Floyd Landis

 

Floyd Landis

Personal information
Full name	Floyd Landis
Date of birth	October 14 1975 (1975--) (age 32)
Country	United States
Height	m ()
Weight	68 kg (150 lb)
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	All-rounder
Professional team(s)
1999-2001 2002-2004 2005-2006	Mercury Cycling Team US Postal Service Phonak Hearing Systems
Major wins
Paris-Nice (2006) Tour de Georgia (2006) Tour of California (2006).
Infobox last updated on:
September 20, 2007

Floyd Landis (born October 14 1975) is an American cyclist whose previous achievements have been overshadowed for his involvement in a 2006 doping scandal. He is a time-trial specialist as well as a strong climber. Landis turned professional in 1999 with the Mercury Cycling Team. He joined the US Postal Service team in 2002, and moved to the Phonak Hearing Systems team in 2005. Landis was fired from the Phonak team on August 5, 2006, after testing revealed an abnormally high testosterone/epitestosterone ratio^[1] after stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France.

Landis was stripped of his title as winner of the 2006 Tour de France and placed under a two year ban from professional racing, following an arbitration panel's 2 to 1 ruling on September 20, 2007.

Biography

Floyd Landis is the second child and oldest son of Paul and Arlene Landis. His childhood home is located in the unincorporated village of Farmersville in West Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.^[2]

Landis used his first bike to ride while out fishing with a friend but quickly learned to enjoy riding for its own sake. At one point, he became determined to ride in a local race. Landis showed up wearing sweatpants because his religion forbade wearing shorts; he won anyway. More wins followed as Landis continued to enjoy the sport. Disturbed at his son's participation in what he considered a "useless" endeavor, Landis' father tried to discourage him from racing his bike by giving him extra chores. This left him no time to train during the day, so he would sneak out of the house at night to train, sometimes at 1 or 2 a.m. and often in the freezing cold. Landis' father, a devout Mennonite,^[3] received a tip that his son had been going out at night. He did not appreciate his son's passion for cycling and thought that he might be getting into drugs or alcohol. He often followed Landis at a distance to make sure he was not getting into trouble. Today, Landis' father has become a hearty supporter of his son and regards himself as one of Floyd's biggest fans.^[4][5]

"Master of the Mountains"

Landis won the first mountain bike race he entered. In 1993, he was crowned junior national champion. He told friends he would win the Tour de France one day. At age 20, Landis moved to Southern California to train full time as a mountain biker. He soon established a reputation for toughness, once finishing a race riding on only his rims.^[6] However, his training regimen resembled that of a road biker, and in 1999 he switched to road cycling.

Landis performed well enough on the road that Lance Armstrong recruited him to U.S. Postal and chose Landis to ride alongside him in three straight Tours de France (all of which Armstrong won) from 2002 to 2004. Landis often pushed the pace in the mountains to break the pack before Armstrong made his final move. In the 2004 tour, Landis led Armstrong and a few of Armstrong's main rivals over the final climb of stage 17, putting on such an impressive display of strength that comedian and avid bike-racing fan Robin Williams dubbed him the "Mofo of the Mountains." Landis' performance led some observers to peg him as a possible team leader and future winner of the maillot jaune. Landis left US Postal later that year after receiving a better contract offer from the Phonak squad.

In the 2005 Tour de France, Landis finished ninth overall in the General Classification, his highest finish in the tour at that time.

Landis started the 2006 season strong, with overall wins in the Amgen Tour of California, and then in the prestigious Paris-Nice, both week-long stage races. Winning Paris-Nice gave Landis 52 points in the UCI ProTour individual competition, starting him off in first place for 2006. Landis continued his display of strength with another overall win in the Ford Tour de Georgia, which took place from April 18 to April 23. In addition to winning the Tour de Georgia time trial, Landis managed to retain every second of his lead through the mountains with a close second place finish to Tom Danielson on Brasstown Bald, the most difficult climbing stage of the tour.

