http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100520/sp_nm/us_cycling_landis;_ylt=Au8jqDxjxNWiKE8Wx6oX6WpnhVID;_ylu=X3oDMTM2bGp1ZThjBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTAwNTIwL3VzX2N5Y2xpbmdfbGFuZGlzBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2xhbmRpc2FkbWl0cw--

By Julian Linden – 44 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has confessed to using performance enhancing drugs and accused some of the biggest names in the sport, including Lance Armstrong, of also cheating.

Landis, who was stripped of his win the 2006 Tour de France after failing a doping test, had always protested his innocence but said he had finally decided to come clean.

"I want to clear my conscience," Landis told ESPN on Thursday after making his confession in a series of emails.

"I don't want to be part of the problem anymore."

In the emails, which Reuters has seen and Landis said were also distributed to USA Cycling and the International Cycling Union (UCI), the American provided implicit details of a variety of drugs he had used during his career and who supplied them to him.

He said he witnessed a number of other top riders also using performance enhancing drugs, including his former team mate Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the Tour de France.

Armstrong has never failed a doping test and has always maintained his innocence despite years of accusations.

COVERING UP

He was not immediately available for comment but was expected to face the media after Thursday's fifth stage of the Tour of California.

Anti-doping officials said they would investigate Landis' accusations.

"We are very interested in learning more about this matter and we will liaise with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and any other authority with appropriate jurisdiction to get to the heart of the issues raised," World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president John Fahey said in a statement.

In his emails, Landis accused UCI officials of covering up an alleged positive test from Armstrong.

UCI president Pat McQuaid responded by questioning Landis's credibility.

"After going through two or three court cases denying everything, the question is what credibility does he have?" McQuaid told Reuters.

Landis was stripped of his win in the world's most famous race after returning an abnormal testosterone/epitestosterone ratio.

He denied any wrongdoing and fought a long legal case, which he eventually lost, and was banned for two years.

When his suspension ended last year, he hinted at making a return to the Tour de France in 2010 but in February a French judge issued an arrest warrant against him for suspected hacking into an anti-doping laboratory computer.

French anti-doping agency head Pierre Bordry told Reuters the judge, Thomas Cassuto, believed Landis wanted to prove the laboratory where his samples were tested was wrong.

(Additional reporting by Julien Pretot in Paris, Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles and Gene Cherry in Raleigh; Editing by Jon Bramley)

I never ever doubted that Floyd Landis used performance enhancing drugs. It's just too bad that it took him so long to come clean. However I do believe his claim that many other top riders are also "doping". And I also believe that this drug use by top riders is being covered up from within the "sport". It is shame that this is being allowed to continue. It puts a large black cloud over the sport and greatly diminishes the reputation of one the oldest and (formally) most prestigious sporting events in the world the "Tour De France".(And calls the results of all previous races into question) This is the largest (and saddest) scandal in sport.

Just goes to show that none of these sports and its players are immune to "performance enhancing" drugs. What a shame. :mad:

Just goes to show that none of these sports and its players are immune to "performance enhancing" drugs. What a shame. :mad:
I know. Now whenever I see an athlete do well I don't know whether to admire them or suspect them of doping? It's a shame that it's come to that and I hate that I think that way but I guess that's the world we live in. :rolleyes: :mad:

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-sns-ap-cyc-landis-armstrong-reaction,0,5315835.story

TIM REYNOLDS AP Sports Writer
7:14 PM EDT, May 21, 2010

Floyd Landis ignored desperate pleas from his sponsor to avoid a public fight with Lance Armstrong, according to e-mails the seven-time Tour de France champion released in trying to prove the disgraced cyclist has "zero credibility."

Armstrong released the messages Friday in a second day of attacks on Landis, who accused cycling's biggest star of doping, teaching other riders to cheat and paying off a top cycling official after allegedly testing positive in 2002.

Armstrong has denied those allegations.

"Even a superficial review reveals a troubling, angry and misplaced effort at retribution by Landis for his perceived slights," said a statement posted on Armstrong's RadioShack team website. "While these types of repeated, tired and baseless accusations against Lance have been proven false in the past, it is quite regrettable, but telling, that so many in cycling are now attacked."

Landis did not respond to an e-mail from The Associated Press. His longtime sponsor, Dr. Brent Kay, also did not return a request for comment.

Perhaps the most telling exchange was a long e-mail from Kay, a cycling enthusiast and one of Landis' most ardent supporters, financially and otherwise. Kay has steadfastly said he believes Landis wasn't guilty of doping when he won cycling's most famous race in 2006.

Kay, while reaffirming to Landis that he would support him no matter what, asked him to call a truce with Armstrong and suggested he ride on the star's team.

"If either side does not like this idea just throw this in the trash and be done with it, have the press conference and get it over with. But, once again, I'm asking you to do this for me and my family so we can move on with our lives and leave all the anger, hatred and bitterness behind," Kay wrote in an April 28 e-mail to Landis that he forwarded to Armstrong on May 3.

Less than a month later, Landis went public with his e-mails, not only targeting Armstrong but Tour of California officials, too, for not inviting his team to participate in the race.

"I certainly understand that my revealing that Lance Armstrong has relied on blood doping, EPO, and anabolics to win the three Tours de France in which I helped him will jeopardize your substantial investment in facilitating his appearance so from a business point of view I understand fully," Landis wrote to Andrew Messick, the race director.

In his e-mail response, Messick said the accusation did not dignify a response, and reminded Landis that the California race welcomed him in 2009. Messick said he didn't believe Landis' current team could handle the challenge of an 800-mile stage race.

Kay also appealed to Messick about adding Landis' team to this year's Tour of California. And he reached out to Armstrong several times, asking him to take bike rides together and even offering the use of his homes around the Temecula, Calif., area.

He even told Landis that teaming up with Armstrong could work wonders for him financially.

"It's a simple straightforward idea and, if anything, selfish on my part," Kay wrote. "I want all these things to happen, I want you happy, I want Lance happy, I want cycling happy, I want to continue the fight against doping in sports, I want my kids to get the pleasure of seeing you and Lance together."

Instead, the divide between Landis and Armstrong only got wider.

Among the allegations Landis made in e-mails: he and Armstrong discussed using the blood-boosting EPO; he was asked to monitor the temperature of blood kept in a refrigerator inside Armstrong's apartment in the pro-cycling hotbed of Girona, Spain, for use in transfusions; many other elite American riders, including Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie and Dave Zabriskie, were involved, as were USA Cycling officials.

"Armstrong's response to Landis was identical to the responses to the same type of threatening text messages received from Landis two years ago — there would be no consideration, money, team positions or anything else given in exchange for not airing false accusations," RadioShack's statement said.

"Getting no satisfaction and not receiving a position on the RadioShack team, Landis then carried through with his threat and provided the press with his false allegations. The public has taken them for what they are worth — absolutely nothing."