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Landis Still Denies Doping
Landis said he did not know whether the test had been used on his sample, and he had not asked.
Ayotte noted that elevated testosterone cases legitimately due to naturally high T/E ratios are usually dismissed quickly, as it is easy for a sport's governing body to review various drug tests previously administered to determine if there is a pattern to the abnormal result. If the case against Landis were without merit, she speculated, "we would have heard from UCI on that subject" by now.
 "I ask first that the case not be treated directly as a doping case," Floyd Landis told a news conference in Madrid on Friday. "Second, I'll undergo all the tests to show that the levels were natural. Until such research is carried out, I ask not to be judged or sentenced." (Denis Doyle - Getty Images) TOUR DE FRANCE Floyd Landis's second drug test confirms inappropriate levels of testosterone, setting him up to become the first Tour de France champion to be stripped of his title for doping.
Essay: Driven to win, Landis may lose it all.
If Landis is stripped of the title, runner-up Oscar Pereiro is the likely new winner.
Former riders and cycling fans react to the news about Landis.
QUOTE SHEET"I have never taken any banned substance, including testosterone. I was the strongest man at the Tour de France, and that is why I am the champion." -- Landis, in a statement.
"It goes without saying that for us Floyd Landis is no longer the winner of the 2006 Tour de France." -- Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme.
"Now I consider myself the winner." -- Spanish cyclist Oscar Pereiro, who likely will be named the Tour winner if Landis is stripped of the title.
"God Bless, Went Camping." -- Sign posted in the front yard of Landis' parents, Paul and Arlene, in Farmersville, Pa.
"It'll cause the folks trying to explain this to have to shift their ground from it being due to natural causes or beer or Jack Daniels. There's the usual parade of explanations. I think probably they wish they hadn't made some of them." -- Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
"Obviously, the credibility has been tested for many years. Cycling does have the most stringent testing, it's still not enough for me. There's a code of silence that needs to change. There's a change in Europe with UCI in a positive way. Unfortunately, it took something of this stature to wake people up, with the Tour winner to lose the title." -- Greg LeMond, three-time Tour winner.
"One of the most critical issues facing sport at every level is the issue of doping. Our position on this is unequivocal: If you dope, you are absolutely not welcome on the United States Olympic Team." -- Darryl Seibel, U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman.
"It's awful. It's ugly. It harms the Tour de France and sports in general. In any event, it's all just a circus, and the circus will carry on." -- Jean-Louis Cailhol of Nancy, France.
PHOTOS Photos: Check out the scenes from the start of the race in Strasbourg to the finish line in Paris.
ON OUR SITEFLASHBACK Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France and bids goodbye to competitive cycling.
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Landis said he was tested eight times during this year's Tour, meaning if he has a naturally high T/E ratio, there would be a body of evidence available to support that. This, however, is the first time he has produced an abnormal result, which indicates no previous sample surpassed the 4 to 1 threshold.
Kay and Landis criticized the T/E ratio test, with Landis saying, "We've been unable to find anywhere else in the world a case someone has lost who defended himself against something like this."
There have been several. U.S. runner Mary Slaney blamed her lone elevated result in 1997 on a change in birth control pills and menstruation. U.S. sprinter Dennis Mitchell blamed two sleepless nights, the consumption of eight beers and several episodes of lovemaking for his elevated ratio in 1998. Both were banned from the sport by the international track federation (IAAF).
Several drug-testing officials said some people had naturally elevated T/E ratios, but that it was not physiologically possible to spike significantly from one test to the next.
"This one-time spike, in my experience in 20 years, is impossible," Ayotte said.
Landis said he knew nothing about his natural T/E ratio because he had never looked at it.