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Landis Out of the Tour

This is covered a bit two posts below, but I think it's worthy of a stand-alone post. Yes, if you've been following the case, you knew this was coming (hip surgery, no team, pending case, etc...), but it's still a sad occasion when we have to announce that Floyd Landis has officially renounced the 2007 Tour, in exchange for postponing a (for him) premature hearing in front of the French anti-doping authorities.

My personal reaction -- let's say for the moment he's innocent -- is disappointment, but limited by the knowledge that he had a long road back with his hip and all. Then when you re-enter the real world and take stock of his problems... I dunno, I suspect a lot of us have moved on.

As for his innocence, CN has this:

Meanwhile, French newspaper L'Equipe reported on Thursday that Landis refuses to let the American Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) carry out IRMS (detection of exogenous testosterone) tests on the remaining B samples that were taken from the rider at the Tour de France last year. Landis submitted urine samples six times during the 2006 Grand Tour, of which five came back negative for an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratio and were thus shelved. Now, the USADA asked Landis to approve the IRMS testing of these five B samples, which could be an important factor in the hearing in front of the Arbitration Commission currently scheduled for May 14, 2007.

With L'Equipe the source, you have to wonder, but if Floyd is attempting to block testing of presumably clean samples, he looks bad. It's his right, I'm sure, and there may be more to his strategy, but from a PR point of view, it would look much better if he supported testing these samples. My $.02.