The Wheels Have Come Off At The Floyd Landis Hearing

The Floyd Landis arbitration hearing has been going on for a few days, and for the most part it's been fairly mundane. That was until yesterday.

On Thursday, Greg LeMond took the stand to testify that during a phone conversation the two had Landis had hinted to him that he had used performance enhancing drugs. As if that wasn't interesting enough, he also dropped a bombshell about how he had told Landis a secret of sexual abuse by an uncle that he had never made public before, and how Landis' manager called him the night before he was to testify pretending to be his uncle and trying to intimidate him.

Seriously, you can't make up stuff this crazy.

Here's how LeMond recounted the creepy phone call from Landis' manager, Will Geoghegan:

"The drama escalated when USADA attorney Matt Barnett asked LeMond about a phone call Wednesday, which LeMond said he answered on speakerphone with his wife, Kathy, next to him.

The caller identified himself as “Uncle Ron” and said, “This is your uncle and I’m going to be there tomorrow,” in addition to graphic remarks describing sexual abuse, LeMond said.

After the caller hung up, LeMond said he immediately returned the phone call and got a voicemail message for someone named “Will.”

Barnett displayed the call log of LeMond’s BlackBerry with Geoghegan’s number."

It will be interesting to see how far Landis distances himself from Geoghegan, a former teammate of his from Landis' Chevy Truck mountain-bike days. The most frustrating thing for the Landis team is that LeMond's testimony about his phone call with Landis regarding steroid use wasn't all that damaging by itself, but coupled with the call from Geoghegan it casts an air of suspicion upon Landis and anyone associated with him.

The Steroid Nation has pretty coverage on this as well, and goes into a little more detail regarding the other graphic remarks.