This is great, just great. Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has allegedly tested positive for “drugs” during the Tour de France. According to a team statement:
“The Phonak Cycling Team was notified on Wednesday by the UCI of an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in the test made on Floyd Landis after stage 17 of the Tour de France,” said a team statement.
“The team management and the rider were both totally surprised of this physiological result.
I’ve always wondered–if you know you’re going to be tested, and you’ve taken drugs, how exactly do you expect to get away with it?
In the meantime, Landis has denied the allegations and launched an aggressive defense of himself:
Landis Denies Cheating to Win Tour
Floyd Landis says he didn’t cheat to win the Tour de France, he doesn’t know why he tested positive for high testosterone and he’s sure he can clear his name. Even if he does, the American cyclist said, the disgrace of doping will probably follow him forever.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s ever going to go away no matter what happens next,” Landis said during a teleconference Thursday, hours after his Tour de France victory was thrown into question by a positive test for high testosterone following his gritty performance in stage 17 of the race.
“My immediate reaction was to look for the alcohol bottle,” joked Landis, who’s known to enjoy a beer while on the Tour and said he drank some whiskey with teammates the night before he staked his stunning comeback in the Alps.
it’s worth remembering what the Tour de France people did in their ongoing project to smear Lance Armstrong, including efforts to falsely accuse him of doping. I’ll believe Landis until there is some secondary proof, or an admission. Until then, the French should go back to eating their cheese and lamenting their loss(es).
Related Post:
Americans Dominate Euro Sports
One has to wonder just how badly the cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys want to save face. America wins France’s “Super Bowl” 8 years in a row–7 with a cancer patient, and 1 with a guy suffering arthritis and in need of a hip replacment.
Lord, how they hate us, ain’t it great?!
I heard several MDs in the MSM today who say that it is very possible that Landis’s pos-test could come from simply being jazzed-up from the race, and nothing more.
I will be very upset if the guy is dirty, but hardly surprised in a world where a guy weighing 160lbs. hits seven homeruns in one Major League Baseball season, and returns the next season with 40lbs. more muscle, a short temper, and hits 37 out of the park.
On another note I hear that the French riders have been tested for soap…results: negative.
Hi Tammy!
Landis is innocent until proven guilty, although the drive by media in this country and around the world have already convicted Floyd before anything can be proven. They need to examine the B sample before we’ll know.
The Spanish Doping Investigation had already ripped several of cycling’s biggest names from even participating in the Tour this year. I don’t think Floyd is an idiot. He and all the rest of the big contenders knew that they would be tested and retested for anything that even hinted at steroids and similar banned substances. There is no possible way that Floyd, or any other cyclist, would dare attempt any funny stuff in the 2006 Tour de France.
I’m a Landis fan, I believe in the man, and I’ll stand by him through this. The lab that did the testing is associated closely with L’Equipe — the outfit that runs the Tour and also ironically has been trying to pin a doping scandal on Armstrong all these years.
I firmly believe there is some resentment to the fact that an American has ruled the Tour since 1999. I think some people want to see that end, and will smear good men in the process.
My money is on Landis. Note that they didn’t find drugs; they only found a suspicious ratio between his testosterone and his epi-testosterone levels. And the testosterone levels were normal, it was his epi-testosterone that was low, causing the ratio to trip. You get no immediate benefits from raised testosterone levels; it takes weeks and months for the benefits to accrue.
He thought he had lost it, so instead of starving himself with the strict diet regimen of a biker, he drank beer and ate well the evening before his break-away performance. That alone could account for the discrepancy; and by the way, sometimes you have your best performances when you “let go” and just enjoy the experience.
I think Landis is the man, and one of the high points of my year is hearing the Star Spangled Banner blaring out across the Champs-Elysees.
Steve in Ohio is right on. I read a quote from a doctor who basically said that if you expect any benefit from taking testosterone, you need to do it for at least a couple of weeks before any benefit would accrue. And if landis did that, why did it take until the stage 17 urine test for it to show up? Furthermore, it is also known that using alcohol will affect the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio in the bloodstream. He also has been taking cortisone for his hip condition.
So I am definitely giving Landis the benefit of the doubt. And by the way … does anyone believe that the french lab is beyond reproach when it comes to “funny business?”
The French have hated America for 60 years. It is almolst like they resent us for liberating them from the Socialist Labor Party. Lance and Bush are not the only Americans they hate. For the same reason they are backing Iran in the current fighting.
As they do every year after losing their own big bicycle race to an American, the French are accusing the winner of using “peformance enhancing drugs”.
It tells you something about modern France that their idea of a disqualifying “foreign substance” in a male athelete is “high levels of testosterone”.
JJ
High levels of testosterone for the 1976 East German Olympic female swim team was a valid scandal. However, for a male cyclist….not so much of a scandal.