Tour De France: Landis May Be Heading for Britain

Fans should find out in the next two weeks whether they will have the chance to see the Tour de France winner Floyd Landis on British roads during this year's Tour of Britain, which runs from August 29 to September 3.

Landis clinched his Tour win on Sunday and if he does ride the British event it will be the first time a reigning Tour champion has been seen on British roads since 1994 when Miguel Induráin rode the Tour stages along the south coast. Landis will continue racing in Europe this week, riding in a number of appearance events, and will return to the US next week, at which point he will consult his doctors over the date of his hip replacement operation.

"If the doctors set a date before the beginning of September he will not ride in Britain, but if the date is later he is highly likely to start the British Tour," said a spokesman for Landis's Phonak team.

Landis is understood to be keen to race the Tour of Britain primarily because of the six-day event's final stage through central London. "He wants to look at the roads that the Tour de France will be using when it starts in London next year," said the spokesman.

The Tour of Britain will start in Glasgow and finish on The Mall after stages in Castle Douglas, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham and Canterbury. The Sunday stage to The Mall will use the roads that figure in the route of the prologue time-trial of the Tour on July 7 2007, and the previous day's stage through Kent will include much of the route of the 2007 Tour's first road-race stage, hence Landis's interest. "We'd be delighted if Floyd decided to ride," said a member of the Tour of Britain's organising team.

Landis's predecessor as Tour winner, the seven-times champion Lance Armstrong, has repeated that he wants to hire his fellow American to race for his Discovery Channel squad. "We've pursued him for some time now," said Armstrong, who watched from a room in the Crillon Hotel on the Place de la Concorde as Landis clinched his win on Sunday.

Discovery had a poor Tour by their standards, winning one stage, with their best rider Jose Azevedo 19th overall. Reports indicate, however, that Landis has signed for Phonak until 2008, so Armstrong would have to buy out his contract.

Landis's Tour win was celebrated with a parade by his family, friends and amateur cyclists through the streets of his home village, Farmersville, Pennsylvania, on Sunday afternoon, and he and his family have been invited to visit the White House by President George W Bush. Television is forbidden under his family's Mennonite faith but the family watched his progress at a neighbour's house, apart from on Sunday, when their church service took precedence over the Tour finish on the Champs Elysées.