Fwd: Landis

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jim Ray <jimraycpa@yahoo.com>
Date: Jul 28, 2006 2:59 PM
Subject: Landis
To: fgirardot@gmail.com

Dear Sir -

I am just an overfed, middle aged guy from Detroit who
wants to say thanks for your piece on Mr. Landis in
last weekend's paper and your column in today's paper
too.

I want to believe that Floyd will be cleared of any
wrongdoing and I am sickened that so many in the media
have prematurely passed judgement.  As Gary Wadler of
the WADA has been quoted "It just doesn't add up".

From what I have read, every time this abnormal t/e
situation has occurred in the past it has been
explained away - no one has ever been sanctioned for
it!  So I fully expect Floyd to prevail in good time.
Unfortunately it seems his reputation has already been
damaged and he will be stripped of his TDF victory
before all the facts come out.

The next time you see Floyd please thank him and wish
him well for me.  His ride in stage 17 was an
inspiration!

Sincerely,

Jim Ray

p.s.  you may want to check out this website - http://freefloydlandis.blogspot.com/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Fwd: great story, thanks

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Doug Flynn <dflynn@yumasun.com>
Date: Jul 28, 2006 2:50 PM
Subject: great story, thanks
To: fgirardot@gmail.com

Hey Frank. Landis is no Lance, which is why he may pull through this. Like
you said, he's the people's guy.

This is my first year of bike racing and it's deflating to think you've
worked your tail off and the guy next to you might be cheating. Part of me
loses a desire to compete. Part of me hopes these bust will scare the
bajeebers out of anyone even thinking of doping. I just hate that it has
to come at Landis' expense.

From cyclist to cyclist, I want to hear Floyd say - I didn't do it. I
never have. I never will. Test me anyway you want. Come at night. Come
early in the morning. Test before, after, during - bring it on, I'm clean.
I promise. I would put my hand on a bible and swear to it.

We don't want to hear a script from a lawyer, be the people's guy. The
normal guy who would react that way if they were innocent.

Could you pass that on?

thanks
doug flynn

Second Landis Column

The first knock at the door Thursday morning came sometime around 8:30 a.m.

 

It was a reporter from KTTV Fox 11 -- "Can we talk to you?" He asked my wife. "Oh, and by the way, change out of your pajamas, we are going to film the interview."

 

The breaking story involved Floyd Landis, our next door neighbor. Landis, who was crowned champion of the Tour De France Sunday, had reportedly tested positive for high levels of testosterone following his thrilling ride in Stage 17 of the race just last week.  KFI's Bill Handel and Rich Marrota clued me in to the allegation an hour before as I made my way through the Ortega Highway from Murrieta to Orange County. I meant to call home to give a heads up, but it was too late.

 

"What's Floyd really like?"

"What kind of people hang out at his house?"

"Have you talked to him?"

 

Rosie called me in a panic, "What do I say?"

 

Another knock, AP. Some newspaper. Another TV guy. Now they are camped out on the street. Knocking on doors. Asking more weird questions.

 

All I could say is, "Tell them he's a good guy and a good neighbor and that you don't know anything else."

My other piece of advice was simpler, "If they are from England, France, Italy, Australia, or some other foreign country, don't say anything, because they'll lie and manipulate you until they get you to convict Floyd for something he didn't do."

 

Fortunately the reporters and their satellite trucks vanished when Floyd proclaimed his innocence late Thursday.

 

"All I'm asking for," he said, "is that I be given a chance to prove that I'm innocent. Cycling has a traditional way of trying people in the court of public opinion before they get a chance to do anything else."

 

I've been on the other side of this. I was one of the horde of reporters camped out on Rockingham Drive in Brentwood in June 1994 after O.J. SImpson's wife was found murdered. I was trained to be objective and tried to maintain that in my news writing.

 

Honestly though, I believed then (and I believe now) that O.J. was guilty. That goes for other celebrities too. A couple years ago, on a cross-country drive with my family I stopped in Eagle, Colorado and bagged on Kobe Bryant for his misadventure in a nearby hotel room. I didn't believe Marv Albert. I don't believe Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds or Rafael Palmero. I never bought the Kool-Aid Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly were selling when they were scandalized.

 

Yet, I believe Floyd. Perhaps it's because I want to believe him. He's a likeable, regular guy. He's nice to my children and I've seen the hard work that he does in training and practice. His statement Thursday seemed sincere and heartfelt. If this whole thing proves to be untrue, it won't matter because his reputation has been dirtied. He's probably lost some nice endorsement deals over the past few hours just because of this.

