LONDON — 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.Link (Austin American-Statesman)
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.
The allegations haven't been proven, at this point, but I can't tell you how much this bums me out. Here, I finally thought I'd seen a clean race from a clean rider, and now this. It's... disorienting.
Meanwhile, another rider who's had his share of grief from UCI is also in the news:
Newton, Ia. - Lance Armstrong will dip his famous bicycle tires on both sides of Iowa next year, he pledged to an ecstatic RAGBRAI crowd of thousands Wednesday night.Link (DeMoines Register)
"So this is RAGBRAI. I wasted all those Julys in France," Armstrong began, humoring the throngs of riders, residents and fans.
"This is my commitment," he said. "Next year, my rear tire is starting in the west and my front tire's ending on the east."
Very cool.
5 comments:
The thing about all this is, the man's been virtually convicted without getting a chance to prove otherwise. Come on people! What happened to innocent until proven guilty???? That's what this country is built upon, remember???? *sheesh* Just like Lance has said time and time again, I prefer to think that Landis had a natural endorphine high and didn't do drugs. So there! :P
I hadn't heard that Lance was standing up for Floyd.
But here's the deal: first of all, the UCI a) doesn't have anything to do with this country and b) in any case isn't a court of law, so it doesn't have to play by the "guilty until proven innocent" rule.
I read in a Sports Illustrated article that Landis has already engaged a doctor (Hernandez?) who has a very good track record defending against allegations of testosterone doping. We'll just have to watch and see how it all plays out.
Did you mean that, "guilty until proven innocent rule?" Because, in fact, it appears that is the rule that UCI follows. ;-)
Cool on the other though...I have some good friends doing the RAGBRAI as we speak. I didn't know Lance was involved at all.
I was bummed about Landis too. There are no more heroes in sports.
Gwynne: D'oh! I did say it backwards, didn't I? There's my Freudian slip showing again.
Lance: As someone pointed out on BikeJournal, Landis could be cleared of the charges, but the win will now be forever sullied because of the charges.
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