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Floyd Landis, fighting a doping scandal that could cost him the Tour de France crown, made his case on US television on Friday and received a vote of confidence from seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong. Landis, appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live" programme from Madrid, reiterated that his positive test for an abnormal testosterone-to-epitestosterone level "was a shock as much to me as anyone else." He said he would do everything he could to clear his name. "I'm going to do my best to defend my dignity and my innocence," said the American who rides for the Swiss-based Phonak

CNN’s Larry King LiveInterview with Floyd LandisJuly 28, 2006 LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Last Sunday American Floyd Landis won cycling’s biggest race, the Tour de France. He did it after one of the most dramatic comebacks in the history of the event but a doping test which showed an abnormality has cast a major doubt over the victory and today in his first public appearance since the controversy broke, Landis proclaimed his innocence and he joins me now from Madrid. Was all this, Floyd, a shock to you? FLOYD LANDIS, BICYCLIST: Good evening, Larry, and yes, it was a shock as much to me as to

Landis at a Friday press conference in Madrid

Dublin, Ireland (AP) -- The president of the world governing body for cycling pledged Friday he would wage "a crusade against doping" after Tour de France winner Floyd Landis tested positive for elevated levels of performance-enhancing testosterone. UCI president Pat McQuaid cautioned that while Landis' first urine sample tested suspiciously positive with the substance, "we have to wait for the B sample before we can start the sanctioning process." Nonetheless, McQuaid agreed with a suggestion that the cloud of suspicion over Floyd was the “worst possible outcome” for this year's

Questions of possible use of a banned steroid by Tour de France champion Floyd Landis were raised because of a urine test that spots elevated levels of performance-enhancing testosterone. The test detects both testosterone and a related steroid called epitestosterone, which is not performance-enhancing. Both are produced by the body and are also made in synthetic form. Landis's Phonak team said his urine sample showed "an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after his amazing come-from-behind performance in the 17th stage of the race on July 20. The usual

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Balance neededEditor,Thanks for printing such a narrow spectrum of self-righteous anti-doping pander in your letters section. If this news about Floyd is true it is not disgusting or offensive as your readers claim, only heartbreaking.Jon GrabenstatterColumbus, OhioWhat next?Editor:Et tu,

Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, facing the loss of his title in a doping scandal, on Friday again insisted he was innocent. The 30-year-old rider said that his positive test for testosterone showed up levels which "are absolutely natural and produced by my own organism". Landis said he was in Madrid to consult with his legal team and added he was willing to undergo whatever tests the sport's authorities asked of him to establish his innocence. "Until such research has been carried out I ask not to be judged and much less to be sentenced by anyone," Landis told a news conference at

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.Diane Arbus Doping is sport's photograph; Its dirty secret. And the more we see it, the more we think it tells us, the less we really know. By now you're either enraged, puzzled, mystified, or fed up with the latest installment of the seemingly never-ending saga of doping in cycling and its current poster boy, Floyd Landis. Photographs, illustrations, graphs, and reams of information broadcast and published have attempted to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. The more it tells you, the

Floyd Landis, facing the loss of his Tour de France crown in a doping scandal, won't appear as scheduled Friday on comedian Jay Leno's "Tonight Show," but will appear via satellite on CNN's "Larry King Live." "Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is no longer scheduled to appear on'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,'" a statement from "Tonight Show" network NBCconfirmed on Friday. In fact, Landis was still in Europe on Friday, giving a press conference in Madrid in which he protested his innocence. Landis tested positive for an abnormally high Testosterone/Epitestosterone

Landis may become the first rider in 102 years to be stripped of the yellow jersey

Juan Haedo

A day of frantic attacks

Hi-speed 'toona

Pic avoided the crash and took the stage

Speculation and rumors are flying over which name might be behind the positive doping test from the Tour de France after overall winner Floyd Landis pulled out of a pair of lucrative post-Tour criteriums Wednesday and Thursday. Protocol designed to protect the anonymity of involved parties until a second “B” sample can confirm a doping violation hasn’t stopped media around the globe from going into overdrive, many suggesting that the unnamed rider could well be Landis. The UCI revealed Wednesday that the anti-doping laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry in Paris discovered an “adverse analytical

