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July 31st, 2006 Return to Archive
Michael's Minute
To:
Floyd Landis
Phonak Cycling
Team
Eichtal 8634 Hombrechtikon
Dear
Floyd,
Over the years I've
watched every second of the outstanding coverage on the OLN network
of the Tour de France - the toughest race in the world. I used to
race bikes in my collegiate years. My roommate and high school buddy
convinced me to go out for the UCSD Cycling team. I wasn't blessed
with much natural talent, but persevered and actually won a race in
my 4 year career. It helped me understand some of what goes into the
3-week torture called the Tour.
When I first heard the
television announcers mention your name I took special interest
because of your ties to my hometown of San Diego. I watched your
years of loyal work as a domestique on Team Discovery to helping pull
Lance Armstrong to 3 of his Tour victories. I know how tough it is to
literally carry water and sacrifice your own body and chance for
victory for your leader so I cheered your move to the Phonak Team
where you'd have a chance to see just how good you could be.
This
year, I learned about your grounded Mennonite upbringing where your
mom made you ride your bike with sweat pants. And with the list of
cheaters that were kicked out before the beginning of the Tour, I
looked forward to your opportunity in the big race. Your stunning
revelations about your dead hip midway through the race just made me
cheer for you harder. On Stage 15 when you reclaimed the leader's
yellow jersey on the infamous Alpe d'Huez, I thought you'd keep it
until the podium in Paris. But the next day I watched you collapse
and fall more than 10 minutes behind the leaders. Like many I thought
your chance for victory was over this year. Your epic ride on Stage
17 which included an 80 mile solo breakaway over 4 mountain passes
left me in awe and of course put you back in contention. (On that
morning I was preparing to ride my bike to work so I happened to be
watching morning coverage in cycling gear. My son asked if it was
more fun to watch it dressed up pretending like I was there. Funny.)
Your solid time trial sealed the victory and I celebrated with you
from my couch on your ride down Champs-Elysées
as the Champion.
Needless to say I was shocked by the
news headlines days later announcing your positive test for out of
ratio levels of testosterone. I guess we're awaiting results from the
B sample but these tests are rarely inaccurate so I have to believe
those results will simply confirm results from the first test. Which
leaves me to ponder what the truth is. I don't want to believe you
are a cheater. I've heard news reports of your denial, but that
carries little weight after the string of baseball and track
athletes' bold-faced lies that they have "never knowingly"
taken banned substances only to later have it revealed that there
were truck loads of physical evidence.
I want to believe you
earned your victory through grit, determination and hard training,
but I need proof. I would like to offer to pay you $100,000 to take a
polygraph test. The test would cover the 2006 Tour de France and your
alleged use of banned drugs leading up to and during the event. We
could agree to the questions before hand. After the test I would make
the video of the test itself and the results as determined by the
independent examiner available on the net for free for all to view.
Whether the results exonerate or implicate you they would be
published to the world.
The results would not influence the
outcome of your case with the cycling sanctioning body, but a
positive result would bolster millions of fans like me who want to
believe that their new cycling hero is clean. I hope you'll take me
up on this opportunity.
Your wavering fan,
Michael
Robertson
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