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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Tour De France Winner Flunks Drug Test |
| 2006-07-27 |
| LONDON (AP) -- Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site. The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour. And the statement came just four days after Landis stood on the victory podium on the Champs-Elysees, succeeding seven-time winner Lance Armstrong as an American winner in Paris. The Swiss-based Phonak team said it was notified by the UCI on Wednesday that Landis' sample showed "an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17 of the race last Thursday. Landis made a remarkable comeback in that Alpine stage, racing far ahead of the field for a solo win that moved him from 11th to third in the overall standings. He regained the leader's yellow jersey two days later. Landis rode the Tour with a degenerative hip condition that he has said will require surgery in the coming weeks or months. Arlene Landis, his mother, said Thursday that she wouldn't blame her son if he was taking medication to treat the pain in his injured hip, but "if it's something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win." "I didn't talk to him since that hit the fan, but I'm keeping things even keel until I know what the facts are," she said in a phone interview from her home in Farmersville, Pa. "I know that this is a temptation to every rider but I'm not going to jump to conclusions ... It disappoints me." Phonak said Landis would ask for an analysis of his backup "B" sample "to prove either that this result is coming from a natural process or that this is resulting from a mistake." "The team management and the rider were both totally surprised of this physiological result," the Phonak statement said. Landis has been suspended by his team pending the results. If the second sample confirms the initial finding, he will be fired from the team, Phonak said. Landis wrapped up his Tour de France win on Sunday, keeping the title in U.S. hands for the eighth straight year. Armstrong, long dogged by doping whispers and allegations, won the previous seven. Armstrong never has tested positive for drugs and vehemently has denied doping. Speculation that Landis had tested positive spread earlier Thursday after he failed to show up for a one-day race in Denmark on Thursday. A day earlier, he missed a scheduled event in the Netherlands. On the eve of the Tour's start, nine riders - including pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso - were ousted, implicated in a Spanish doping investigation. The names of Ullrich and Basso turned up on a list of 56 cyclists who allegedly had contact with Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who's at the center of the Spanish doping probe. |
| Posted by:mcsegeek1 |
| #17 That's certainly one way of making sure yet another Damned Yankee doesn't win the Tour De France AGAIN... |
| Posted by: imoyaro 2006-07-27 23:23 |
| #16 Wait for the 'B' sample to be tested, folks... |
| Posted by: Raj 2006-07-27 22:26 |
| #15 This stinks to high heaven. I'll bet anyone a doughnut that Floyd NEVER took any kind of dope. The Frogs did their best to get all pontential non-French winners removed from the race beforehand, and are now trying to change the outcome. They'll have to disqualify five more riders before a Frenchman can "win" though. Farking Frogs. |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2006-07-27 17:47 |
| #14 Sad development in any event. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-07-27 17:15 |
| #13 Wasn't Lance Armstrong accused of something similar? Didn't he just win a big lawsuit over the issue of doping or saying he was doped or chemotherapy or something? |
| Posted by: Quana 2006-07-27 15:07 |
| #12 Never pulled on spandex, never will. And there's no reason to, unless you ride at 35 mph, which is three times as fast as most people can manage. Downhill, they hit 50 mph. These guys train in windtunnels and slippery clothing is essential. Wind resistance goes as velocity squared, so they see nine times the resistance at 36 mph and sixteen times at 48 mph. One of the main team tactics is drafting, which allows the guys in back to rest while the guy in front 'breaks trail'. Besides, spandex makes a better billboard for professional sponsorship than cotton shorts. Notice how they zip up before they cross the finish so the logos won't be obstructed by folds. For the rest of us, there's Rivendell, no spandex in sight (mostly wool, the other extreme). Check out Richie Sachs and off-road fixed-gear |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-07-27 14:57 |
| #11 Can we say that Americans naturally produce more testosterone than the French are used to seeing? Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2006-07-27 14:20 |
| #10 I became a fan when OLN started carrying the races. I TiVo 'em all. Best virtual tourism ever. Course I'd be hard pressed to do 20 miles on the flat, much less climb. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-07-27 14:15 |
| #9 You're a real man now, aren't ya. |
| Posted by: Celsius 2006-07-27 14:13 |
| #8 I "tried it" on a Schwinn unitl I was old enuf to buy a 57 Chevy. I pitched newspapers and delivered groceries, pulled a lawnmower, went to baseball practice. Raised a family, paid taxes, and kept a job until retirement. Never pulled on spandex, never will. The concept is brokesprocket in my book. Just my two cents worth. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-27 14:07 |
