Sort of. The Court of Arbitration for Sport released its ruling, one which upheld a lower panel's opinion that Landis was guilty as charged of using synthetic testosterone to boost his performance in the 2006 Tour de France. So while this might close the book on Landis' attempts to regain his Tour de France title and his tarnished legacy, it perhaps creates more questions than it answers.
First and foremost, it reminds us all that cycling, along with track and field, weightlifting and numerous other sports across the world, are indelibly linked to performance enhancing drugs. Some of you may be thinking to yourselves what the significance of Landis' downfall is in 2008. The answer, simply put, would be the Olympics.
I can only imagine the thrill of competing in, let alone winning, the Olympics. Representing one's country on a worldwide stage, competing against world class athletes and finally seeing the manifestation of all that hard work throughout the years - it all must be truly breathtaking.
However, from a spectator's point of view, the Olympics have lost quite a bit of luster over the years. Most of the sports are now peripheral sports in the American landscape, which while in and of itself is not a bad thing to showcase, it does start it out at a noticeable disadvantage. However, perhaps the most pressing concern is the complete discrediting of entire sports due to the suspicion of performance enhancing drugs.
Marion Jones. Floyd Landis. Justin Gatlin. The Bulgarian and Greek weightlifting team. At one time or another, they have all been disgraced for what boils down to the same reason: cheating. The entire Bulgarian weightlifting team was removed from the Olympics after a stunning 11 of them failed a test for a steroid. Jones is in prison. Gatlin's request to attend the Olympics was flat-out denied. It seems that every time a track and field record is broken, the default reaction is to assume that sometime in the near future, that individual will be outed for cheating.
Other sports and sporting bodies have dealt with or are dealing with performance-enhancing drugs in a variety of ways. In the Olympics, it seems like it's always something. And because of this, the Olympics are on the verge of becoming even less relevant than they already are.