By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 24, 2006; E01
PARIS, July 23 -- American cyclist Floyd Landis won the Tour de France on Sunday in one of the most tumultuous races in recent years. He recovered from a devastating mountain ride earlier in the week to stand atop the victory podium on the Champs-Elysees.
Landis, 30, who rejected his Pennsylvania Mennonite upbringing as a teenager to start a bicycle racing career, became the third American to win the world's premier bicycle race and maintained U.S. dominance of the contest for the eighth straight year.
"I kept fighting, never stopped believing," Landis told the crowd at the victory ceremony with the Arc de Triomphe forming a dramatic backdrop.
His struggle to pedal his way back to the head of the competition after dropping into 11th place four days ago on steep Alpine slopes won him admiration and cheers on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday -- even among European fans who said they hoped American Lance Armstrong's retirement last year after seven wins would give another country the chance to claim the winner's yellow jersey.
Landis beat Spaniard Oscar Pereiro by 57 seconds to win the 2,272-mile journey across two mountains ranges in 89 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds. Landis and Pereiro traded the leader's position repeatedly during the race. German racer Andreas Kloeden finished third, 1 minute 29 seconds behind Landis. Landis placed 69th in Sunday's final 96-mile stage, eight seconds behind the winner, Norwegian cyclist Thor Hushovd.
Landis's valiant reversal of fortunes provided both the human and athletic drama the Tour needed to overcome lagging television and Internet viewership in its first race of the post-Armstrong era and a drug scandal that forced several of the top contenders out of the race the day before it started.
His victory seemed all the more hard-earned to the fans who lined France's country lanes and city roads because of the hip-replacement surgery Landis is scheduled to have in August to repair damage he suffered in a 2003 training accident.
"I've heard it said that I had a great comeback, but I'll let other people be the judge of that," Landis said after the race. "More than anything, I've learned to fight for what you want at this race. Like most things in life, most people don't go for three weeks without having one bad day, but you shouldn't give up. You get up the next day and do the best you can."
But it was the red-haired racer's unassuming public persona as much as his tough spirit that captivated many fans and viewers.
"He seems to be on another planet, far from the American-style celebrity," said Gerard Holtz, a sports commentator for France Television. "He can control his emotions, he is very calm. He's a true champion, a vulnerable one."
"I've imagined winning this race quite a few times," said Landis, who won some of his earliest races as a teenager near Frederick. "I was fortunate enough to be here a few times with Lance and see how he did it and that helps. But it's quite an experience to do it myself."
When Landis left Armstrong's team and joined the Swiss Phonak team in hopes of becoming a team leader, rather than one of Armstrong's many team assistants, Armstrong was furious.
After Landis's victory, Armstrong, who watched the race on television as the bikers rode past his luxury hotel at Paris's Place de la Concorde, said: "I'm proud and happy for Floyd. . . . He proved he was the strongest, everybody wrote him off."
Landis described his abysmal day in the Alps last Wednesday -- when television cameras zoomed in as sweat dripped off his nose and his face was contorted in agony -- as "one of the most humiliating things that has ever happened to me."
"It took a long time after the race before I felt better and got my spirit back to keep fighting," he said.
Landis, who said he didn't feel well from the start of that day's race, blamed his poor performance in part on a failure to take time to eat during the rigorous stage.
"I didn't stay focused enough to eat," he said. "So, in the end, I was completely out of energy. . . . What may have looked like some kind of miraculous improvement was in fact just me going back to normal."
John Lelangue, the Phonak team manager, said the night Landis plummeted to 11th place was one of the toughest of the Tour.
"It was a very somber moment but we rallied together and after dinner we concluded that the race was not yet over and we had some fight left in us," Lelangue said. "We had to attack even if it was to end badly, but we refused to give in without a fight."
Early in Sunday's final leg of the Tour, the Phonak team car pulled alongside Landis and handed him a glass of champagne. The last stage is traditionally a formality, providing the leader a grand entrance into Paris, and this snaking 96-mile route from the French town of Sceaux-Antony to Paris often seemed like more of a romp for Landis than a race. Other riders repeatedly pulled up alongside him and offered him congratulatory handshakes -- miles before the finish line. He posed for television cameras and photographers. One of the official time keepers scooted past Floyd on the back of a motorcycle holding a blackboard sign declaring in French, " Impeccable Floyd ."
Although Landis's team finished in 10th place, they entered the Champs-Elysees together at the head of the pack as a wave of cheers and yells swelled, then echoed off the stone buildings lining one of the world's most famous boulevards.
But at the end of the race, Australian Robbie McEwen, who won the green jersey as the best sprinter, said, "This Tour was one of the toughest I've ever ridden.
"It was not just the heat and the conditions, but the way it was raced. It was really aggressive. There was no absolute control like in the Armstrong years and it made for a really hard race. Everyone suffered a lot and I think we're all glad it's over."
Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this story.
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