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San Diego, California Several months ago I said this. I said it right here on HOFMAG.com waxing strange about Floyd Landis' upcoming trial. This is where the story of Floyd Landis and his Technicolor Dream gets curiouser and curiouser. This is where the lessons (and there are many), the lies (You think cycling is full of Mother Theresas?) and the liabilities begin. This is where cycling becomes more of a chess game than a pack sprint. This is where Floyd asks us to make a choice. And then the lawyers take it from here. But no sooner than the tide of public opinion began to flood in Floyd's favor, the curious became outrageous, and the dream had faded to black. Neckwear went from yellow to night, and Landis' well-sculpted science-based defense morphed to human drama in the wake of three time Tour de France winner, Greg LeMond's revealing testimony. LeMond confessed to being sexually abused as a child, and no one really cared. Greg had survived a shot gun blast to win the most difficult race in the endurance sports world. Who doesn't carry a few strange uncles around in his wallet let alone pieces of lead in their tissue?  Greg LeMond's career is one of the most incredible stories in cycling history including three Tour de France victories. But when Landis' agent had threatened to reveal LeMond's past in an ill-fated phone call, the cycling world fell all over its self. Go figure. The seven-figure defense team was caught looking over its shoulder, and the agent was whisked away to a Malibu-styled rehab center to recover from poor judgment and misanthropic loyalty. Hollyweird could not have scripted a better made-for-TV movie as thousands followed the hearing live in cyberspace. Landis' heartfelt plea to judge him on character as well as evidence had his fans wringing hands and squirming on saddles. Something just didn't seem right. And still doesn't. And that's the odd beauty imputed in this pathos – professional cycling will never, can never, be the same. The hazardous material response team has arrived even if we aren't sure who they are. Forget the notion of culpability or guilt. Forget the idea that an innocent Floyd might've had his life snatched away by a vengeful and bumbling French lab or that an even more vengeful WADA and its chief henchman, Dick Pound, might just be on the greatest witch hunt in the history of pro sports. And forget the waning plausibility of Landis' "innocent by virtuous character" stance or even the growing belief by the Everyman that all of pro cycling is dirty, and poor Floyd's sacrificial lamb status may just be the catalyst that caused Le Tour winner, Bjarne Riis, to admit drug use during his 1996 victory. No, what we have to remember is that cycling and elite sport are bigger than Floyd Landis, bigger than his Johnny Cochranesque legal team and bigger than Greg LeMond's confessions. Sport has to be bigger than these momentary attacks, defenses and posturing. It has to be bigger than the tyranny of fame or the operating political economy or even the rule of law. It just has to be. Because if sport as we need to know it – something beautiful and powerful and transcendent, something healing and recuperative and pleasurable and enlightening – if sport succumbs to the pettiness of soap opera dramatics or the grand inquisition of powerful groups, then it will lose everything good at its untainted core. I like Floyd. I like LeMond and count them both as friends. If Floyd is innocent, it's a damn shame. If he's guilty, even more reproachful. And shame on USADA and WADA for making it personal, for its discomposure and abashment in smearing the accused. But good for cycling that the discourse of cheating is out and will not fit back in the tidy little blind box that it inhabited for so many years.
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