Landis suspended by team after positive drug test at Tour de France
Updated 7/27/2006 5:53 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this





Family supports Landis after revelation of positive drug test








MORE ON TESTOSTERONE

What is testosterone: Hormone responsible for normal growth and development of male sex organs.

Normal range for men: From 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter of blood. For athletes, at least 800 nanograms is needed to increase workout capacity and decrease recovery time. The average drug-free athlete is around 500 nanograms.

Synthetic testosterone: Anabolic steroids are derivatives of the natural male hormone testosterone that can stimulate muscle growth and enhance performances. They can be taken orally or injected.

-- Shawn Brouwer, USA TODAY

Source: nih.gov





By Sal Ruibal, USA TODAY
The sport of cycling is reeling after the revelation Thursday that American Floyd Landis' remarkable comeback win at the 2006 Tour de France on Sunday may have been tainted by illegal doping.
The news came just one month after four of the 2005 Tour's top riders were banned from starting this year's race because of their ties to a Spanish doping ring.

Landis' Phonak team announced Thursday what had been rumored for several days: "An unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in the test made on Floyd Landis after stage 17 of the Tour de France."

If Landis is found guilty of doping, he could be stripped of the Tour title, and Spain's Oscar Pereiro would become champion.

Landis could not be reached for comment. According to wire reports, his mother, Arlene Landis, said he called her and assured her he was innocent.

In an interview with SI.com, Landis repeatedly denied cheating and said that an elevated level of testosterone is different from a failed test.

The test result was on one half of Landis' original sample, called the A Sample. For an athlete to be considered guilty of a doping offense, both the A and B Samples must test positive.

Under the rules of international sport, he has the right to be present or have a representative present when the B Sample is opened and tested at the same lab in France where the initial finding was made.

That process could take several days and confirmation or rejection of the initial finding may not be known until sometime next week.

He has been suspended by his team, which extended his $700,000 per year contract by one year on Sunday before the test results were known.

The test was taken after stage 17 of the Tour, in which Landis pulled off one the most remarkable performances in Tour history, making up more than seven minutes on the race leaders after suffering a horrendous meltdown in the previous stage that appeared to knock him out of contention.

The French sports daily newspaper L'Equipe called Landis' feat the "ride of the Century."

Australian rider Michael Rogers said of Landis' comeback ride: "He was like a motorbike. I've never seen anything like it."

The spokesman of the international cycling federation, Enrico Carpani said Landis was notified of the test Wednesday morning. He said the cycling body doesn't require analysis of the "B" sample, but that Landis requested it.

"We are confident in the first (test)," Carpani said. "For us, the first one is already good."

Doping history at the Tour

On the eve of the Tour's start, nine riders — including pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso — were ousted, implicated in a Spanish doping investigation.

The Tour de France began in 1903 and has had many problems with doping, especially in the last 40 years, when more sophisticated performance-enhancing drugs began to appear.

The death of British cyclist Tom Simpson in the 1967 Tour, thought to be from the use of amphetamines and other stimulants, to shock the sport and the Tour into a more active role against doping.

The 1998 Tour was the next watershed, with several teams and dozens of riders implicated in the use of EPO, a powerful blood-booster. There were police raids and sit-down strikes by riders. The Tour appeared to be severely damaged.

Then in 1999, American Lance Armstrong made a heroic comeback from near-fatal cancer to win the Tour and his inspirational story — and seven consecutive wins — brought luster and stature to the race.

But it didn't take long for doping accusations against Armstrong to emerge. Despite seven years of testing, rumors, lawsuits and published allegations, the Texan has never had a positive drug test and has never lost a case in court related to accusation of doping.

Testing for testosterone

Landis' A sample came back with high levels of testosterone. Testosterone is included as an anabolic steroid on the list of substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and its use can be punished by a two-year ban.

The difficulty with testing for testosterone is that it is a naturally occurring hormone, present in everyone's body. Drug testers use a ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in tests as a screening measure.

The overwhelming majority of the population has a 1:1 ratio. A ratio of 4:1 or greater is deemed potentially positive and requires further investigation.

Athletes are entitled to appeal results if both their A sample sample, the original sample tested, and the B sample, or the confirmation sample, both turn up positive.

In the earlier days of testosterone testing, many athletes were able to win on appeal citing mitigating circumstances that led to a ratio greater than allowed, which originally was 6:1, before being changed to 4:1 in recent years.

Drug testers also have a carbon isotope test that can detect the difference between naturally ocurring testostorone and synthetic testosterone used in injections.

While the isotope test is an advancement, dopers have improved ways of taking the testosterone. The BALCO steroid case revealed that athletes were using a cream containing both testosterone and epitestosterone to thwart testing and sail under the 4:1 ratio.

Waiting for the results

The 30-year-old Landis knew he had challenging days ahead. He is set to have hip replacement surgery for a condition called avascular necrosis, or bone death, that resulted from a training crash in 2003. Still unanswered are questions about whether anything he could have been taking for pain could have caused a false positive in his test after the 17th stage.

Jonathan Vaughters, a former Tour rider with Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team, says the epitestosterone test is one of the most unreliable and is "almost always thrown out in favor of the athlete by CAS (the Court of Arbitration in Sport, the Supreme Court of sports litigation)."

"His use of cortisone for his hip injury and drinking beer the night before the stage are things that could trigger a epitestosterone positive," says Vaughters. "It's a shame that Floyd may get railroaded on this thing because people are tired of hearing all the pseudo-scientific excuses some riders have been putting out and just want to nail someone. He doesn't deserve this."

His ride in the 17th stage reminded many of fellow American Tyler Hamilton's gritty 2003 performance. Hamilton, riding for team CSC, broke his collarbone on the first day of the Tour but rode on, despite the pain, and finished fourth overall.

But, a year later, Hamilton, then riding for Phonak — Landis' current team — tested positive for blood doping at a Spanish race and now is serving a two-year ban. He has denied blood doping.

After winning the Tour Sunday, the former Mennonite talked about how his parents had brought him up to see things in the long run and that patience and persistence had been his allies.

He'll be keeping those allies close in the days ahead. Drug cases can drag on for years.

His mother told the Associated Press Thursday that she wouldn't blame her son if he was taking medication to treat the pain in his injured hip, but "if it's something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win."

Thursday, before talking to him, she said. "I know that this is a temptation to every rider but I'm not going to jump to conclusions."

She's not the only one. Second-place finisher Pereiro said he was in no mood to celebrate.

"Should I win the Tour now it would feel like an academic victory," Pereiro told AP. "The way to celebrate a win is in Paris."

Contributing: Dick Patrick, wire reports

Posted 7/27/2006 10:35 AM ET


Landis wraps up victory in Tour de France with ride down Champs-Elysees