Floyd Landis

Floyd Landis (born October 14, 1975) is an American former professional road racing cyclist.

In 1993, he was crowned U.S. junior national champion.

He told friends he would win the Tour de France one day.

At the age of 20 Landis moved to Southern California to train full-time as a mountain biker.

He soon established a reputation for toughness, once finishing a race riding on only his rims.

He graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1994.

He was raised in a devout Mennonite family and community.

He used his first bike to ride while out fishing with his best friend but quickly learned to enjoy riding for its own sake.

At one point, he became determined to ride in a local race.

He raced wearing sweatpants because his religion forbade wearing shorts.

Disturbed at his son's participation in what he considered a "useless" endeavor, Landis's father tried to discourage him from racing his bike by giving him extra chores.

This left him no time to train during the day, so he would sneak out of the house at night to train, sometimes at 1 or 2 a.m. and often in the freezing cold.

His father received a tip that his son had been going out at night; he did not appreciate his son's passion for cycling and thought he might be getting into drugs or alcohol.

He often followed Landis at a distance to make sure he was not getting into trouble.

He later became an enthusiastic supporter of his son and described himself as one of Floyd's biggest fans.

Landis won the first mountain bike race he entered.

He turned professional in 1999 with the Mercury Cycling Team, joined the U.S. Postal Service team in 2002, and moved to the Phonak Hearing Systems team in 2005.

However, his training regimen resembled that of a road biker, and in 1999 he switched to road cycling.

Landis performed well enough on the road that Lance Armstrong recruited him to U.S. Postal and chose Landis to ride alongside him as a domestique during his Tour wins from 2002 to 2004, part of his team-record seven Tour titles.

In each of these Tours, Landis served as Armstrong's lieutenant, or chief domestique, pushing the pace in the mountains to break the pack before Armstrong took off on his own to win the stage.

In the 2004 tour Landis led Armstrong and a few of Armstrong's main rivals over the final climb of stage 17, putting on such an impressive display of strength that actor and avid bike-racing fan Robin Williams dubbed him the "Mofo of the Mountains".

His performance led some observers to peg him as a possible team leader and future winner of the Maillot Jaune.

Landis left U.S. Postal later that year after receiving a better contract offer from the Phonak squad.

In the 2005 Tour de France, Landis finished ninth overall in the General classification, his highest finish in the tour at that time.

At the 2006 Tour de France, he would have been the third non-European winner in the event's history, but was disqualified after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

The competition was ultimately won by Óscar Pereiro.

Landis was an all-around rider, with special skills in climbing, time-trialing, and descending.

Landis started the 2006 season strongly, with overall wins in the Amgen Tour of California, and then in the prestigious Paris–Nice, both week-long stage races.

Winning Paris–Nice gave Landis 52 points in the UCI ProTour individual competition, starting him off in first place for 2006.

Landis achieved another overall win in the Ford Tour de Georgia, which took place from April 18 to 23.

In addition to winning the Tour de Georgia time trial.

He was suspended from professional competition through January 30, 2009, following an arbitration panel's 2-to-1 ruling on September 20, 2007.

He appealed the result of the arbitration hearing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which subsequently upheld the panel's ruling.

In January 2010, a French judge issued a national arrest warrant for Landis on computer hacking charges related to the 2006 Tour de France, stage 17 doping allegations.

In 2010 Landis maintained his innocence and mounted a defense.

Although his legal team documented inconsistencies in the handling and evaluation of his urine samples, the disqualification was upheld.

On May 20, 2010, after almost four years of contesting the allegations, Landis admitted to doping, and revealed that Lance Armstrong and many other top riders who rode on his team doped as well.

Landis is the second child and oldest son of Paul and Arlene Landis.

His childhood home is in the village of Farmersville, in West Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

In January 2011, he was unable to find a new team, which effectively ended his professional career.