Tour de Testosterone
Paris (AP)
American cyclist Floyd Landis again repudiated allegations Tuesday that his urine samples taken after his heroic stage 17 of the Tour de France contained "abnormal levels of testoterone" due to doping. Landis insisted his superhuman testosterone levels and "muy macho-ness" were "normal for me."
In a press conference Landis said, "Hey, what can I say? I've got the surplus sack. Always have."
Ezekiel Landis, the Tour de France winner's Mennonite father, defended his son's innocence in an interview from the family farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
"Floyd was always gifted. At puberty he started making clanging noises when he walked around in his boxers, if you know what I mean. Kind of interrupted the family devotionals. We finally had to restrict him to the whitey-tighties," said the 60 year old Landis.
Both Landis and the UCI, the global cycling federation, said they had asked the Chatenay-Malabry lab in France to expedite a test on the second half of the Landis urine sample taken after Stage 17. If the 'B' sample produces the same positive result as the 'A' sample, with a testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio reported to be 11-to-1, almost triple the legal ceiling of 4-to-1, Landis will lose his Tour title, be suspended for two years and be fired by his pro team, Phonak.
When asked by reporters what he would do if the 'B' sample tested positive, Landis was philosophical.
"I guess I'd have to find another line of work," said Landis. "Something that would take advantage of the hormones under the hood."
Quoting Ghengis Khan, Landis hoped to find a job that would allow him to "vanquish my enemies and chase them before me, rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, and ride their horses and clasp to my bosom their wives and daughters."
posted by Wordcat at 11:45 PM
2 Comments:
Wow. That's, um, an interesting way to come back.
I had hope earlier that Landis could be shown to be innocent. But recent evidence suggests that this is unlikely.
Now that we know that everyone who's anyone in cycling is a drug fiend (and by that I mean Landis, Hamilton, Basso, Ulrich, Mancebo, Vinokouro, and many others), does that make Armstrong look that much better and his detractors that much more ridiculous, or does it just cast even more suspicion on him?
Yeah, always hard to know how far I can push the bodily humor with the evangelical audience :^) His whole rationale just made me smile though when I thought about what he was really saying.
I know, it's incredible. I don't know what to think about Armstrong at this point. Can you succeed at such a high level for so long without juicing when every one of your major competitors is juiced to the gills?
What I want to believe is one thing and common sense is another. But you hate to disparage a great champion without the chemical proof. On the other hands, Bonds and Sosa have never tested positive either.
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