2006 Tour de France

In the lead-up to the 2006 Tour de France, Landis was widely mentioned as a dark horse contender. The widespread assumption was that the winner would be either Ivan Basso or Jan Ullrich, who finished second and third respectively in the 2005 tour. In the days immediately before the race, the Operación Puerto doping case forced Basso and Ullrich to withdraw, leaving Landis prominent among a field of possible favorites.

Landis' Tour did not get off to an encouraging start. When his turn came to leave the start house in the Prologue time trial, he was not even there, having suffered a cut tire on his rear disc wheel. He finished ninth in the stage, just 9 seconds behind winner Thor Hushovd. His bad luck in the time trial continued during Stage 7, a 52 kilometer individual time trial to Rennes, when a handlebar malfunction forced him to switch bikes midway through the race. Nevertheless, Landis managed to finish in second place, one minute behind T-Mobile's Serhiy Honchar of Ukraine. Landis gained an important time advantage over other top contenders for the overall victory as the racers headed into its first mountain stages.

In the second mountain stage, he was among the few that could keep up with the fierce pace set by the riders of the Rabobank team. Landis finished the stage sharing third place with Denis Menchov and Levi Leipheimer. He retained the overall lead until Stage 13, when he and his team let a breakaway group get a half-hour lead in the stage. Among the group was his former teammate Óscar Pereiro, who took the overall lead by 89 seconds. The assumption was that Pereiro, who had lost half an hour in the three previous mountain stages, would not be a serious contender in the Alps, and that it would be easy to win the jersey back. Indeed, in Stage 15, on the slopes of the infamous l'Alpe d'Huez, Landis outrode Pereiro by almost two minutes, regaining the jersey and a 10-second overall lead in the process.

The next day was a different story. Landis "bonked" on the final ascent up La Toussuire, losing ten minutes. He fell from first to eleventh place in the general classification, and Pereiro took the overall lead and was eight minutes ahead of him. Landis reportedly had a lapse in concentration and failed to eat enough during the ride in this stage.^[7] With only two more stages where the general classification could reasonably be contested remaining in the Tour, one more mountain stage and one time trial, it was assumed his disastrous performance would mark the end of his chance to win the Tour. Many assumed that he might not even achieve a place on the podium. Among the exceptions to this pattern of thinking was five time tour winner Eddy Merckx. Merckx bet 100 euros against 75 to 1 odds that Landis would still win the Tour. His son, Axel Merckx, was on Landis's Phonak team for the 2006 Tour.

On the following day's Stage 17, Landis stunned the cycling world with a 120 km solo breakaway attack that has been called "one of the most epic days of cycling ever seen".^[8] The performance earned Landis comparisons to the famed rides of Eddy Merckx. At one point on the course, he was 9 minutes 4 seconds clear of Pereiro. Landis ultimately won the stage by nearly six minutes over Team CSC's Carlos Sastre and took more than seven minutes out of Pereiro's lead. At the end of the day, Landis sat in third place overall, 18 seconds behind Sastre and just 30 seconds behind the Tour leader. The next stage was a 57 km individual time trial, and Landis' strength in time trialing put him well within striking distance of regaining the tour lead. Landis finished third in the time trial of Stage 19, 89 seconds ahead of Pereiro and 3 minutes 31 seconds ahead of Sastre, to reclaim the yellow jersey with a lead of 59 seconds. Landis retained the lead through Stage 20, the procession into Paris, to win the 2006 Tour de France by 57 seconds.

Hip ailment

The powerful performance of Landis up to Stage 16 of the Tour de France and his comeback in Stage 17 is particularly notable given his hip ailment, osteonecrosis, which was revealed in an article in The New York Times during the 2006 Tour de France.^[9] This deterioration in the ball joint of his right hip stemmed from diminished blood supply and constricted blood vessels caused by scar tissue. The original injury that led to the formation of the scar tissue was a femoral neck fracture sustained in a bicycle crash during a training ride near his Southern California home in October 2002. Landis kept the ailment secret from his teammates, rivals, and the media until an announcement made while the 2006 Tour was underway. This same ailment also affected former multi-sport athlete Bo Jackson and American football player Brett Favre.

