[BREAKING]Tour de France winner Landis disappears after dope discovery

Mystery surrounds Landis whereabouts
AFP
July 27, 2006

PARIS (AFP) - Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of American Tour de France champion Floyd Landis following his withdrawal from two races in the Netherlands and Denmark.

The ANP Dutch news agency said Landis pulled out of a race in Chaam on Wednesday evening after medical advice but this reason for not appearing was not confirmed by race organisers.

Agent John van den Akker, who organised Landis's appearance at the race said he was annoyed by the situation. "We have tried to contact Floyd and his manager but we have not been able to," van den Akker told ANP.


"We are very annoyed. We have invested a lot of money (to ensure his appearance) and we would have expected some kind of explanation."

It was also discovered that Landis would not be coming to Thursday's Grand Prix Jyske Bank race, the Danish organisers said in a statement.

"It is with great regret that we announce Floyd Landis will not be appearing in the race," Danish organisers said.

Landis did show top form however to win the Stiphout criterium in the Netherlands on Tuesday night.

Phonak teammates of Landis, the South African Robert Hunter and Dutch rider Koos Moerenhout, told various Belgian and Dutch media however that Landis was having medical treatment.

They said he had pain in his injured hip and left his Eindhoven hotel on Wednesday for Germany where he was going to see a doctor.

The news of Landis's disappearance comes after the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced a rider in the Tour de France had failed a doping test.

Neither the identity of the rider nor the date the test was conducted were released by the sport's governing body. If the case is confirmed it would be the first doping case from the race.

However the rider who failed the test is not French, German or Spanish after those country's cycling federations denied they had received notification of the test result from the UCI.

The UCI said on Wednesday they had sent the result to the federation of the cyclist concerned but French federation president Jean Pitallier told AFP: "We have received nothing from the UCI."

And a German cycling federation (BDR) spokesman said: "We have received nothing from the UCI whether it is by post or email."

Eugenio Bermudez, the general secretary of the Spanish federation RFEC, also said they had received no notification.

On Wednesday, the UCI said in a statement: "The adverse analytical finding received this morning relates to the first analysis, and will have to be confirmed either by a counter-analysis required by the rider, or by the fact that the rider renounces to that counter analysis.

"The World Anti-doping Code and the Anti-doping Rules of the UCI do not allow to make the name of the concerned rider public, as well as other information that may allow identification."

The test was carried out by France's national anti-doping laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.

This year's Tour was rocked by a drugs scandal on the eve of the race which saw 13 riders, including pre-race favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, barred from taking part after they were implicated in a Spanish blood-doping ring.

It was the latest in a series of high-profile drugs controversies to tarnish cycling over the past decade, with the Tour de France being particularly hard hit.

 

They are now saying that it is indeed Landis.

This makes me sad. I think they just need to go ahead and ban all current riders and start fresh. Next year the Tour will be contested by 3 year olds on tricycles.

 

[image=http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a377/sloe_t/nelson-800x600.gif]

 

Hopefully it's just a weird natural chemical imbalance of testosterone. It's possible, at least.

 

They've only tested the A-sample, as positive, for high levels of Testosterone. I'll wait untill a B-sample, or C-sample, matches up.

While I appreciate the endurance and skill of the sport, I'm not a huge fan.

As much as the French have tried to take away from Lance Armstrong's legitimate accomplishments, I won't pass judgement untill on Landis untill further proof surfaces.

 

sure but let's face it, disappearing isn't usually the best indicator of innocence.

 

Why would a cyclist take testosterone? It seems the added bulk would just slow you down.

 

I think Leno said Landis would be on his show tonite or tomorrow nite. We'll see if he shows up there.

 

Yes but if he has just disappeared, he's got a great career ahead of him as a world famous magician.

EDIT: Or maybe he's a Q.

 

Eh, the French were just pissed another American was going to win the Olympics...they probably faked the results.


Probably not true, but I hate the French.

 

Really disappointing, if he did. I'll wait for the second sample to come back positive before I jump to that conclusion, though.

 

It will be a real bummer if he was found guilty. The guy who finished second really wasnt that good and doesnt deserve to win anyways.

 

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

 

The reason he has not appeared at the races is this:
IF, and I must type it in caps, IF he is found guilty, then the International Committee will strip him of his Tour victory and winnings, and any other race since then that he has competed in, which will extend his minimum 2 year ban.

I don't think he did it, personally. He was taking pain pills for his hip (which he did not want to do for this type of thing), and those may have caused this reaction. It's more than likely that it's all a scheme brought up by the haters of American Cyclists.

Remember, Lance Armstrong went through tons of these accusations and has yet to be found guilty. He had several 'A' tests come up positive, but the 'B' and 'C' tests were not.

I hope that Floyd wins this, the hardest race of all, and comes back next year to smack around the field again, including (if admitted) Basso and Ullrich.

 

I'll add my voice to the list of people who would be very disappointed if this turns out to be true. His story was so inspiring, to have it tainted this way would be just terrible.

 

Eh, they're just athletes.

 

"What are you, people? On dope?"


[image=http://www.fu-manchu.com/morbidaj/mrhand.jpg]

 

It's going to really cheapen the competition if the winner needed drugs to beat his doped up opponents.

 

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Phoebe_Cates_Fast_Times.jpg]

 

Aaaaaah. Memories from my youth.

 

You know how cute I always thought you were George.
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/eethit/cute.jpg]

...

*insert pic of Roper giving himself a hand*

 

lol

 

Sirs, if you don't stop this derailing, I'm going to kick 100% of your ass!

[image=http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/7341/fasttimes1zn1.jpg]

 

[image=http://www.revistaview.com.br/publisher/1104/img/sucesso/0312.jpg]


*idea stolen from Eeth*

 

I already had to alter the line once. Any more than that would've been overkill.