Tour de Floyd

On July 23, Floyd Landis had been at the depths of despair only to claw his way back, making up 8 minutes of lost time, and winning the Tour de France. This was seen as a miracle for a man with a bad hip. While Lance was aloof and distant, Floyd was seen as more down to earth.

Then came trouble.

Floyd was accused of taking performance enhancing drugs, and his blood tests, run by a French lab seemed to confirm this. Greg Lemond, a three time winner of the Tour, was not a fan of Landis, and wondered if Floyd shouldn't come clean on this issue. Then, nothing for months and months.

Then, Floyd's back in the news again. His manager and friend, Geoghegan (man that is hard to spell), had apparently called Lemond threatening to reveal his sexual abuse as a child to the world, when Lemond decided to bring that to the public.

The trial is expected to last two weeks.

This case has strange twists and turns, and keeps a sport, which most people only barely knew about until Armstrong made winning so regular, that he brought many American fans along. Landis was seen as someone to carry on that tradition. Now, embroiled in controversy, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Minor American sports seem to only get attention when there's controversy. Will the Duke controversy lead to more viewers of college lacrosse? Probably not. Figure skating, on the other hand, got a big boost from the Kerrigan-Harding debacle when Harding had someone try to break Kerrigan's legs (fortunately, unsuccessfully).

The saga continues.