L.A. Confidential / Lance to Landis

[John the Monkey]

Has anyone read both?

If you have, does the latter recap a lot of what's in the first?

I'm contemplating reading one or the other, but as I'd have to struggle through "Confidentiel" en Francais, I'm wondering whether the same ground is covered (more or less) in Walsh's second book on the topic.

 

[kennykool]

Dear o Dear - Another book by David Walsh that will no doubt try to get LA into trouble!!!

I have read LA Confidential and WILL NOT be reading Lance-Landis.

 

[Chuffy]

I've got Lance to Landis. I suspect that it's pretty much an updated retelling of LA Confidentiel, but in English. It's a very interesting book. Ignore the anti-Walsh smears from LA and the fan-boys, it's well researched and the people who speak out are hard to ignore (unless you have those good ol' rosy tinted specs). PM me your address and it can join the floating CC library.

 

[kennykool]

Brilliant again Chuffy - loving this banter

Whats the floating CC library...can I join? Or am I not sceptical enough?

 

[John the Monkey]

Get in the queue Kenny

I've read Lance's take on it all ("It's Not about the Bike", "Every Second Counts") and I've read accounts of the era up to Festina ("Rough Ride", "Breaking the Chain"). I'm sure the Walsh book has it's problems, given the likelihood of litigation etc, but still, in the interest of getting a fuller picture, I think it's worth a read.

I'll PM you later on Chuffy, thanks for the offer.

 

[Crackle]

I've got Lance to Landis. I suspect that it's pretty much an updated retelling of LA Confidentiel, but in English. It's a very interesting book. Ignore the anti-Walsh smears from LA and the fan-boys, it's well researched and the people who speak out are hard to ignore (unless you have those good ol' rosy tinted specs). PM me your address and it can join the floating CC library.

Eh, come again! Is this the same Walsh who was a big Roche fan boy and then suddenly denounced him when he became implicated in drugs. I don't remember him doing much 'investigative' journalism then. This clown couldn't find his way out a crisp bag. Anything written by him should be read looking out of the round window ............ Jackanory, tell a story.......

 

[Chuffy]

Eh, come again! Is this the same Walsh who was a big Roche fan boy and then suddenly denounced him when he became implicated in drugs. I don't remember him doing much 'investigative' journalism then. This clown couldn't find his way out a crisp bag. Anything written by him should be read looking out of the round window ............ Jackanory, tell a story.......

<shrug>Sometimes it take a while before you realise what's going on. Are you going to sneer at any journo who doesn't follow a set line from the very beginning of their career? LtoL is largely built up from interviews with certain key players. If you want to dismiss the book then you have to dismiss them, not Walsh.

 

[Crackle]

<shrug>Sometimes it take a while before you realise what's going on. Are you going to sneer at any journo who doesn't follow a set line from the very beginning of their career? LtoL is largely built up from interviews with certain key players. If you want to dismiss the book then you have to dismiss them, not Walsh.

Interviews which are not in a timeline and the context not explained with no critical questioning of what is being presented. Interviews of people with axes to grind and their own agendas to play out. Walsh struck me as an author who'd lost his innocence and wanted reprisals for it. I'm talking LA confidential here I haven't read the other one, though I'd like to.

 

[Chuffy]

Interviews which are not in a timeline and the context not explained with no critical questioning of what is being presented. Interviews of people with axes to grind and their own agendas to play out. Walsh struck me as an author who'd lost his innocence and wanted reprisals for it. I'm talking LA confidential here I haven't read the other one, though I'd like to.

Then you're in line after Kenny and John. I do hope you'll pass it on...

I've not read LA Confidentiel, so I don't know for sure if it's the same cast. No critical questioning? That may be a fair point, but how much critical questioning is there in the plethora of LA fandom? Not a lot I'd guess, other than to sneer and smear those who dare challenge the purity of St Lance. It's up to you to decide whether the interviewees are compelling or not. The one who impressed me most was Frankie Andreu. Nothing to gain by speaking out and a lot to lose. It's interesting the way that anyone who speaks out is instantly smeared by Team Armstrong as being bitter or having an axe to grind, whether they are an ex-team mate or a three time Tour winner. To me that's just a convenient smokescreen to cover up the substance of what is being said. There are a lot of people who have more to gain by either saying nothing or lying on Lance's behalf. That's worth bearing in mind.

I have no baggage regarding Walsh. I'm fairly new to all this (since 2003 in fact) so I hope that I've made up my mind on the basis of of the information presented. FWIW I've actually come to think that Walsh is picking the wrong target. Not because Lance was always clean, but because he's become too big to bring down. Even if Hincapie himself rolled up with photos of himself and Lance hooked up to blood bags mid Tour he would still be dismissed as a 'bitter loser' by the fan-boys and it would be buried under a mound of conspiracy theories and lawyers. Also, bringing down the guy who so dominated the Tour for 7 straight years and who has defined the modern era? It's too much to countenance and almost nothing will be strong enough to stick. I don't want Lance back and I'd like to know the truth, but right now I think that Walsh could do more for cycling by looking at the bigger picture and tackling doping as a broader subject. That's an observation, not a criticism by the way.

 

[Crackle]

Chuffy, I'll 'fess up, if you stop calling me a fan boy

I admit to being quite naive about drug taking in the sport right up until the last few years. Sure I knew the rumours but it wasn't until I started attending cycling forums that I began to question things a lot more. In particular I concentrated on the Tour because really that's all I've ever followed and of course I began with Armstong because......well because I bought into the myth.