Landis rode the 2006 Tour with the constant pain from the injury, which he described thus: "It's bad, it's grinding, it's bone rubbing on bone. Sometimes it's a sharp pain. When I pedal and walk, it comes and goes, but mostly it's an ache, like an arthritis pain. It aches down my leg into my knee. The morning is the best time, it doesn't hurt too much. But when I walk it hurts, when I ride it hurts. Most of the time it doesn't keep me awake, but there are nights that it does."^[10]

During the Tour, Landis was medically approved to take cortisone for this injury, a medication otherwise prohibited in professional cycling for its known potential for abuse. Landis himself called his win "a triumph of persistence" despite the pain.^[11] Landis underwent successful hip resurfacing surgery on September 27, 2006.

Doping investigation

On July 27, 2006 the Phonak Cycling Team announced Floyd Landis had a urine test come back positive, having an unusually high ratio of the hormone testosterone to the hormone epitestosterone (T/E ratio) after the epic performance in Stage 17.^[12] Landis denied having doped and placed faith in a test using his backup sample.^[13] Phonak stated that he would be dismissed should the backup sample also test positive. It did, and Landis was suspended from professional cycling and dismissed from his team.^[14] Landis's personal physician later disclosed that the test had found a T/E ratio of 11:1 in Landis, far above the maximum allowable ratio of 4:1.^[15][16]

The test on Landis's Stage 17 A sample had been performed by the French government's anti-doping clinical laboratory, the National Laboratory for Doping Detection (LNDD). (LNDD is a division of the Ministry of Youth, Sport, and Social Life and is accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).^[17]) Under the rules of the International Cycling Union (UCI), Landis had five days to request independent verification using the backup sample. However, after just four days, on July 31, the UCI, claiming that Landis had yet to act, preempted him by requesting that the same lab be the one to test the backup sample. The UCI announced, "We have done this so the whole thing can be speeded up. We took this decision because of the importance of the case. Also, the longer it goes on the more damage the sport risks suffering." In response, a spokesman for Landis insisted that the cyclist had asked on July 31 for testing of the backup sample. Had the UCI not intervened and had Landis waited the full five days before requesting testing of his backup sample, the test result would not have been forthcoming for several weeks since LNDD closes during August^[18] (as is a widespread custom among workplaces in France). The samples reportedly tested positive for an unnatural source of testosterone.^[19]

Following the reported positive drug test on his A sample, Landis suggested that the results had been improperly released by the UCI. On August 9, 2006, UCI president Pat McQuaid rejected the claim, saying, "We acted correctly. We informed the team, the rider, and the federation that there had been an irregularity. Then we issued a press release saying that an unnamed rider had been found positive in the Tour. Landis's team published his name, two days later... I have full faith in that laboratory, and there are stringent measures kept in place by the anti-doping agencies to ensure they proceed correctly."^[20]

Recent status

On May 14, 2007 an arbitration hearing began between the USADA and Landis regarding the doping allegations..^[21] On September 20, 2007, the arbitrators found Landis guilty of doping. ^[22]

As Landis forfeited his Tour title, the second place rider, Óscar Pereiro, became the race's official winner. The decision of whether to strip him of his title was made by the International Cycling Union (UCI).^[23] Under UCI rules, the determination of whether or not a cyclist violated any rules must be made by the cyclist's national federation, in this case USA Cycling, which transferred the case to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).^[23][24][25] Landis has also been banned from the sport for two years, dated retroactively to January 2007. Even before the USADA's ruling on this matter, the controversy resulted in the disbandment of Landis's former team, Phonak.^[26]

Landis has agreed not to participate in any racing in France in 2007 so that he may push back a hearing of his case there. He wishes to resolve his case in the United States first.

