Landis: Lance Armstrong has become the self-appointed hypocrisy police
American comments on Boogerd’s doping suspension and Armstrong’s reaction
Floyd Landis has reacted to the news that former rider Michael Boogerd has been handed a two-year doping ban for violations he made almost a decade ago. The American, who rode for US Postal and Phonak during his own career and was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title, has already commented on Lance Armstrong’s reaction to Boogerd’s ban.
“My first thought upon reading that Michael Boogard has been given a two-year suspension was that it is too little - too late,” Landis told Cyclingnews from his home on the US east-coast.
In 2013 Boogerd admitted to doping for a 10-year period between 1997 and 2007 but he was only stripped of his results from 2005-2007. However he has been forced to give up his role as a team director at Roompot-Oranje Peloton Pro Continental team while he serves his ban.
He and Landis have history. In 2011 Landis told a journalist that he and Boogerd had openly discussed doping in the peloton during the 2006 Tour. At the time Boogerd denied the accusation, and stated that he had ridden clean.
“Here is a guy who doped for 10 years and then when I came clean in 2010 called me 'an arrogant jellyfish' and denied that he had doped. Obviously something was lost in translation there, or he was on more than just performance enhancing drugs,” Landis said.
When the UCI announced Boogerd’s ban earlier this week Lance Armstrong took to Twitter and decounced the situation as ‘Pure.Bullishit.’
Like Boogerd, Armstrong doped for the majority of his career, denied it and was given a sanction. However the American was given a life-time ban in comparison to Boogerd’s two-years. Landis, who is currently in the middle of a US government fraud case against Armstrong, gave a rather cutting opinion of Armstrong’s stance.
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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.