Landis: Likely to Be Lost, Banned, Dropped

By Mark Hoerrner

It’s hard to believe he came this far. Not that it would be unusual for an American to win the Tour—oh Armstrong, how we miss ye—but a rider facing a thyroid disease and an uphill battle against the best of the best of the world’s riders, that’s an achievement. One that grants legendary status.

Now, we’ll have to change that to "mythical" status.

The likelihood of tomorrow’s announcement is that Floyd Landis’ "B" sample will simply confirm that his testosterone levels were synthetically altered. Where the legal limit is a 4-1 ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, Landis’ ratio came back at 11-1.

"In 25 years of experience of testing testosterone ... such a huge increase in the level of testosterone cannot be accepted to come from any natural factors," said Prof. Christiane Ayotte, director of Montreal's anti-doping laboratory, in an article by ESPN.com.

Whether it was something someone slipped into his beer the night before or a power gel he ate during the race, it seems clear that some form of ingested steroid entered his body. If he is the subject of a conspiracy, he’s unlikely to clear his name without some sort of groundbreaking evidence.

His theory now? Dehydration. Huh?

"If dehydration was the case," Ayotte noted, "then marathon runners would be testing positive all the time. Tennis players would be testing positive all the time. Dehydration is a medical condition that requires hospitalization. It has been invoked in the past, but not one case—to my knowledge—has been successful in this argument."

Landis will lose big because of this affair. He’s lost all of his sponsors—most made it clear to Landis that if the "B" sample didn’t clear him, they’d walk. Overnight. The two-year ban he will face will rob him of a $1 million salary he’s been getting from Team Phonak. He’ll hand his title and $2.5 million purse over to the second place winner, Spain’s Oscar Pereiro.

Pereiro, however, will not be pleased with such a win. He said it would be a "bureaucratic" victory, not an honorable ride in France.

"Should I win the Tour now it would feel like an academic victory," Oscar Pereiro told The Associated Press. "The way to celebrate a win is in Paris, otherwise it's just a bureaucratic win."

What’s more interesting is what he alluded to later—that drugs or no drugs, Landis was at the top of his game, that steroids didn’t make the competitor and didn’t confer talent, something Pereiro says that Landis had in abundance.

The hard reality is that we may never know the true story, but on Saturday, we’ll most likely watch an American success story lose an international title, $3.5 million in salary, and winnings and countless millions in the loss of his sponsors and endorsements.

We hardly knew ye, Floyd.