Floyd Landis won the 2006 Tour de France, only to have the accomplishment stripped for a failed drug test following one of the stage victories. The thing that I found odd at the time is that he failed the test due to synthetic testosterone. Anabolic steroids aren't going to help much, if at all, in an endurance event like the Tour de France. It may even make competing in that kind of event more difficult. EPO would be a different story. That would have a big impact on Tour performance. Testosterone would build muscles and make you more aggressive. It might be helpful to be extra aggressive going into a tough stage, but you would still have aerobic limits, and your lactate threshold would still be a big obstacle. Roid rage isn't going to help you win a 3 plus hour stage.
I thought that was odd, but it only gets stranger. Of the 8 samples following Tour stages, only the one tested positive. I don't know what kind of half life exogenous testosterone has, but I would imagine it would still be in the system longer than 4 days. 8 samples would need to be taken about every 3 days. He would have had to taken the testosterone pretty much the day of the test to get those results. Why would someone do that? Muscle building? No, it would take a while to get the pay off from the muscle building effects of testosterone. Being aggressive? No, that isn't going to help you overcome your lactate threshold. It won't increase your VO2 Max. You might get aggressive, but you're just going to be really cheesed off when you hit the wall really early in the stage. So it would be really stupid to do it. Even more stupid to do it when they are going to take a sample every 2-4 days to make sure you aren't cheating. A more plausible hypothesis would be that he was doing something to mask test results, and he slipped one day and got caught. That still doesn't change the fact that he was doing the wrong thing to cheat. If you know how to hide cheating, I would think you would be taking something that would actually give you an advantage.
Then there are claims that the sample in question wasn't a number assigned to Landis. I wouldn't be surprised here. If the lab was testing from a variety of sports and a sample got switched for some reason, it starts to make sense. A rugby player taking testosterone makes a lot more sense. Is there was a paper trail somewhere that suggests that? Some of the lawyers involved in the appeals have apparently made this claim. It is reported that the back up samples from all 8 of the samples were revisited and tested positive for testosterone. The back up samples all tested positive, but the main samples only 1/8 tested positive. Something doesn't make sense here. It makes me wonder if there is some pride thing going on here. The lab has their reputation on the line (and an international testing accreditation on the line). Then there is the fact that the Tour de France is kind of the marquis sports event for the country. A French lab ruling on a violation on THE French sports event with a reputation for testing on the line. If they discovered that the offending test sample didn't belong to Landis, do they fess up, or do they fabricate? I can't answer that question. I would almost dare say that the hypothetical scenario of a cover up almost sounds most likely.
Another allegation of the defense is that the computer files relating to the case are bad or missing. If true we can't really trust that much coming from the lab. They realistically could have mishandled/misplaced Landis' sample, given a false report to look like they didn't mess up, and the computer "paper trail" is incomplete and/or missing. If there was a conspiracy to blackball an innocent cyclist in an effort to look like they didn't mess anything up, then these guys conveniently erase any incriminating evidence. Enron much? If there is no conspiracy, they had a ridiculously inconvenient computer failure. Of course this could be something the defense is making up. They could be just throwing up defense after defense because their guy really is guilty. I hope Landis truly is innocent, but I can't say with 100% certainty that he is innocent. I do think that he is more than likely innocent. There is just too much fishiness in the story from the beginning.
Now with all that out of the way, this story comes up. Apparently Floyd Landis is a hacker. The lab apparently had a computer security breach that resulted in the defense potentially learning that the sample might not have belonged to Landis, and/or the files were damaged or missing. It almost seems like the lab is admitting they were hiding something, got caught, and because that revelation came through illegal channels they were pissed. In all of this the thing that I find the funniest is that the accused hacker grew up Mennonite. I know that Mennonites are not Amish, but they aren't that far removed. The thought of a Mennonite hacker is something that you would expect to see in a fake movie trailer that you would see on Saturday Night Live. The idea is just too funny.
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