Among Landis's lawyers are José Maria Buxeda of Spain and Howard L. Jacobs of the United States. Buxeda represented Spanish cyclist Roberto Heras when he was suspended for two years after testing positive for EPO. Jacobs has extensive experience defending athletes accused of doping, such as Tyler Hamilton and sprinter Tim Montgomery. They are also representing Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov who was accused of blood doping, kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France, and fired from his cycling team.

Claims of innocence

Landis has claimed that he is not guilty of using banned performance-enhancing drugs. He has declared that "We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case, but a natural occurrence" and that the testosterone in his body was "natural and produced by my own organism."^[16] Doubt was cast on Landis's claims on August 1, 2006, when the New York Times reported that, according to a source at the UCI, Landis's urine test had revealed synthetic testosterone in his body.^[19]

Landis and his spokespeople have put forth a variety of reasons, at various times, for his positive drug test. They include: naturally high testosterone, drinking alcohol, dehydration, thyroid medication, and a conspiracy against him. His defense ultimately criticized LNDD's methodology and execution.^{[citation needed]}

Landis is quoted as saying, "There are multiple reasons why this could have happened, other than what they're saying ... there are possibly hundreds of reasons why this test could be this way."^[27] The variety of explanations offered up by Landis provided fodder for many skeptical columns by sports journalists^[28] and inspiration for satirists such as late-night national TV show host David Letterman, who presented the "Top 10 Floyd Landis Excuses" on his show.^[29]

Several experts have refuted Landis's assertions.^[30] Prof. Christiane Ayotte, director of Montreal's anti-doping laboratory, said that "In 25 years of experience of testing testosterone ... such a huge increase in the level of testosterone cannot be accepted to come from any natural factors." David Black, a forensic toxicologist for Nashville-based Aegis Sciences, said, "There are not hundreds of plausible explanations. If the tests were so unreliable that there were hundreds of possible reasons, there would be no point in performing the tests."^[31]

Landis later backtracked from some of the assertions, saying, "The whisky idea was not mine and the dehydration was a theory from the lawyers I hired in Spain to represent me".^[32]

On September 7, 2006, Landis was televised on San Diego's NBC affiliate announcing at a La Jolla fundraiser that information in the lab report could exonerate him. He stated that more details would be announced, perhaps as early as the next day. On September 8, 2006, Landis's attorney announced that he would formally request that the case be dropped on the grounds LNDD's 370 page report revealed inconsistencies in the way the samples were handled.^[33]

Team Landis has also launched an extensive PR campaign, culminating in the publication of a book, Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, in June 2007. The publication was preceded by a spate of sympathetic media coverage of Landis, including the cover story in the June 2007 issue of Bicycling magazine, which was written by Loren Mooney, the co-author of Positively False.^[34]

Exogenous testosterone

On August 1, 2006, media reports said that the testosterone was synthetic as concluded from LNDD's carbon isotope ratio test, or CIR, on the A sample. Its results were deemed to show that some of the testosterone in Landis’s body came from an external source and was not naturally produced by his own system. These reported results conflict with Landis's public speculation that it was a natural occurrence.^[35][16]

The CIR test is purported to distinguish between testosterone produced naturally by the athlete's body and synthetic testosterone introduced from an outside source. The test is performed by Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS). According to Gary I. Wadler, M.D., a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the carbon isotope ratio test needs to be done only once, on either an A or on a B sample, particularly if the athlete’s T/E ratio is high as in Landis's case.^[16]

It has been suggested that Landis may have been using testosterone over the long term but either masking it or diluting it to avoid detection. The positive test result would therefore have been from a mistake with the alleged doping program on one day.^[36] Landis gave a total of eight samples during the 2006 Tour de France. As part of it's prosecution, USADA had remaining "B" portions of the other samples tested by the French laboratory. Four of those samples showed the presence of synthetic testosterone. ^[37]

Appeals

On September 11, 2006, Landis asked a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) review board to dismiss the doping charges against him. Landis's request was made on the basis that the A and B urine samples from stage 17 of the Tour de France do not meet the established World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) criteria for a positive doping offense. Landis's lawyer said in a statement: "The single testosterone/epitestosterone analysis in this case is replete with fundamental, gross errors." The lawyer also claims that the positive finding on the B sample came from a sample number not assigned to Landis.^[38][39] The review board notified Landis on September 18 of its recommendation that USADA proceed with the disciplinary process. Howard Jacobs, attorney for Landis, requested an open hearing by the American Arbitration Association to contest potential sanctions against the athlete.

