Floyd’s apology builds a bridge as many more burn

PLEASE mind your toes, reader; there’s quite a big name about to be dropped in a second or two.

Over a coffee in a Limerick city hotel a few years ago, cycling legend Greg Lemond (clang!) told me that the public, traumatic ordeal Floyd Landis put him through was beyond anything the Alps ever threatened.

The eyes that lasered into the back of double-crossing, pantomime villain Bernard Hinault all those years ago, were the same west-coast blue. In his 40s now, he’d fill a yellow jersey more violently. He was greyer too and the Eurosport logo was not, as I remembered, constantly visible over his left shoulder, like a setting sun. But, yes, it was him.