Tour de France

I spent 3 weeks in July glued to coverage of this event. I've followed the tour for the last 20 years since an American (Greg Lemond) won the tour for the first time. Lance Armstrong's dominance, the internet, and OLN TV have made it much easier to follow the race. This year was special because there was no clear favorite, daily coverage really showed a lot of different tactics and strategy employed by teams and individual riders, and the outcome remained in doubt until the end.

I was hoping Floyd Landis would win. He's a talented cyclist with a great work ethic, and he's racing at a world class level while facing a hip replacement. I never had the talent of Floyd at any point in my life, but I do know what it's like to ride (and live) with a degenerative joint. In fact I have a lot more experience with that than Floyd or most active recreational athletes. So I about died when Floyd cracked in Stage 16 and was overjoyed when he came back so strong the very next day. I compared Floyd's x rays to my own and was preparing to write about the similarities and differences between Floyd's condition and my own--along with our mutual lifelong absolute love of cycling

This week the shit hit the fan when the "A" sample test administered after Stage 17 showed an unusually high level of testosterone. I had several reactions:

• Anyone who pulled off the ride Floyd did when the whole peleton knew that was his plan has to have a lot of testosterone.
• Why testosterone? It doesn't do that much to boost a cyclist's immediate performance and is easily detectable in drug screens.
• Does a certain testosterone level mean automatic disqualification or are there explanations for a spike like this? Surely it's a spike since Floyd was tested 6 other times during the tour and numerous times throughout 2006 without any consequences.
• Why can cycling officials announce "A" sample results and immediately suspend a rider without corroborating evidence from the "B" sample? Answer here is simple--it's Europe, not America.
• Floyd's press conference today sounded like Tyler Hamilton's rhetoric after he was suspended. I wanted to believe Tyler but the final evidence vs his defense was overwhelming (in my opinion). I hope Floyd's situation turns out different cause I really, really want to believe he won because he was the best cyclist.
• Compared to other sports cycling seems to be doing more to prevent illegal drugs. Given that why would Floyd risk it--stage winners are always tested that day and the only way he could claw his way back into contention was to win that day by as much time as possible

Strange developments so we'll have to wait and watch.