 

It's been funny watching over the past week how many people wanted to jump on the Floyd Landis bandwagon, and bask in his achievement, only to see them scurry like rats over the past 12 hours. Sad to say, even the city of Murrieta has put its plans for a parade on hold until a second sample can be tested for banned substances. I wonder how many early morning knocks at the door there will be if it's a clean test? 

 

I guarantee it there won't be any reporters. I won't find them. For that matter, it won't be the newspaper hitting the door to land nicely on the porch. But I'll know to look for it near the gutter.

 

As they say in France, "C'est la vie."

--Frank C. Girardot lives in Murrieta.

Landis Column from July

THE GUY NEXT DOOR

 

You could say the guy who lives next door to me in suburban Murrieta is pretty much a regular guy. He's married with a child, owns a couple of SUVs and a couple of small dogs (mandatory among suburbanites in my neck of the woods.) And, just like everyone else around here, he eats pizza, drinks beer and goes to work at a regular time every morning.

 

Of course when he goes to work, it's on a bicycle -- and despite his proclivity for pizza, beer and road worthy SUVs, my neighbor is not quite the regular guy he appears to be on the surface. In fact, he's anything but regular. His name is Floyd Landis, and Thursday he entered the pantheon of great American sports heroes with a thrilling ride in the 17th stage of this year's Tour De France. The ride vaulted him back into contention for the prized yellow jersey just a day after the French journalists and pedalophiles who actually follow this stuff had written him off.

 

Landis, grew up Mennonite, in the small town of Farmersville, Pa. Mennonites are frequently characterized as rigid anti-technology nonconformists. It's Amish country, and Floyd's people are sort of like the folks in that Harrison Ford movie "Witness."

 

In the flick there's two wonderful moments that set the scene. The first, depicts a lonesome wind rustling through a great and desolate wheatfield. The second depicts a gathering of people who get together in this small rural community and help their new neighbor erect a farmhouse.  

 

The first time I met Landis, it was very much in line with that tradition. I had a faulty spigot in the front of my house. I was grousing about it to Floyd and a few hours later he showed up with brand new spigot, some plumbers' tape and a wrench. The job was completed quickly, and three years later the spigot remains leak free. I returned the favor with a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD, after noticing Floyd likes to blast rock music from an iPod in the garage when he's working on a project around the house.

 

I knew what Floyd did for a living. Being a former sportswriter and naturally curious, over the years I have peppered him with questions about his sport.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that on the sports desks of most major newspapers, bike racing is typically relegated to the inside pages and usually covered by the "new guy" or someone who has either the pro hockey beat or writes for the Outdoors section once a month. It's not one of those sports that's up there on the glamour scale with pro or college football, baseball or basketball.

 

Floyd's answers to some tough questions about doping in his sport, his onetime teammate Lance Armstrong, and the arcane technical elements that comprise time trials, stages and whole rest of the crazy business that is professional cycling were surprisingly candid. Since I didn't take notes it wouldn't' be wise to quote Floyd, but paraphrasing should suffice.

 

* On doping: Floyd called it cheating and decried the practice in his sport and others.

* On Lance Armstrong: Floyd wasn't reserved, but expressed displeasure with the way Lance "retired," put the Discover team on hold, only to come back for a seventh straight Tour win last year. By the time that happened, Floyd had jumped ship, joined the Phonak team and ended up finishing 9th overall for the race in 2005.

* On the arcane: Don't ask, because I still don't understand it.

This year, Floyd entered the Tour as one among a handful of favorites. He had won the Tour of California and a preliminary event in Nice. But, shortly after the Tour de France started, he unleashed a bombshell by revealing he has a degenerative condition in his right hip and will need hip replacement surgery when the race is complete.

 

This is the condition that ended Bo Jackson's two-sport career. It crippled him on the football field, and stymied him at the plate. Hip replacement surgery worked for Bo, as he made a short-lives comeback on the baseball field only to have his career ended by a players strike. Only Bo knows just how painful Landis' hip could become, but his experience might hold out some hope as well.

 

All of which serves to make Floyd's improbable run Thursday all the more amazing. In a summer when the world is on edge over the course of events in the Middle East and casual sports fans are treated to an endless onslaught of information about Barbaro and Barry Bonds, Floyd Landis stands as something for which Americans can be proud.

 

No doubt many see him as the epitome of the All-American success story – farm boy from humble beginnings overcomes all odds, reaches the pinnacle of success and remains true to himself and his roots.

 

I'm just happy to have a regular guy who likes pizza, beer and Lynyrd Skynyrd as my next-door neighbor.

 

--Frank C. Girardot, a former writer for the Los Angeles News Group, lives in Murrieta with his wife, children, and a gas guzzling minivan in the driveway.