Landis loses case - and Tour crown
Floyd Landis will be stripped of his Tour de France crown and banned from the sport for two years for testing positive for synthetic testosterone after an arbitration panel yesterday affirmed the finding by the US Anti-Doping Agency.
Landis, whose amazing comeback to win the world's most famous cycling race was one of last year's biggest sports stories, has a month to appeal the decision to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has final jurisdiction. Unless the court overturns the ruling, Landis will be the first victor in the race's 105-year history to lose his title for doping.
"This ruling is a blow to athletes and cyclists everywhere," the 31-year-old Pennsylvania native stated through his law firm, which said Landis is weighing his legal options. Landis, whose suspension is retroactive to Jan. 30, also faces a four-year ban from the Pro Tour.
While the arbitrators agreed that the initial screening test to determine the testosterone-epitestosterone ratio had been flawed, the majority found that the subsequent, and more accurate, carbon-isotope ratio analysis confirmed a doping violation.
"Today's ruling is a victory for all clean athletes and everyone who values fair and honest competition," said Travis Tygart, general counsel for USADA, which has won all of its 35 doping arbitration cases.
Landis, who denied ever taking banned drugs, had mounted a vigorous rebuttal, claiming the French lab that handled his urine sample had made multiple errors, demanding that his hearing be made public, and posting hundreds of documents on his website in what was dubbed the "Wiki defense."
In June, Landis co-authored the book "Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France." Well before then, though, race director Christian Prudhomme had disavowed Landis's startling victory, which followed seven straight by countryman Lance Armstrong. "For us, he's not the winner," Prudhomme declared.
If the panel's decision stands, Spain's Oscar Pereiro, who was runner-up to Landis by 57 seconds, will inherit the crown. "You never want to win a competition like that," Pereiro said yesterday, "but after a year and a half of all this, I'm just glad it's over."
Landis had turned up positive for doping after the 17th stage of the 2006 race, during which he made up nearly eight minutes with a bold breakaway attack after falling from first to 11th place in the standings with a disastrous outing the previous day.
Although his astounding comeback was hailed as one of cycling's greatest feats, skeptics found it dubious and hinted that Landis must have had pharmaceutical help. Greg LeMond, the three-time Tour champion, later testified that Landis admitted to him he'd been doped. And Don Catlin, longtime director of the UCLA lab, said the results were unmistakable.
"No question about it, my opinion is that doping was going on," Catlin stated during the contentious nine-day hearing in May. "It's just inescapable."
Once the test results were revealed less than a week after Landis was crowned champion, he lived in a competitive limbo. His Phonak club, which soon disbanded, quickly dropped him and he was reduced to racing in minor unsanctioned events because the Pro Tour considered him a pariah.
"Well, all I can say is that justice has been done and that this is what the UCI felt was correct all along," Pat McQuaid, head of the International Cycling Union (UCI), said yesterday.
Landis spent a reported $2 million on his defense, which centered on numerous mistakes made by the lab at Chatenay-Malabry, including preparation of the machine, the custody and testing of his sample, questionable paperwork handling, and breaching of confidentiality.
The panel agreed that the lab had botched the initial screening. "If such practices continue, it may well be that in the future, an error like this could result in the dismissal [of a doping case]," the arbitrators warned.
Chris Campbell, the former Olympic wrestling medalist who sided with Landis, believed the errors were serious enough to invalidate the test. "Mr. Landis should be found innocent," he wrote. But fellow arbitrators Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren concluded that the carbon-isotope test was conclusive enough to confirm the positive finding.
"For the panel to find in favor of USADA when, with respect to so many issues, USADA did not manage to prove even the most basic parts of their case shows that the system is fundamentally flawed," said Landis. "I am innocent and we proved I am innocent."
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 