That Shitty Fan (ok, you come up with a better title)

Landis organizing defense
By AFP
This report filed July 28, 2006

Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, facing the loss of his title in a doping scandal, on Friday again insisted he was innocent.

The 30-year-old rider said that his positive test for testosterone showed up levels which "are absolutely natural and produced by my own organism".

Landis said he was in Madrid to consult with his legal team and added he was willing to undergo whatever tests the sport's authorities asked of him to establish his innocence.

"Until such research has been carried out I ask not to be judged and much less to be sentenced by anyone," Landis told a news conference at a Madrid hotel. "I'd like to make it absolutely clear that I'm not in any doping process."

"I will proceed to undergo all of these tests" to show the levels "are absolutely natural and produced by my own organism," he promised.

The American added that he wished to state "categorically that my Tour win was exclusively due to many years of training and dedication" to his sport.

Landis said he was in Spain "for meetings to establish a plan" to respond to the doping allegations and that he and his entourage would "explain to the world why this is not a doping case but a natural occurrence."

Landis, who will be fired by his Phonak team if the B sample confirms the first result, passed on medical questions to his lawyer, Jose Maria Buxeda, who is also the lawyer for Spanish racer Roberto Heras, caught doping on the 2005 Vuelta a España.

If he is stripped of his Tour de France title he would be the first ever champion to be disqualified for doping.

"I came here to tell you my point of view," said Landis, who succeeded compatriot Lance Armstrong on the winners podium.

Armstrong has also repeatedly been questioned over how he managed to come back from life-threatening cancer to land his championship-winning performances but has never tested positive for doping.

"I am proud of the fact that I won the Tour because I was the strongest candidate - that's my position," Landis said, adding he would be pushing for the testing of his "B" sample to be carried out as soon as possible at the French laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry.

Landis said Thursday in an interview with U.S. magazine Sports Illustrated that the abnormally high Testosterone/Epitestosterone ratio which showed up after his staggering solo 130km breakaway win in race stage 17 could be due to a thyroid problem or possibly to have occurred naturally.

Landis is also scheduled to appear on CNN's Larry King Live on Friday evening.