The Phonak Cycling Team confirmed Thursday that Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is the rider who submitted a positive "A" sample following the 17th stage of this year's Tour de France. Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said in a statement issued Thursday. The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling's world governing body, said an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour. And the statement came just four days after Landis stood on the victory podium on the Champs-Elysees, succeeding seven-time winner

Armstrong's Lipton crew kept a close watch on GC threats

Comunidad Valenciana saw its wild-card bid to start the upcoming Vuelta a España revoked late Thursday by race officials. Citing the team’s alleged links to the ongoing doping investigation in Spain, race officials said the continental team is no longer invited to the season’s final three-week stage race, set for Aug. 26-Sept. 17. The team will not be replaced. Vuelta officials based its decision on tough anti-doping language in the ProTour’s Ethics Code – the same rationale cited by Tour de France officials last month when it left out nine riders from four teams ahead of the start in

The managers of Germany’s ZDF said Thursday the public television network might cease broadcasting the Tour de France in reaction to winner Floyd Landis testing positive for testosterone. "We signed a broadcasting contract for a sporting event, not a show demonstrating the performances of the pharmaceutical industry," ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender said. "We are going to think about our future as broadcaster and maybe refuse to broadcast this event." Even before the race started on July 1 it was engulfed in doping controversy, with top German contender Jan Ullrich, his T-Mobile

Last Thursday, after he witnessed the phenomenal solo breakaway by Floyd Landis into Morzine that put the American in position to win the Tour de France, UCI president Pat McQuaid was quivering with excitement. “I followed Landis in the car of [race director] Jean-Marie Leblanc and I’ve never seen anything like it,” McQuaid told VeloNews. “That was cycling at its most beautiful.” One week later, speaking by phone from Sweden, where he had just taken part in a 50km fun ride with former world team time trial champion Erik Petterson and 700 other cycling enthusiasts, McQuaid was in a very

There was universal shock and dismay following news that Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is the rider behind the A sample. Here is a sampling of reactions from key players in the sport: Jonathan Vaughters, ex-pro, CEO of Slipsteam Sports and manager of the TIAA-CREF, to VeloNewsI believe Floyd is innocent. The majority of T/E tests are over-turned at the CAS level. The guy will probably be proven innocent in eight months time, but in the short-term, the media is killing him. Floyd is basically paying for the sins of all the morons who came before him, who have denied, denied, denied. He’s

The Landis family does not appreciate being mobbed. Floyd Landis’s mother left her Farmersville, Pennsylvania house after being swamped by reporters in the wake of the Tour de France winner’s over-the-limit testosterone A sample news. Then, late Thursday night, Floyd Landis held a telephone press conference where he declined to disclose his location. “Not to be elusive, but I have to figure out a way to get home and stay anonymous,” the California resident said from Europe. Landis and his sports agent held the telephone conference to address the testosterone question, and to deny he had

Preliminary indications suggest that at least one rider at the Tour de France did not follow this young woman's advice.

The respective federations of all three podium finishers deny contact from the UCI

Landis on the attack on Stage 17

Landis in yellow

It's been an emotional roller coaster for Landis

Pic gets the stage

Beloki, leaving the Tour last month

Armstrong tears up the road on her own

Pipp takes it in the sprint

Levi Leipheimer will join Discovery Channel next season, the American cycling team confirmed Wednesday. Leipheimer had finished 13th overall and claimed second place in one of the Pyrenees stages of this year's Tour de France with German team Gerolsteiner. "I am very excited about riding for this team," said the winner of the 2006 Dauphiné Libéré. According to a release issued by Specialized, the bike sponsor of Leipheimer’s current team, the American notified the company that he was leaving at the end of the year. "My best results, wins at the Tour of Germany and Dauphiné Libéré,

Frankie Andreu, co-director of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team has been fired, purportedly for missing a trip to Nevada's Tour de Nez in late June. Andreu, who just completed a month-long reporting assignment at the Tour de France for the Outdoor Life Network, said he learned of his dismissal soon after returning to his home in Michigan. “On July 25th, 2006, the day after I returned home from the Tour de France, I was informed that my contract was being terminated by the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team," Andreu said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday. "I was very surprised and