| #7 What more need be said. How about, "You try it." The New American in Paris A few days before the Tour started, Landis and Lim were training in a small town high in the Pyrenees of northern Spain. The training had gone longer than originally planned, and Landis awoke the last morning looking at a stormy forecast and a hellacious travel day. In order to make it to a pre-Tour Phonak team meeting in Tours, France, they were scheduled to drive two hours south to Barcelona, catch a plane for the two-hour flight to Paris, get picked up, then drive an additional two hours to Tours. Not a big deal under most circumstances, but on this morning, Landis didn't want to hopscotch all over Europe like some business traveler. He wanted one last, hard ride. Lim awoke to the sight of Landis pulling on his biking gear. The trainer was confused. Didn't he have to pack up? Didn't he have a plane to catch? "Not anymore we don't," Landis informed Lim. Lim still didn't get it. "What I'm saying is, Fuck it," Landis said. "I'll ride there." And so Landis did. He pointed his front wheel north toward France and started pedaling. He rode up and over the Pyrenees and down the mountain roads, into the vineyards of Limoux, following the road signs north. Landis rode for six hours, covering 130 miles, then got off his bike, stripped off his mud-soaked jersey and shorts, and hurled them off a nearby cliff. Donning dry clothes, he climbed in the car to drive the rest of the way with Lim. "You know how I got to the Tour last year?" Landis asked. When Lim shook his head, Landis grinned. "Lance's private jet," he said. |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-07-27 13:52 |
| #6 Skinny young men in spandex. What more need be said. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-27 13:43 |
| #5 Five Astaná riders who were forced out of the 2006 Tour de France because of alleged links to a blood doping investigation have been formally cleared by Spanish courts. Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal, Sergio Paulinho, Allan Davis and Alberto Contador have all received a written document officially clearing them of any links to the ongoing "Operación Puerto," the Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco reported Wednesday. The five riders received a legal document signed by Manuel Sánchez MartÃn, secretary for the Spanish court heading up the "Operación Puerto" investigation, stating, "there are not any type of charges against them nor have there been adopted any type of legal action against them." The five were among nine riders from four teams who were forced out of the 2006 Tour because of alleged links to controversial Spanish doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes. Other riders forced out were pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC) and Francisco Mancebo (Ag2r). Comunidad Valenciana lost its wild-card bid after one of its assistant sport directors was among five people detained in May. oops. Guess Team Astana (including Vinokurov) should not have been banned from the Tour. Oh well, sorry guys, try again next year. According to El Diario Vasco, the riders can now make legal claims in Spanish courts against damages caused to them or their team. The news circulated among the peloton before the Clásica de Ordizia in Spain on Tuesday. Astaná riders were not participating in the one-day race because of complaints from ex-sponsor Würth, which didn't want its name on team jerseys after it pulled out of its sponsorship deal in the wake of the Tour expulsions. Actually, the teams and officials are showing perhaps an overabundance of caution, which will come back to bite them. But they are definitely coming down hard on offenders, and that's good for the sport. |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-07-27 13:41 |
| #4 I hope there's a valid explanation for this. This is not the way to continue Armstrong's legacy and is an embarassment to all American athletes on the international stage if proven to be a true positive. |
| Posted by: Dar 2006-07-27 12:50 |
| #3 Officials from the Tour de Phrance also announced that Floyd Landis was also found to have banned substances on his body in the form of soap residue, de-odorant, shampoo, toothpaste and mouthwash. |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2006-07-27 12:10 |
| #2 John Lelangue, the head of the Phonak team, said in a telephone interview that the squad had been notified of the test result. He denied that Landis had failed a doping test. Patrick Schamasch, the International Olympic Committee's medical director, said in a separate telephone interview that the high testosterone level ``could potentially lead to an anti- doping violation.'' News media, including Reuters, said Landis had failed a doping test.Bloomberg |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-07-27 11:57 |
| #1 You're kidding. I'm amazed, doesn't sound in character with what I know of Floyd Landis. He certainly was pumped up for that stage! Given that his nuts were in a vice, do or die, I'm not surprised there was a high level of hormone in his system! He was an angry man even at the finish, from what I could see. So, under natural conditions, what happens to the testosterone level in, say, a warrior in the heat of battle? Wrap up on OLN Sunday. 7 PM, I believe. Could be interesting. |
| Posted by: KBK 2006-07-27 11:45 |