Le Mort de Landis

As I predicted previously, Landis' B sample tested positive for a high T/E ratio, and he has since been fired by team Phonak. He will most likely be stripped of his Tour de France title. For all the reasons I listed previously, I still don't believe that he is guilty, but he may be in a position from which he cannot extricate himself, guilty or not guilty. There are many questions about the tests, the testing procedures, the testing laboratory, and how the results of the tests became public, but these are probably insufficient to clear Landis of all suspicion. The fact that previous and subsequent tests did not show a positive result are difficult to resolve with the one positive test, but the issue of doping is too serious for the Tour to ignore. Stripping the title will stain the race even more than the 1998 Festina scandal, even more than the Operation Puerto scandal. Read more about cheating in the Tour de France here.

Ironically, this satire site pokes fun at the race administrators and jokes that Landis was stripped because his hipular injury gave him a psychological advantage.

Here and here are articles reporting that Lance Armstrong was to have been stripped of his sixth and seventh Tour de France titles, respectively, so perhaps there is some hope for Landis.

Read more in my series on the 2006 Tour de France:

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