Defense

On October 12, 2006, Landis made public many documents in support of his claim of innocence.^[40][41] These included the full testing information from Landis' A and B urine samples, and a PowerPoint presentation created by Arnie Baker, M.D. challenging key aspects of the testing — in particular, arguing that the carbon isotope ratio testing (CIR) did not meet relevant WADA criteria. In addition to being a public relations strategy, the dissemination of these files over the Web is an attempt "to draw on the collective resources of cycling fans, using the Internet to allow widely distributed review of evidence in his case and he encourages Internet users to find the mistakes that the legal team has not noticed." His strategy has been coined the "Wikipedia defense".^[42]

In their submissions to the USADA, Landis's attorneys advance four main arguments.

• That WADA's CIR test actually supported a negative finding, or an inconclusive one. The CIR test covers four parameters. The lawyers argue that a positive finding is justified only when all four of them have high values. In the lab's results, only one of these parameters measured high, and it was within the range of error.
• That among the parameters showing a low (negative) value in the CIR test is the one that WADA supposedly considers most decisive indicator. WADA is argued to have previously supported a determination that this parameter is the most convincing of the four above mentioned. In LNDD's tests of Landis's urine, this parameter was arguably normal.
• That there is evidence one or both samples had become contaminated: LNDD's results allegedly manifest a significant variance between the respective measurements.
• That WADA's documents show mismatches between the reference number of the sample versus the reference number that Landis attested. In one instance a test report's reference number allegedly was overwritten, but LNDD's protocol requires that any corrections must be made with a single strikethrough line and then initialed and dated.

Testing lab credibility

LNDD, the laboratory that analyzed both of Landis's tests, is a French government agency and is one of 34 anti-doping testing labs in an international WADA network. LNDD's credibility has been attacked by Landis and his attorneys. These attacks have been joined by several Landis allies, including cycling officials, scientists, and medical professionals.

• In 2005, the president of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations called for investigation and suspension of LNDD after it was involved, along with UCI and WADA, in the leaking of the results of tests on seven year old samples from Lance Armstrong and two other cyclists, dating back to the 1999 Tour de France, which were alleged to be positive for doping.^[43]
• The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in a final decision on December 20, 2006, cleared Spanish racer Iñigo Landaluze of doping allegations dating back to a 2005 victory. LNDD had tested two urine samples from Landaluze and made a finding of testosterone doping. But his national cycling federation, the RFEC, acquitted Landaluze because LNDD admitted to violating testing protocol because the A and B samples had both been handled by the same technician. UCI brought RFEC before the CAS to challenge the acquittal, but CAS rejected UCI's appeal, upholding Landaluze's acquittal.^[44][45]
• Douwe de Boer, a former science director at the Lisbon lab of the network, has condemned LNDD's execution of testing procedures.^[46]
• In February 2007, it was reported that LNDD records turned over to Landis's defense lawyers show that two technicians were involved in both the original urine analysis and a second validating test. International lab standards prohibit technicians from participating in both tests to prevent them from validating their own findings.^[47]

The LeMond testimony

On May 17, 2007 Greg LeMond took the stand in the USADA arbitration hearing. Under oath, he described a phone conversation he had with Floyd Landis on August 6, 2006 as well as another with Will Geoghegan, Landis's business manager, on May 16th, the evening before the testimony. The major points of the testimony are as follows:

• In an August 6 phone conversation, LeMond allegedly told Landis that If you did (use banned substances), you could single-handedly change the sport. You could be the one who will salvage the sport, to which Landis allegedly responded What good would it do? If I did, it would destroy a lot of my friends and hurt a lot of people.^[48]
• LeMond disclosed his childhood sexual abuse to Landis. I was sexually abused before I got into cycling, and it nearly destroyed me by keeping it secret, LeMond allegedly said to Landis. (Lying about doping) will come back to haunt you when you are 40 or 50. If you have a moral compass and ethics, this will destroy you.^[48]
• Will Geoghegan called LeMond at his personal mobile phone number the night before the scheduled testimony. LeMond's BlackBerry, with Geoghegan's phone number captured in the call log, was entered into evidence.^[48]

Following the testimony, Landis's legal team announced that Geoghegan had just been fired as Landis's business manager. Geoghegan was also observed by reporters approaching LeMond during the break. LeMond later stated to reporters that Geoghegan had admitted making the call, and "tried to apologize".^[48] Landis has admitted to being in the same room as Geoghegan when the call was made^[49], and defended his decision not to fire Geoghegan until after the LeMond testimony, saying he had been waiting for legal advice. Landis has not commented on how Geoghegan came to know of LeMond's childhood sexual abuse as well as his personal mobile phone number. Geoghegan blamed "a beer or two" for his action, and entered an undisclosed rehab facility on May 21.^[50] The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident as a potential witness tampering case.^[51]

LeMond's testimony is indirectly supported by an online posting Floyd Landis made on the Daily Peloton forum, in which he states that LeMond disclosed personal information of a sensitive nature to Landis, and threatens to use the information to damage LeMond if he continues to involve himself in Landis's USADA appeal process:

Unfortunately, the facts that he divulged to me in the hour which he spoke and gave no opportunity for me to do the same, would damage his character severely and I would rather not do what has been done to me. However, if he ever opens his mouth again and the word Floyd comes out, I will tell you all some things that you will wish you didn't know...^[52]

Verdict

On September 20, 2007 Landis was found guilty of doping by a 2-1 vote of the hearing committee. The committee ruled that "the charge of an elevated T/E ratio from the sample was not established in accordance with the WADA International Standards for Laboratories" and dismissed the charge. It also ruled that "the charge of exogenous testosterone being found in the sample by the Carbon Isotope Ratio analysis is established in accordance with the UCI Anti-Doping Regulations" and that "an Anti-Doping Rule Violation is found to have been established".^[53]

The committee ordered that Landis be suspended from cycling for two years, retroactive to January 30, 2007 and that he forfeit the 2006 Tour de France win. Landis does have the right to appeal the decision of the committee to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. ^[54]

Reaction among cyclists

After the A sample, retired American cyclist and three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond doubted whether additional doping tests would reverse Landis's earlier results. He stated, "I hope the sampling comes back negative; unfortunately, I think the labs in Europe are very professional."^[55]

On July 28, 2006 Landis appeared on "Larry King Live" to explain his situation and reiterate his innocence.^[56] Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong also called in to express support for his former teammate. Armstrong expressed skepticism of the French laboratory that conducted Landis's drug test, noting it is the same laboratory involved in some of the doping allegations against him.^[57] Armstrong has continuously expressed support for Landis and stated his conviction that the process is biased against athletes.

Fellow professional and 10 time Tour de France cyclist, Australian Stuart O'Grady, left no doubt as to his view in an interview for the Australian 60 Minutes program televised on 22 July 2007.

The reporter Liz Hayes asked O'Grady:

Would anyone have picked that — that the winner of last year's race was a drug cheat?

O'Grady replied:

I would have because I was there with him that day when he was in that breakaway. I was actually 13 minutes ahead of him and he caught us on his own and then he basically rode us all off the wheel..... I thought that was impossible, what he did. I'm not a bad bike rider and, you know, he made me look like a little kid.^[58]

Major results

References

External links

• Floyd Landis' Website
• Sex, drugs and sports: Prostaglandins, epitestosterone and sexual development
• Floyd Landis profile
• Trust But Verify: News, Research and Commentary about the Floyd Landis doping allegations.

Persondata
NAME	Landis, Floyd
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Road racing cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH	October 14, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH	Farmersville, West Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

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