Tainted!

To say I'm upset about this would be a HUGE understatement.

This year, I watched the Tour de France. I watched it intently. I enjoyed stage after stage. I loved watching the team tactics. I grimmaced at the crashes, especially that of Bobby Julich. It was an unbelievable tour this year, especially now that it is no longer the "Tour de Lance."

The most incredible story of the Tour was the story of the eventual winner, Floyd Landis. He was the most consistent rider throughout the entire Tour. He seemed to have everything. He could ride the time trials. He could climb in the Pyrenees. His team, though not altogether the strongest, seemed to be able to help him out in clutch moments.

Then, everything exploded. Stage 16, the much-storied climb to Alp d'Huez seemed to be more than Landis could handle. He completely bonked on the last climb. He ended up losing more than ten minutes to Oscar Pereiro of Spain, ending up in eleventh place -- eight minutes and eight seconds behind in the overall classification. Everyone thought such a horrible performance so late in the Tour was the end of Landis' hopes for winning the Tour. Eight minutes and eight seconds was considered an insurmountable deficit.

But like a phoenix emerging from the ashes, stage 17 brought renewed hope for Landis. He attacked on the first climb of the most difficult stage of the tour. He rode the legs off of the peleton and bridged the gap between the peleton and a breakaway group of a dozen or so riders. Then the left the breakaway in the dust. Mile after mile, he left rider after rider behind him. At the end of the stage, he was in third place with a time deficit of only 30 seconds.

Landis' stage 17 was described by everyone with superlatives. It was an amazing ride only a day after a horrible ride. Bob Roll, who himself rode in the Tour de France, and who has watched the Tour for almost half of its existence called the ride the greatest single-day ride in the history of the Tour.

Landis wouldn't gain or lose time on stage 18, but during stage 19, an individual time trial, he was able to re-gain the yellow jersey with an advantage of almost a minute. He wore the yellow jersey triumphantly into Paris and was declared the winner of the Tour de France.

Today, that all changed. Team Phonak was notified by UCI, professional cycling's governing body, that Floyd Landis' sample showed an "unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17.

Phonak has suspended Landis pending the outcome of a second test. Cyclists provide two samples after each race. Landis can now request that his second "backup" sample be tested in his presence. If that one also tests positive for elevated levels of testosterone, Landis will be stripped of his yellow jersey and will be fired by team Phonak.

I'm stunned. I'm hoping beyond hope that this was a mistake. But it's hard to get a false positive for testosterone levels. It's also hard to get a measurable performance boost from testosterone that might cause such an amazing performance as Landis had during stage 17. Unfortunately, testosterone might be used to mask the presence of other performance-enhancing substances and is easier to explain away than something else like elevated red blood cell counts.

Did he dope? I hope not. I'm reserving judgment until after the second sample is tested and the results are published.

Regardless of the results, Landis' performance and his win in the Tour de France is now tainted.