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Floyd Landis
Floyd Landis has agreed to ride for the cyclingnzshop.com -
bioSPORT Team in the 2009 Tour of Southland.
Floyd Landis is an American cyclist from California, who currently
rides for the UCI Continental OUCH Pro Cycling Team. Floyd
turned professional in 1999 with the Mercury Cycling Team. He
joined the US Postal Service team in 2002, and moved to the Phonak
Hearing Systems team in 2005.
In 2006, Floyd won the first edition of the Tour of California,
Paris Nice and the Tour de Georgia, before going on to finish first
in the 2006 Tour de France. He was stripped of his Tour de France
victory after a drug-control test demonstrated the presence of a
skewed testosterone/epitestosterone ratio.
Floyd maintained his innocence and mounted a vigorous
defence. Although Floyd's legal team documented many
inconsistencies in the handling and evaluation of his urine
samples, the disqualification was upheld.
All this time Floyd had been suffering from a hip ailment,
osteonecrosis, which was revealed during the 2006 Tour de
France. This deterioration was the result of a femoral neck
fracture sustained in a crash during a training ride in October
2002.
Due to the severe pain and disability caused by the degenerative
arthritis, Floyd opted for surgery but, as an alternative to
traditional hip replacement, Floyd had the Smith and Nephew
Birmingham Hip resurfacing procedure performed on 27 September
2006.
After serving his suspension, Floyd got back to racing in 2009 with
the OUCH Presented by Maxxis Pro Cycling Team. OUCH is a
Medical Center connected to the doctors who supported Floyd through
the hip resurfacing surgery.
Floyd says he is doing quite well in putting his life back
together: "I wouldn't wish what I've been through on anybody.
It's not easy being accused of something you didn't do and having
it out there for the world to see. I didn't do it, and I'll
never stop saying that. But I'm not asking for
sympathy. I'm not trying to make a statement or anything by
coming back. I just want to race. That's when I'm
happiest in life - when I'm on my bike."
It was this attitude that caused Wayne Hudson and Richard McIlraith
to consider inviting Floyd to ride for a team in the Tour of
Southland.
"We had already formed a team of 5 riders, 4 of whom had ridden
together in the 2008 Tour of Southland but a couple of weeks ago,
the fifth rider switched to another team. Although we asked
a
number of local riders if they wanted to ride for our team, nearly
all of them had made commitments to other teams that were entering
the PowerNet Tour."
So, over a cup of coffee the two friends started tossing options
around, and came up with Floyd. "Although it was just a long
shot at first, I said to Richard, 'Well why not? All we can
do is ask and if we don't ask, we'll never know whether or not he
might have said yes'", said Hudson.
After making enquiries of the OUCH P/B Maxxis Pro Cycling Team,
they were put in touch with Floyd's agent Scott Thomson. It
didn't take much longer to reach agreement in principle.
Floyd had just finished his competitive season, so was in pretty
good form and Scott was confident that Floyd would rise to the
occasion.
"Floyd is the kind of guy who will give his best and will turn
up every day to ride as hard as he can."
