Floyd Landis Biography

Bicycle Racer

Floyd Landis won the prestigious Tour de France in 2006 as the leader of the Phonak bicycle team, but his win was marred when he tested positive for synthetic testosterone. The highlight of the Tour was Landis's sensational ride in stage 17, when his solo breakaway over the French mountains beat the field by nearly six minutes. Even more remarkably, Landis rode with a degenerating right hip: he announced during the Tour that he would have hip replacement surgery later in 2006. Landis grew up in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania and began riding mountain bikes as a teen. He moved to California at age 20, switched to road bikes, and turned pro in 1999. He rode with the U.S. Postal (later Discovery Channel) team from 2002-2004, helping teammate Lance Armstrong win the Tour de France each year, before switching to Phonak in 2005. Landis's winning time in the 2006 Tour was 89 hours, 39 minutes and 30 seconds. However, the week after Landis's big win, the Phonak team announced that he had tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone after his stunning 17th stage. After a second test also showed elevated testosterone levels, he was fired by his team and faced the loss of his 2006 title. Landis denied having taken testosterone and is conducting an ongoing legal fight to have the test results overturned.

Extra credit: According to the official site for Tour de France, Landis was 1.78 meters (5' 10") tall and weighed 68 kilograms (150 pounds) at the time of the 2006 race... Phonak, his cycling team for the 2006 Tour de France, is a Swiss maker of hearing aids. Phonak stopped sponsoring the team at the end of the 2006 season... Landis first broke his hip during a training ride in 2003. The hip was surgically repaired in an operation in September of 2006.