LeMond described receiving a call Wednesday evening from someone who claimed to be his uncle. He said he later traced the call to Geoghegan’s cell phone.

“He said, ‘I’ll be there tomorrow and we can talk about how we used to’ perform a sexual act,” LeMond said of the phone call. “I thought this was intimidation to keep me from coming here.”

He said he was so distraught by the call, he filed a police report, which was presented as evidence by attorneys. Malibu sheriff’s officials, however, declined to release the report or details about it, saying the case was under investigation.

A message left on Geoghegan’s cell phone by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

Before lunch — and LeMond — things were going well for the Landis team during the cross-examination of Claire Frelat, a technician at the French lab who tested Landis’ positive “B” sample from last year’s Stage 17 for synthetic testosterone.

Frelat acknowledged she knew she was working on Landis’ positive doping test, a big-time breach of confidentiality that’s essential to the testing process. She said she knew because of media reports she had read of his positive “A” sample test.

The cross-examination was in line with the questions asked Wednesday of Frelat’s workmate, Cynthia Mongongu, who tested Landis’ positive “A” sample from Stage 17. Both women also participated in testing of the negative backup “B” samples that were done last month at the request of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Four of those seven negative tests showed abnormal testosterone profiles.

Slide show 2006 Tour de France Landis finishes first in race that had heroics, crashes and a drug scandal that rocked the race even before it began.

The long, difficult testimony of the French-speaking witnesses was done through a translator. It was designed to show a pattern of incompetence at the French lab where the tests were done.

After LeMond, USADA called Christiane Ayotte, director of the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited lab in Montreal, to discuss testing standards in the process used on Landis’ tests.

When her testimony began, however, it may as well have been a closed hearing. More than a dozen reporters and photographers were outside the hearing room with LeMond.

He insisted he appeared only to help cycling, a sport he thinks has been ruined by an unabated culture of doping.

His appearance at Pepperdine, however, made the sport look every bit the unseemly circus he’s been trying to fix all these years. Still, he had no remorse.

“What I felt was right was to come here and tell the truth,” he said as he walked to his car. “People say it’s the message that hurts this sport, but it’s not that. It’s cheating that hurts this sport, and that’s all I have to say.”