It took me many a good hour to hunt down LA Confidential through various websites and then to put all the snippets together (I still didn't get every single bit). When I read it the scales fell from my eyes. I mean I'd read Kimmage and Simpson and a few others but they didn't really have the impact of questioning something which had in my mind (and the minds of many others) been beyond question. I'd always assumed the French were bitter because they hadn't produced a tour winner for so long (they are bitter by the way) but that doesn't begin to cover it.

In a way you're quite right, Walsh is tilting at the wrong windmill. You're also spot on in your observation that LA wouldn't be so keen to stamp on people if he wasn't concerned but then he is also a control freak of the highest order.

I do believe if Walsh had presented his findings in a different way, if he'd been more critical and questioning and not started from the basis that Armstong was guilty and he just had to prove it, then the book would have had far more power. That said, the interviews with Andreu, with Lemond, his masseur, are compelling and Armstong's recent angry outburst defending his ex team mates bizarre.

But.....I'm wise. I've watched, in real life, up close and personal, things develop into the wider world that are alledgedly the truth. Things said and ascribed to people that weren't said or are taken so far out of context that their meaning is lost. Eventaully what you get is some pale imitation, masquerading as the truth. It's taught me enough to question deeply peoples interpretation of things.

I also have enough of a science background to question methodologies around drug taking and testing, enough to doubt the validity of results and question peoples absoloute assertion that such and such a thing is infallible. It hardly ever is, especially when it's at the cutting edge.

So where does that leave me. Well, in doubt is the answer. Deeply disenchanted is another answer. Clinging to moments which are not real or may not be real. Pantanis incredible tour win, Riise's attack on Alpe D'huez, Roches incredible recovery in the Alps (?) to claw back 2 minutes, the list goes on.

I bow to yours and Noodley's knowledge simply because you follow the wider sport, which I don't. You are chipping away at me but................I reserve the right to chip back. I don't like the idea of all my illusions being shattered at once

 

[Noodley]

I bow to yours and Noodley's knowledge...

I just copy links from websites

I haven't read LA Confidentiel or Lance to Landis....

Imagine how cycnical I'd be if I had?!

 

[Crackle]

I just copy links from websites

I haven't read LA Confidentiel or Lance to Landis....

Imagine how cycnical I'd be if I had?!

I'd have to get a new de-cynicised screen to stop it melting

Unfortunately, I think I lost my print out's of LA Confidential when I moved recently or it might be in a box in storage, otherwise I'd offer it up. I didn't bookmark anything because as fast as the sites were springing up, they were being shutdown.

 

[Chuffy]

Good reply Crackers, I’m glad we’re still friends.
When I say ‘fan-boy’ I’m not necessarily referring to you. It’s just my tetchy way of dealing with the people who’s stock response to any criticism of St Lance is ‘all u haterz r jus jklous’ or variations thereon. Go to Amazon and look at the reviews of Walsh’s books, you’ll see a lot of it. Lots of committed Landis fans too parroting the same rubbish. Weirdly, I don’t hate LA as a person, he simply doesn’t have that affect on me. I don’t like him, for sure, but what does get up my nose is the way that he bullies anyone who dares challenge him. The way that he dealt with Simeoni and Bassons, that makes me angry. Couple in the blinkered stupidity of the fan-boys and I get quite grumpy.

I can’t match you on the testing science front, I simply don’t have the background. But when it comes to busted cyclists with big teams of expensive lawyers vs medical scientists I know who I’m more inclined to trust.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m any kind of authority either! I’m new to cycling, a typical armchair fan. I’ve done a lot of reading around the Tour and doping, but I don’t have any in-depth knowledge about cycling generally. That’s changing, but it’s a slow process (especially as I don’t have Eurosport or a subscription to any cycling mags). I’ve always thought of Noodley as being The Man, but now that he’s exposed himself as just another internet cut’n’paster I don’t know who to trust…

I don’t think our views are that far apart and there’s nothing dishonourable about questioning the likes of Walsh, Kimmage etc. After all, ‘who watches the watchmen’, as the old saying goes.


PS - Lance To Landis will be going to John the Monkey. After that it's in circulation with the CC Floating Library, so it's up to John to pass it on.

 

[Crackle]

As I thought, most of the links are now dead. You might find this thread interesting; about a quarter way down

 

[andy_wrx]

I can't refer to my copy of From Lance to Landis, as it's currently lent-out to a definite 'fanboy'
(well, it's a she rather than a he and she's 62, but she's just discovered pro cycling in a big way in the last 12 months, thinks Lance walks on water and his un-retiring is the Second Coming, but you get the idea .
I've lent her the book to try to give an alternative viewpoint - I'm not suggesting that it's right either, but the truth must be somewhere in between...)

But the interesting point to me was that it starts-out quite sympathetically to the Americans, how they came over to Europe as Motorola full of optimism and got their arses kicked, big time, by other riders who they considered inferior and should have beaten.
The answer ? The Europeans, particularly the Italians, are doping.
So in order to compete, as Motorola morphs into US Postal there's a steady escalation in 'preparation', going from taking vitamin injections during a 3-week tour in order to stop the riders breaking down, which could perhaps be considered legitimate therapeutic medical intervention, steadily increasing step by gradual step to less legal means. A steady progression, and as it happens there's a replacement of the original coaches and team doctors as each stage becomes a stage too far and morally unacceptable for the original personnel.
The end result is miles away from the initial bright-eyed naive optimism with which they went to Europe, but it's happened steadily stage by stage, in order to compete with what the opposition was doing.

I agree, the testimony from Emma O'Reilly (the masseuse) is compelling, as is that from Frankie Andreu (and Betsy !)

By contrast, the section on Flawed Landis almost seems like a bolt-on afterthought, like it was originally intended as a book about Lance but then Floyd won the Tour and was tested positive, so this section was hastily tacked-on in order to make the book more current for 2007 when it originally came out.