Malibu, Calif. – Though he is convinced his reputation is ruined, Floyd Landis still had to give it his best shot.
He took the witness stand at his arbitration hearing Saturday for his much-awaited testimony and found 50 different ways to say he didn’t cheat.
“It’s a matter of who I am,” last year’s Tour de France champion said. “It wouldn’t serve any purpose for me to cheat and win the Tour, because I wouldn’t be proud of it. That wasn’t the goal to begin with.”
Landis spoke clearly and kept on point during a 75-minute dissection of his career, which was thrown wildly off track when he tested positive during his Tour de France victory last year.
It was a well-calibrated presentation, and he hopes it will establish his innocence and keep his victory intact.
He conceded that maybe the real damage already has been done – a reputation ruined for good.
“It will be forever connected to me,” he said. “I can’t imagine how that would change.”
Landis outlined the strategy he used for his riveting comeback in Stage 17 of last year’s Tour – a plan he said had nothing to do with the synthetic testosterone he is accused of using, but one that was hatched over dinner and whiskey the night before.
“It helps with the tactical plan,” Landis said, drawing laughs.
Speaking under oath, he said the only banned substance he has taken during his career has been cortisone – medicine he used to treat his injured hip, which had been approved for his use by cycling authorities.
He also spoke about allegations Greg LeMond made two days earlier, acknowledging he was in the room when his former manager, Will Geoghegan, made the call to LeMond threatening to reveal the three-time Tour champion’s secret that he had been sexually abused as a child.
“I knew there was a problem,” Landis said of his reaction upon realizing Geoghegan had made the call. “I was traumatized having him tell me that story in the first place. There are very few things I can imagine would happen to a person that are worse than that. To make light of that, I can’t even put words to it.”
Landis spoke in a conversational, matter-of-fact tone, never raising his voice or breaking down. His parents and wife, Amber, watched from behind the defense table.
At the end, attorney Howard Jacobs asked him why the three arbitrators who will decide his fate – whether he becomes the first Tour winner stripped of the title for a doping offense – should believe him.
“They should believe me because people are defined by their principles and how they make their decisions,” Landis said. “It’s a matter of who I am.”
