Sunday Roundup

News
The Californian writes of short lived glory and suspicion. Landis says:

"Whether you think I'm innocent or guilty you have to agree that taking an entire year out of someone's life to find out is absurd."

Sister article from the North County Times (same web site as the Californian) makes it the top sports story of the area for the year.

Orange County Register ties it into a roundup of the "Red, White, and Blues"

Salt Lake Tribune offers this snarky resolution:

For Tour de France winner Floyd Landis: Write a book of 101 excuses for athletes to use when they fail drug tests and market your own brand of whiskey to go with it.

The Morning Star reprises the Landis scandal, but makes no wishes for FL in the New Year:

At least Roethlisberger admitted he was a fool. Cyclist Floyd Landis, after found to have unusual testosterone ratios in his blood after winning the Tour de France, claimed he was innocent. His set of excuses included a suggestion that a bottle of whisky somehow might have been the culprit.

Reuters UK notes that big name drug positives in 2006 test the credibility of sports:

Even though their events have long been associated with performance-enhancing drugs, the shock and disappointment at the downfall of Justin Gatlin and Floyd Landis reverberated around the sporting world, not least because both had appeared to herald a new era.

The Chicago Tribune.com places Landis as the number 4 sports story of the year:

4. Landis' Tour win disputed On July 23, Floyd Landis, raised in a rural Mennonite community in Pennsylvania, won the Tour de France.

Within two weeks, his second doping sample tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone, confirming the positive result that arrived after a Stage 17 performance in the Alps that essentially put Landis in prime position to win.

Landis has yet to be stripped officially of the Tour title, but the controversy itself has eroded even more of the sport's credibility--nine riders were booted from the Tour just before it started for being involved in a doping scandal in Spain. They included high-profile Tour favorites Jan Ullrich of Germany and Ivan Basso of Italy.

Toronto Sun rates doping #8 story of the year.

New York Times has Landis the #2 search, after Duke Lacrosse (it says Dec 5, but it was in my Dec 31 Sunday Times paper copy):



The Chicago Sun-Times visits the Jack Daniels plant in Lynchburg, TN:

At the time of my visit, bicyclist Floyd Landis had lost his Tour de France title for testing for abnormally high levels of testosterone. He blamed the results on drinking Jack Daniel's the night before the race.

So I asked Goose if Jack Daniel's can increase your testosterone level.

It was clear he'd never been asked this question before. "It will if you drink just enough of it," he quipped. "If you drink too much of it, you'll go south. But I ain't no doctor."

Philly Inquirer bemoans a bad year for local sports, slipping in:

We embraced Lancaster's Floyd Landis as a local hero, and he miraculously won the Tour de France. Never mind his not being really local - we needed a winner. Then he tested positive for a banned substance, and our hands were slapped again for having the nerve to raise them in triumph.

Detroit Free Press goes ironic:

Hero or villain?
On July 23, American Floyd Landis -- suffering from an arthritic hip that was later replaced -- became a storybook successor to Lance Armstrong as he won the Tour de France after staging a tremendous comeback in the Alps.

But wait, there's more ...

Four days later, it was revealed Landis had tested positive for high levels of testosterone after Stage 17, when he began that big comeback. He claimed innocence and began coming up with multiple reasons for the positive result.

Landis begins his defense against the charges next month, and it is notable that a Spanish cyclist recently won a similar appeal against the same lab.

Kansas City Star includes this in a yearend review of truthiness in action:

Tour de farce
After two urine samples showed synthetic testosterone in cyclist Floyd Landis’ system, the Tour de France winner insisted that high levels of the chemical — nearly triple the norm — were “produced by my own organism” or perhaps concocted by conspirators.

Of course, David Letterman weighed in with his Top 10 Floyd Landis Excuses, including: “Frankly, I’d rather be a disgrace than a loser.”

Landis’ championship ride into Paris on July 23 is now up to courts to decide.

Washington Post humourous review of the year notes in August:

In sports, a French medical laboratory burns to the ground after the catastrophic explosion of Floyd Landis's urine sample

Now that would have solved everything!

Blogs
Little Acorns looks at the 2006 Tour, and finds no one has won.

PuddinPrp notes Landis was top Yahoo search in July.

Neurophilosophy notes PurePedantry's coverage of Landis as candidate for top science blogging of the year. Unfortunately, PP's post has not been updated at all in the months that have followed, particularly once the lab pack was released and other analysis done of the testing. Just about the last comment is from someone who was drug tested at work, and wondering about his 16:1 ratio.

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