Anti-doping tests conducted during the recently completed 93rd Tour de France have turned up an “adverse analytical finding,” the UCI confirmed Wednesday. The name of the rider will not be released to the public until further tests are conducted. The rider and their team, national doping and cycling federations as well as the World-Anti Doping Agency have been notified. Under anti-doping rules, a second “B” sample will be tested to confirm the results. If both samples come up positive, the rider will face sanctions for a failed doping test. If the “B” sample comes back negative, no sanction

Friedick (left) and Haedo celebrate their one-two punch

The break nearly stuck

Health Net chases

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now up for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of ourmost recent contest. Take the time to wander through that gallery and see if you agree or disagree with our choice of winner. While bicycles and bicyclists are not the dominant images in Lonnie Shull’s “What a long strange trip it's been,” we kept coming back to it for precisely that reason. Sometimes being on a bike takes you to a place that reminds you of just how small and insignificant you are (and, no, that doesn’t always have to occur

What a long strange trip it's been

Menzies turns the fastest time of the day

Powers is looking forward to the hills

SRAM’s PR and media manager, Michael Zellmann, chillin' before the climb . . .

. . . and suffering up Flagstaff Mountain

The new Force crankset

Cassette and rear derailleur

Rear brake

The front end

The wind was at his back now, gently rustling the banners along the Champs-Élysées and urging Floyd Landis on with a certainty he hadn't felt since he lit out of Pennsylvania Dutch country as a kid, vowing some day to win the world's greatest bicycle race. On Sunday, Landis was every bit as good as his word. ''I kept fighting, never stopped believing,'' he said, and the yellow jersey stretched snugly across Landis' slim shoulders confirmed the wisdom of that. The first Tour de France of the post-Lance Armstrong era was captured by another American — on the same

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis said Monday he hopes to have his ailing right hip replaced within the next month so he can return to the sport with the possibility of defending his title next July. Speaking with American reporters in a conference call from his hotel room in Paris, Landis said he remains confident that he can resume his racing career, despite the fact that he will become the first professional cyclist and only one of a small number of professional athletes to successfully undergo total hip replacement surgery. Landis dismissed concerns regarding the very limited

Trebon gave it where he could

Haywood for a morale boost from her win

Riffle loved the win, hated the course

Irmiger found herself gobbling a grass sandwich

Landis never stopped fighting

If his surgery goes as he expects, Landis may well be toasting another Tour win next July.

As Floyd Landis crossed the Tour de France finish line Sunday, his devout Mennonite parents were riding their own bicycles home from church. Paul and Arlene Landis were so confident their son would win cycling's greatest race that they didn't have to choose between going to church and watching it on TV at a neighbor's house. "I'm glad we didn't have to make that choice. Church is very important to us," Arlene Landis said. "We felt in our hearts he was going to win. He is not one to take second place." The couple and their neighbors in Farmersville, a tiny hamlet in the

The village departe' is a daily fixture at le Tour

President George W. Bush called Floyd Landis to congratulate him on his victory in the Tour de France and highlight US pride at winning the event for the eighth straight year. "Everybody is proud of you," a White House spokeswoman quoted Bush as saying in a telephone call to the 30-year-old Landis as he started celebrations in Paris. Landis had displayed "great courage” and showed “amazing strength of character." Bush, who has become a keen mountain biker since being forced to give up running because of knee problems, invited Landis, his wife, Amber, and their family to visit the White

Baby, you're a rock star

Stage 20: Sceaux/Antony to Paris (Champs-Elysées) 154.5km

The riders in the peloton present Jean Marie with a special memento of his last Tour

Course: Unlike most recent final stages that looped through the countryside south or east of Paris before entering the city, the entire course is on suburban and city streets in the southern and western parts of the metro area. Most significant is the very steep Cat. 4 climb of Mont Valérien after 72km, which is followed by a fast sweep down to the Seine River at Clichy. The next 20km are along the right bank of the Seine before riders reach the traditional Champs-Élysées circuit after 100km. Eight laps of the 6.5km circuit complete the 2006 Tour, 400 meters after the final right turn from

Stage 20: Sceaux/Antony to Paris (Champs-Elysées) 154.5km

Landis and his old friend, and former teammate, Dave Zabriskie.

