis has been 'found abnormal in ratio of Testosterone to Epitestosterone', has failed in prior occasions to uphold standards, the failure of which is potentially a violation;


Then the boycott of l'Equipe should be organized, its reporter Ressiot should be dismissed, as a call to the sensibilizing of the sport to the science that is not as far into the cutting-edge as certain Pounds, or de Ceaurriz' (Director of the LNDD) might have indicated.

And the implementation of the investigation that would decide on a sudden, necessary dis-accreditation of the French LNDD lab should be initiated by WADA, as requested already by two Olympic Federations, the President of the ASOIF, and the President, IOC Athletes Commission, whose letter was a forceful but neglected request to WADA to rectify the errors of LNDD.

Please consider:

Ending Floyd's career is only justifiable if he was doping.

Ending the careers of reporters who buy or repeatedly acquire leaked confidential (think of YOUR doctor's records?!!) information, and their associated 'Confidential info Dealers/Leakers located variously in French governmental divisions, or in world-renowned Intergovernmental or international non-governmental organizations (WADA, USADA or UCI), is a much more noble goal.

Ending ambiguity, as seen in many articles of WADA's several controlling documents, is also the worthiest task ahead, for parties that represent the falsely, or 'inacurately' accused,such as the Alan Baxters of the world, or Floyd Landis.


When the Police need to be policed by those who are 'protected', then the wobbling imbalance may be too gone, too radically far to re-direct.

WADA already has signs of Roid-rage and overexertion, as directed now by Dick Pound, and (if rumours are true) to be directed by the French Minister of Sport Jean-François Lamour after November 2007.

Due to its haste to install itself as the top-pissing wolf in the Sports Forest... its future is now cast in doubt, as Machiavellian aspects, similar to the Bush-invasion of Iraq, now are riding Floyd Landis into a clear contest of evidence, of will and political support.

Floyd needs your objective and clear opinions.


COURAGE, Floyd - Champion of the Tour de France 2006

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç