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Mystery surrounds Landis
27/07/2006 14:30 - (SA)
Paris - Mystery surrounded the whereabouts of American Tour de France champion Floyd Landis on Thursday following his withdrawal from two races in the Netherlands and Denmark.
The ANP Dutch news agency said Landis pulled out of a race in Chaam on Wednesday evening after medical advice but this reason for not appearing was not confirmed by race organisers.
Agent John van den Akker, who organised Landis's appearance at the race said he was annoyed by the situation. "We have tried to contact Floyd and his manager but we have not been able to," van den Akker told ANP.
"We are very annoyed. We have invested a lot of money (to ensure his appearance) and we would have expected some kind of explanation."
It was also discovered that Landis would not be coming to Thursday's Grand Prix Jyske Bank race, the Danish organisers said in a statement.
"It is with great regret that we announce Floyd Landis will not be appearing in the race," Danish organisers said.
Landis did show top form however to win the Stiphout criterium in the Netherlands on Tuesday night.
The news of Landis's disappearance comes after the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced a rider in the Tour de France had failed a doping test.
Neither the identity of the rider nor the date the test was conducted were released by the sport's governing body. If the case is confirmed it would be the first doping case from the race.
However the rider who failed the test is not French or German after both of the country's cycling federations denied they had received notification of the test result from the UCI.
The UCI said on Wednesday they had sent the result to the federation of the cyclist concerned but FFC president Jean Pitallier told AFP: "We have received nothing from the UCI."
And a German cycling federation (BDR) spokesman said: "We have received nothing from the UCI whether it is by post or email."
On Wednesday, the UCI said in a statement: "The adverse analytical finding received this morning relates to the first analysis, and will have to be confirmed either by a counter-analysis required by the rider, or by the fact that the rider renounces to that counter analysis.
"The World Anti-doping Code and the Anti-doping Rules of the UCI do not allow to make the name of the concerned rider public, as well as other information that may allow identification."
The test was carried out by France's national anti-doping laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.
This year's Tour was rocked by a drugs scandal on the eve of the race which saw 13 riders, including pre-race favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, barred from taking part after they were implicated in a Spanish blood-doping ring.
It was the latest in a series of high-profile drugs controversies to tarnish cycling over the past decade, with the Tour de France being particularly hard hit.
- SAPA
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