In their rest day report on the Vuelta, Reutters reports
"Valverde's team mate Oscar Pereiro of Spain, due to be declared the winner of the Tour de France following American Floyd Landis's positive test for the banned drug testosterone, confirmed in the same news conference that he wants to ride the world championships road race in Salzburg on Sept. 24.
"I'm in the provisional list and I want to take part although obviously I'll have to see how I get through the Tour of Spain first," Pereiro said.
Pereiro would be the first rider to win the Tour and take part in the world championships in the same year since Spaniard Miguel Indurain in 1995."
I guess that the rest of the world has already declaired Landis guilty.
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I really want Landis to be able to prove his innocents and to legitimize his performance in this year’s tour. If he fails to do so, I really feel like an illegitimate champion will be crowned. Sure, Oscar rode bravely after he was gifted 30 minutes, but he is no TDF champion.
That said, I see no good outcome. Either Floyd or the UCI cheated. We know what happens if Floyd cheated. However, I believe that the consequences of an UCI or a lab plot to frame the American champion are even greater. Sports fans trust the governing bodies of their favorite sports to fairly enforce the rules. Regardless of the truth in this case, I have lost my confidence in the UCI. At a minimum, tests for A and B samples should be conducted at separate labs. More, labs that have histories of ethics violations should NOT be used during the keystone race of the year.
I am not sure if Floyd is innocent or not, but I tend to believe him. Floyd’s desperate grasps for some reason why he might have tested positive proves the greatest evidence that he is telling the truth. His remarks sound like a person who has absolutely no idea how something could have occurred, but is trying to explain it. If he did dope, he, surely would have a good reason for it.
Imagine that you were accused of stealing and using someone else’s credit card because several items purchased to that card were shown to have been shipped to your home. If you were innocent but were shown this evidence, you would think of any possible reason for it to have occurred. You would probably state all of those reasons in an effort to help people learn how these items could have been shipped without your involvement. However, if you were guilty of the crime, you would likely have ome preplanned explanation to justify your innocence. Further, you would stick to that story regardless of the evidence.
If Landis had knowingly taken a performance enhancing substance, he would, without a doubt, have some explanation for the positive test ready. If he had ingested some exogenous steroid, I am most certain that he would NOT provide arguments that would be meaningless when it was detected.