OPINION

By Joe Lindsey

updated 1:16 p.m. ET May 21, 2010

Something I’ve long wondered about pro cyclists was how deep the omerta ran. How loyal were they to the code of silence about doping in the sport? What would happen if one of them just spilled his guts about it? And, crucially, would anyone believe him?

Now that Floyd Landis has pursued the nuclear option, outing not just his own, longtime drug use but making substantial allegations about doping by top American cyclists including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, we may find out.

Paul Kimmage, now an award-winning sportswriter for the London Sunday Times, was the first (English-speaking rider, anyway) to really “spit in the soup” as the phrase goes. His 1990 memoir/expose of pro cycling, “A Rough Ride” was my first glimpse of what went on in the hotel rooms and camper vans at the world’s great races.

Others followed, whether in book form (Festina soigneur Willy Voet’s “Breaking the Chain,” detailing the Festina scandal) or simply personal admissions too numerous to count. But whether it was Kimmage, Voet, former King of the Mountains winner Steven Rooks, 1996 Tour champion Bjarne Riis and pretty much the entire Telekom team from that year, not much seemed to change.

Riders are still getting busted for doping and, most troubling, some of the highest-profile catches have been talented young riders like Riccardo Ricco, Bernhard Kohl and Thomas Dekker: riders who were supposed to be part of a “next generation” that would break the decades-old tie with doping. Instead, all three were heavily doped, using expensive, medically supervised techniques designed specifically to evade detection.

But Landis’ allegations, which were contained in a series of e-mails to cycling and anti-doping authorities that were obtained and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, are by far the most explosive in the sport since arguably the Festina scandal in 1998. (ESPN’s Bonnie Ford subsequently spoke with Landis, who confirmed the origin and content of the e-mails.)

Bicycling has direct knowledge of at least one of the e-mail messages, in which Landis names not only Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, but multiple US Pro champion George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and even his old roommate and friend Dave Zabriskie, and offers numerous specific details of his own doping and accusations of doping practices by all while on the United States Postal team.

Armstrong, Bruyneel and Hincapie all denied the allegations. Zabriskie did not speak with the media, but his team manager, Jonathan Vaughters, told VeloNews that the team was focused on winning, and that Zabriskie “can win this race, currently, clean, and we’re going to support him in doing that.” Vaughters was confident that Zabriskie would withstand any level of scrutiny and reaffirmed the team’s commitment to clean racing.

So you have Landis’ allegations, strong rebuttals from Armstrong et al. and something in between from Vaughters.

The question is who will be believed. Here’s what Armstrong told the media Thursday morning before crashing out at the Tour of California.

Armstrong has a long history of battling accusations of doping. There have been many. In 1999, Armstrong and his U.S. Postal team was accused of getting out of an alleged positive test for cortisone by faking a doctor’s letter for use of a saddle sore cream. In 2000, French authorities investigated medical waste from the team that allegedly contained a product called Actovegin (currently being investigated as part of the Anthony Galea case in the NFL).

In 2001, David Walsh of the London Sunday Times revealed that Armstrong was working with Dr. Michele Ferrari, who had once compared the dangers of EPO to drinking too much orange juice. Walsh produced former Postal soigneur Emma O’Reilly’s testimony of ferrying drugs for the team in his book L.A. Confidentiel. Former teammate Frankie Andreu testified under oath that Armstrong admitted in 1996 to using EPO. Former personal assistant Mike Anderson sued Armstrong and claimed, among other things, that he’d seen drugs in Armstrong’s home. And French authorities are even today said to be investigating the 2009 Astana team - of which Armstrong was a part - over medical waste at that year’s Tour de France.

That doesn’t even include the litany of former Postal teammates — Andreu, Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras and Manuel Beltran to name five — who either admitted drug use or were caught after they left the team.

But in every one of these instances, Armstrong has successfully batted away the allegations. And he may do so again. Part of the issue is the timing. The totality of all the circumstantial evidence is troubling. But, spread out over a decade, it lacks weight. Armstrong has been able to defend himself against each one successively, and has done so effectively, calling into question the credibility of his accusers and repeatedly pointing out that he’d never tested positive.