VISALIA, Calif. — After maintaining his innocence for four years amid doping charges that ruined his reputation and caused him to be stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, the American cyclist Floyd Landis has admitted using performance-enhancing drugs for most of his career, according to emails sent to several cycling officials.
In those emails from Landis, which were described Wednesday by two of the officials who received them, Landis wrote that he had used performance-enhancing drugs or methods since 2002, his first year racing with the now-defunct United States Postal Service team, once led by Lance Armstrong. The officials did not want his name published, citing ongoing investigations, including by federal authorities, into the content of the emails.
In those messages, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Landis also detailed the performance-enhancing drug use of other top American cyclists on the U.S. Postal Service team, including Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion. Other cyclists named in the emails were current U.S. road racing national champion George Hincapie, three-time Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer and five-time U.S. time trial champion David Zabriskie.
Landis also said that doping regimes were tolerated and encouraged by some team officials, including Johan Bruyneel, the longtime U.S. Postal Service Team manager and current head of Armstrong’s RadioShack team. The former head of the Swiss-based Phonak team, Andy Rihs, also tolerated doping, Landis wrote, according to a person who received the emails. Landis was a member of the Phonak squad when he won the 2006 Tour. Rihs now owns BMC Racing, which is based in the United States.
Landis, who served a two-year ban for doping and did not return phone calls for this story, told ESPN.com that he has no documentation to prove most of his claims.
“I want to clear my conscience,” Landis, who races with the lower level OUCH-Bahati Foundation Pro Cycling team, said. “I don’t want to be part of the problem any more.”
Federal authorities have spoken with Landis in recent weeks about the information in the e-mails, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Landis, who spent nearly two years and reportedly more than $2 million fighting the charges against him, has agreed to cooperate with the authorities and provide them with the same information he has provided anti-doping and cycling officials. The authorities are interested in whatever information Landis has about distributors of banned substances and new methods of doping being used by athletes.
Over the past month, Landis also has been cooperating with officials from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, providing them with details about the other cyclists and Armstrong, the people briefed on the matter said.
Federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who spearheaded the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids case, is involved in the investigation. It is not clear whether Landis has contacted him via email or telephone.
The American riders named by Landis as having doped in the past are competing at the Tour of California this week, but none was available for comment on Wednesday night. Philippe Maertens, the spokesman for Armstrong and Leipheimer’s RadioShack team, said Armstrong and team manager Johan Bruyneel would speak about the issue on Thursday morning before the Stage 5 start of the race.
Jonathan Vaughters, team manager of Zabriskie’s Garmin-Transitions team, said that Zabriskie was upset after learning of Landis’s accusations late Wednesday.
“I don’t know what it’s in the head of Floyd Landis, what his motivations are, but I think Dave just wants to get on with this race,” Vaughters said of Zabriskie, who is in the overall lead, with four stages to go. “Dave can with this race. He can win this race clean, under any level of scrutiny. I think that’s what he’d like to get on with.”
In the emails he sent to officials, Landis said that Bruyneel, his team manager on the U.S. Postal Service team, introduced him to the use of steroid patches, blood doping and human growth hormone, according to one official who received the email. Landis also said that in 2003, after breaking his hip, he had stored bags of blood in Armstrong’s apartment in Girona, Spain. He said that his blood was stored in a refrigerator, along with bags of blood belonging to Hincapie and Armstrong.
Landis also recounted helping Leipheimer and Zabriskie use the blood-booster EPO before the Tour of California several years ago.
