(Note: We don’t usually provide much discussion on cycling, as we know most of you don’t really care, and there’s rarely a Philly connection. But it’s the cold middle of a dead winter in Philadelphia sports, and Floyd is of course from Pennsylvania, so here’s a rundown of Matt P’s thoughts on the latest chapter in the Doping Era of Modern Sports. Even a 60-year-old Sly is getting his growth hormone on these days…)
I don’t know who’s dirtier in the world of international cycling, the riders or the anti-doping agents and labs. Last year, the Tour de France was marred by a well-founded pre-race witch-hunt that resulted in several of the top contenders not being able to compete. With 7-time winner Lance Armstrong retired, this left the field even more wide open for a dark-horse champion.
Enter Floyd Landis, a native Pennsylvanian with Lancaster County Mennonite roots who made a name for himself as a teammate of Armstrong’s for several seasons. After leaving US Postal, Landis found success with Swiss team Phonak and was one of a handful of true contenders left in the 2006 field. After leading for several key stages, Landis faltered and fell way behind in the mountains. However, he had a monster, epic day in the 17th stage, making up an unheard of amount of lost time, and he eventually won the Tour.
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Now, I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, except when it comes to cycling. Despite how clearly dirty the riders are, the Tour organizers, French press, and even the anti-doping agency seem to be even worse. Lance has probably peed in a cup and had more blood taken than any human ever, and they’re still trying to say he cheated. So because pretty much everyone in this sport seems to be a possible cheater, it was no surprise when Landis was stripped of the Tour victory due to his urine testing positive for testosterone after the 17th stage.
As a fan of the sport, I don’t want anyone to actually be guilty of doping. With Lance out, I didn’t even really care who won, I just love the dramatic and global nature of this race, and I wanted whoever won to be clean. It was tough to hear that Landis, who grew on me during this race, had probably cheated. I wondered if I would even bother to watch the next peloton of cheaters compete for the World Cup of Doping.
However, some experts claimed that doping like this could not have helped Landis win the stage, pointing out that testosterone must be used over a longer period of time than just a few days to be effective. Landis’s tests prior to that one were all clean. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t still try it…
Landis has since launched a massive campaign to prove (or just proclaim) his innocence, and he may have had a major victory this week, when news emerged that the French lab handling his urine tests had—you guessed it—not followed protocol (or cheated). It seems that two lab technicians were involved in both the original test and the validating test, which is against international lab standards and essentially defeats the purpose of having two tests. Because of this error, the case against Landis may be thrown out entirely, even though the rider himself does not even claim not to have definitely passed the test. Landis has stated that he never took performance-enhancing drugs, but that he may in fact have had a high testosterone level due to his hypothyroidism condition. He also says he had four shots of Jack after totally blowing the 16th stage, which may or may not have impacted his testosterone levels.
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So Landis may get his Tour victory back, but it will be akin to Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record this or next season. No one will truly believe in it, and we’ll all care a little less about the sport than we used to, because we had to watch a possible cheater tear down something legendary.