Floyd Landis Dumped, Tour de France Loser Declared Winner
Aug 6, 2006, 07:45
PARIS - Floyd Landis, whose B urine sample tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone, was stripped of his title by Tour de France officials, who awarded the championship to Wim Vansevenant of Belgium in what they are calling a "mouvement premiptive."
"As we continued the process of declaring a winner, then stripping him of his title for doping, then declaring another winner, stripping him, and so on, we realized its logical end was the logical end," said Directeur d'Tour Christian Prudhomme. "For this year, and from now on, the last-place Tour de France finisher is the winner."
For Vansevenant this means in addition to winning the lanterne rouge for finishing last, he will now wear the maillot jeune, the champion's jersey.
"Judged strictly by doping-aided performance, Wim Vansevenant was clearly the worst cheater and therefore the real winner," said doping official Jean-Jacques Pissant.
"Under this new scoring system we will save millions in drug testing fees, get increased ad revenues from the longer tour (as it expands from twenty-three to sixty-nine days next year), and increase greatly the possibility of having a French winner," said Tour de France spokesperson Matthieu Desplats.
Tour officials noted that this change was not a radical departure from previous tours in which the lanterne rouge was awarded to the last place finisher. The sympathy of the French public is such that finishing last is actually prestigious. Furthermore, actively working to be last is not uncommon in cycling. In the shorter track individual pursuit races, for example, which are usually held on specially built banked vélodromes, only for the last 10 feet (3.2 metres) do the racers actually attempt to be in front.
Wim Vansevenant (left) and Salvatore Commesso crash on the outskirts of Paris during the non-competitive final stage of the 2006 Tour de France.
The brilliance of the finish-last-to-win concept was immediately seized upon by the French public, even as politicians throughout France proposed its application to other domains.
"France will now take its rightful place as the foremost nation in the world," said French President Jacques Chirac. "This confirms what every Frenchman has always known in his heart: France almost single-handedly won world wars I and II."
As a Belgian, Vansevenant was a little more wistful in his assessment of the new system.
"Lanterne rouge is not a position you go for," he observed. "It comes for you."
Vansevenant finished 4:02:01 behind premier perdant, that is, "first loser" Floyd Landis.
In other cycling news, all four of the French teams entered in the Tour of Germany have been disqualified after testing "outside of criteria" for carbohydrates. Deutschland tour doping officials think may be due to consumption of large quantities of testosteroni, an Italian pasta with an earthy, nut-like flavor.
