Floyd Landis wriggled through an uncomfortable cross-examination on Tuesday, carefully answering questions about the color of his tie and the timing of the firing of the manager who threatened to reveal Greg LeMond's childhood sex abuse if he testified.
It was yet another salacious morning in the Tour de France champion's doping appeals hearing, which has veered wildly between boring, dense science and allegations of witness tampering and who knew what when.
Attorneys from the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) pursued questions relating to Thursday's revelations by LeMond in his testimony. On that day, LeMond testified he'd received a phone call the night before from Landis' manager, Will Geoghegan, who threatened to divulge the three-time Tour champion's secret.
"Would you agree that, as my mother used to say, that a person's character is revealed more by their actions than their words?" USADA attorney Matthew Barnett asked Landis.
"It sounds like a good saying," Landis said.
Then, Barnett asked Landis when, exactly, he informed his attorneys of the call Geoghegan placed last Wednesday night, and why he or his legal team waited to fire Geoghegan until after LeMond revealed details of the call.
LeMond's testimony didn't come until Thursday afternoon, and Geoghegan sat behind the defense table for the hearing on Thursday morning.
With his attorneys, Howard Jacobs and Maurice Suh, objecting frequently to Barnett's questions, Landis told his story in bits and pieces.
Landis testified that he told his attorneys about the call as soon as he arrived at the hearing room on Thursday, though Geoghegan wasn't fired until after LeMond's testimony.
"In hindsight, I probably should have fired him immediately, but I needed someone to talk to," Landis said.
USADA attorneys tried to paint Landis as an active participant in the humiliation of LeMond. They pointed to his wardrobe that day -- wearing a black suit with a black tie instead of the yellow tie he's worn every other day of the hearing -- as evidence of his animus toward LeMond.
"That's why I wore the black suit, because it was a terrible thing that happened," Landis said. "It wasn't a thing to celebrate by wearing a yellow tie."
Was the black tie symbolic of support for LeMond?
"No. It was a disaster. Nothing good could come out of that day," Landis said.
Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County sheriff's sergeant based in Malibu said a detective was investigating the police report LeMond filed after receiving the call.
The episode has shifted the focus away from the science that presumably will decide this case.
USADA attorneys showed no signs of changing the subject.
"You knew it would shatter your credibility if it came out that Geoghegan made the call?" Barnett asked, trying to prove Landis was hoping his manager would get away with the call.
"He's my friend," Landis said. "I guess I assumed he'd make a big deal out of the call. Yeah, I mean, it was a big deal."
Barnett closed by asking about a pair of quotes, one from Landis and one from Geoghegan, both of which implied the Landis team would do anything to win this case.
"You don't want to be the one fighting the crazy guy with nothing to lose," Landis is quoted as saying in Bicycling Magazine.
And Geoghegan: "This is about doing what it takes to win," is what he told a crowd at a recent fundraising rally, as reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Landis didn't dispute either quote.
A three-man arbitration panel will decide whether to uphold Landis' positive doping test after Stage 17 of last year's Tour. If so, he would become the first person in the 104-year history of the race to have his title stripped because of a doping offense.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB