The Evidence Is Mounting

I don't like the news today.
Obviously, Tooth hasn't liked it for quite some time (DO read his wonderful post below).

Here's the latest as reported by the New York Time's Juliet Macur:
-- New Finding Challenges Tour Champ’s Claim

Here's a good opinion piece by Bloomberg's Scott Soshnick.
-- Floyd Landis Tests Fans' Faith in Sports Heroes

Here's the gist:
Tests show that some of the testosterone in Floyd Landis's system at the Tour de France was synthetic and not naturally produced by his body as he claimed.

Here's what I don't like:
-- Floyd lawyered up real good by his press conference on Friday.
-- Floyd playing dumb in the press conference about the science and his testosterone levels. I'm sorry, but these professionals know all about this stuff. It's their business.
-- Floyd suggesting a liquor defense. From "I had a beer" to a couple beers and four shots of Jack Daniels, I really wonder what was going on at Team Phoney-ak after Floyd's disasterous Stage 16 ride. I never realized the bottle passed around at these team dinners like that.
-- Floyd knew he'd be tested if he won Stage 17 and reportedly offered anyone in the breakaway group he chased and caught to "gift" the stage if they shared in the work. No one took the offer, and Floyd took the test.
-- And now, according to Macur's story in the Times, Floyd delayed his request for the B sample to be tested:

Landis, who was in New York after canceling or postponing several talk-show appearances [including the "Today Show"], could not be reached for comment yesterday. His spokesman, Michael Henson, said that Landis sent a request yesterday [Monday] for the French lab to test his B sample. Landis had five business days from last Wednesday to do so.

Pat McQuaid, the president of the cycling body, which is known by its French acronym, U.C.I., said last night that the organization had contacted the French lab at 5 p.m. in Paris to see if Landis’s request had been received. When the lab said no, McQuaid said U.C.I. asked the lab to analyze Landis’s B sample, which he said was allowed under the organization’s rules. McQuaid wanted the test to be concluded before the lab closed for a two-week vacation this Friday. If the tests cannot be finished before then, the results may not come until late August or early September, he said.

“It’s a two-and-a-half-day job, and it’s imperative that the B test be done this week for the credibility of our sport, but also for the public interest,” McQuaid said. “This needs to be put to rest because there is too much innuendo, too much talk, too much damage being done to our sport. We have to get this process done quickly, so we can move on.”
The lab agreed to conduct the tests Thursday through Saturday, McQuaid said. That means that Landis’s fate may be known by the weekend.

Why did Floyd delay his request for the test?
This continues to make less and less sense.
Or maybe too much sense.

Maybe Floyd needs to listen to the annoying Greg Lemond and come clean.
So far, his post-race performance has been anything but clean.
And that is a reflection on his Stage 17 performance.