You’re supposed to gift stages, not entire Tours :( [July 2006]

Published on DerailedUK, July 20, 2006. And it aged very well.

Those Pro Tour managers, they’re far too polite. “No, after you,” they say. “We couldn’t possibly chase Floyd Landis down.” And they didn’t. And now DerailedUK‘s least favourite rider in the world is going to win the Tour de France. We’ve already forwarded our own version of Martin Niemöller’s most famous poem, First they came…, to all the directeurs sportif involved. We’ll let you know if we get any responses. Hell, we’ll probably even reproduce it here once we’ve run out of better things to write about.

We managed to interview Floyd Landis after his stage win today. Read on for the transcript.

Harold Turismo: Floyd, you certainly looked pretty CHARGED UP for the win today.
Floyd Landis: Yes, I was hungry for it. I knew I was better than I looked yesterday.

HT: You’d looked strong for the whole Tour, but yesterday it appeared as though your supply had run out. Today you looked as though you’d got it restocked.
FL: Definitely. I felt depleted yesterday, but I was able to dig very deep today.

HT: I understand Phonak stayed in the same hotel as Eurosport’s crew last night. Did you dine with Richard?
FL: Oh no, I didn’t feel like leaving my room after the way the stage went. Luckily, my good friend Lance was in town and he brought me up a freezer bag full of my favourite things.

HT: Thank you Floyd, the spirit of a champion obviously runs through your veins.

We’re not implying anything at all, and definitely not that Landis is renowned as the biggest cheat in the peloton. And if we, say, completely lose all interest in the Tour as result and probably never watch it again, you can be assured that the reason is absolutely not because we think the biggest doper in pro cycling is going to win a Tour that should’ve been one of renewal after the high-profile doping cleanup surrounding its start. We’re positive on that.