Landis guilty of defamation
Disgraced Tour de France winner Floyd Landis must pay current and former International Cycling Union (UCI) presidents Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen Sf10,000 ($10,700) each after being found guilty of defamation by a Swiss court yesterday. The Eastern Vaud District Court was reported to have ruled that American Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour title for failing a dope test, was forbidden to “state that the UCI, Pat McQuaid or Hein Verbruggen have concealed cases of doping, received money for doing so (or) have accepted money from Lance Armstrong to conceal a doping case”. It also said Landis was forbidden to state that the UCI “are clowns ... are no different to Col Muammar Gaddafi, or to make any similar allegations”. A call to the UCI confirmed the report was genuine. In 2010, Landis admitted to doping and alleged that Verbruggen and McQuaid had accepted a donation from Armstrong to conceal a positive test in the 2001 Tour de Suisse.