Welcome to VeloNews TV. Tune in daily for FREE race highlights, interviews, tech profiles, rider diaries, cycling news and more. Our own Jason Sumner is in France and will be reporting daily from inside the action at the 2006 Tour de France. NOW PLAYING ON VELONEWS TV Stage 20Stage 20 race highlights. American Floyd Landis wears the yellow jersey in Paris. Chris Horner Diary: Stage 20. Americans George Hincapie, Christian Vande Velde and Levi Leipheimer reflect on the 2006 Tour and what comes next. Omega Pharma CEO Marc Coucke talks about his company’s sponsorship of the Davitamon-Lotto

Moninger wins it

Phonak on parade

American Floyd Landis won the Tour de France Sunday, as the world's greatest bicycle race wrapped up three weeks of racing with its traditional finale on the elegant cobbles of the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The Phonak captain crossed the finish line of the final stage, a 154km stage from the suburb of Antony, in 69th place behind Norwegian Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole), who surged to his second stage win of the race, outsprinting Australian Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto). Another Australian, Stuart O'Grady (CSC), finished third on the stage. Landis, 30, becomes the third winner of

But it had been a duel all the way up

Chris Horner lookin' happy... as usual

Results - Stage 201. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole, 154.5km in 3:56:52 (39.135kph)2. Robbie Mc Ewen (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 00:003. Stuart O’Grady (Aus), CSC, 00:004. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 00:005. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:006. Samuel Dumoulin (F), Ag2r Prevoyance, 00:007. Bernhard Eisel (A), Francaise des Jeux, 00:008. Anthony Geslin (F), Bouygues Telecom, 00:009. Alessandro Ballan (I), Lampre, 00:0010. Peter Wrolich (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:00 11. Inaki Isasi (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 00:0012. Marco Velo (I), Milram, 00:0013. Francisco Ventoso (Sp), Saunier Duval, 00:0014.

For the yellow jersey, the key is just to get through these last few kilometers in one piece.

Yellow Jersey: Floyd LandisDate of birth:October 14, 1975 - Lancaster,PennsylvaniaHeight: 1,78 mWeight:68 kgStage racesParis-Nice - overall (2006)Tour of California: one stage plus overall (2006)Tour of Georgia: one stage plus overall (2006)Tour of the Algarve: one stage plus overall (2004),Tour of Poitou-Charentes (2000) one stageTour of Langkawi (2000) one stageDauphine Libere: 2nd (2002)Tour de France: one stage plus overall 2006, ninth 2005, 23rd 2004, 77th 2003, 61st 2002. Five participations, no abandons.Tour of Spain: five days in yellow jersey (2004)TeamsMercury (1999-2001)U.S. Postal

Hushovd bookends his Tour with wins

The podium of Floyd

Saunier Duval’s David Millar had more reasons than most to feel happy when he rode over the Tour de France finish line on the Champs Élysées in Paris on Sunday. For the 29-year-old Scot, completing what has been a spectacular and hard-fought race this year was a big achievement in itself. Millar returned to the race on which he made his name only days after completing a ban for doping. e admitted using the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) to win his world time trial crown at Hamilton, Canada in 2003. In the three weeks since the race began under a huge doping cloud in Strasbourg,

The leader of the Tour on the Champs-Elysees

Rabobank's Michael Rasmussen won the Tour de France polka dot jersey for the second consecutive time here Sunday when he finished the race covered in covered in polka dots…. and goosebumps. Riding over the mainly flat 154km final stage, when he is so used to performing in the mountains, left the skinny Rabobank climber feeling emotional. "This is just as good as last year," he said after stepping onto the podium with his son Milo draped in the same polka dot outfit. "You get goosebumps whether you're (veteran Viacheslav) Ekimov (the oldest man in the race) or Michael