Outdoors: Biking

Floyd Landis, the little-known American cyclist who captivated the nation with his come-from-behind victory in the Tour de France on Sunday, begged for the chance to prove his innocence after results from a drug test that showed suspicious levels of the testosterone in his system, jeopardizing his claim to the title.

The Phonak Cycling Team said it received notice Wednesday from the International Cycling Union (UCI) that Landis showed a disproportionately high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone in a drug test administered last Thursday, the same day he staged one of the most remarkable comebacks in the race's history.

UCI later confirmed that announcement, but Landis has not yet been charged with a doping violation because the analysis of his sample is not complete.

"I'm asking that everybody takes a step back," Landis said in a wavering, emotional voice last night during a conference call from an undisclosed location in Europe. "I don't know what your position is now. I wouldn't blame you if it was a bit skeptical because of what cycling's been through in the past . . . (but) I would like to be assumed innocent until proven guilty, since that's the way we do things in America."

Landis, 30, who is banned from competing until his case is resolved, made his biggest move in the Tour the day he later tested positive, climbing from eleventh to third in the standings after a remarkable, dominant victory in the 17th stage of the 2,272-mile race.

A positive test for testosterone would result in a two-year ban from the sport and nullify his Tour title, giving the crown to second-place Spaniard Oscar Pereiro.

Landis' title followed seven straight victories by Lance Armstrong, who was dogged by doping allegations throughout his career. No Tour winner has ever been forced to relinquish his title because of a doping violation.

"My immediate reaction was to look for the alcohol bottle," Landis said about receiving a faxed notification of the test on Wednesday. It was "a disastrous feeling. I had everything I could have possibly hoped for and dreamed of for the last 10 years. . . . There was no way for me to tell myself it wasn't going to be a disaster, no matter what."

The testosterone positive result is considered unofficial until the second half, or "B" portion, of the original sample is examined to confirm the first finding. Follow-up testing might also be required to support doping charges in this case, depending on the method of analysis used by the French lab that did the testing, according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

The Phonak Cycling Team said on its Web site Landis would be fired if a doping violation were confirmed. Landis said he had been consulting experts since he received word of the test but did not offer an explanation for the result.

He did note that after having fallen into 11th place the night before the test was administered, he and his teammates had all but given up on winning the Tour. In their despair, he said, they went briefly to a balcony bar for beers, then drank whiskey at the team hotel. He said, however, that he intended to find a "more reasonable explanation . . . other than Jack Daniels."

He said he did not know if he had a naturally high testosterone / epitestosterone level, but he said he did not take exogenous testosterone.

UCI President Pat McQuaid said in a statement it "would be a great disappointment and unacceptable violation" if the positive were confirmed, but it would affirm sport's commitment to fighting performance-enhancing drugs.

The sport has been riddled by positive tests and accusations of guilt since police raids uncovered doping instruments among riders and teams before the start of the 1998 Tour, which led to criminal charges and withdrawals of some riders.

Days before the start of this year's tour, nine riders were banned from participating because of their connections to a Spanish doctor under investigation for blood doping. American Tyler Hamilton, the Tour's fourth-place finisher in 2003 and a former member of Phonak, is serving a two-year ban for blood-doping that was unearthed during a 2004 race.

Landis, who was raised in a Mennonite family from Pennsylvania, turned attention away from the negativity and scandal that kicked off the race. Battling pain from a degenerative hip condition, he rode with gritted teeth mile after mile, straight to the Champs-Elysees on the final day to win his first tour. After the tour, he planned to have hip surgery.

Landis finished the 2,267-mile race nearly a full minute ahead of Oscar Pereiro of Spain and more than a minute ahead of Andreas Kloeden of Germany, in third place.

Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour de France winner and the first American to win the event, said in an interview that he believed that this tour was cleaner than in the recent past because the Spanish doping scandal had washed the event of possible cheaters. He said he felt "so much joy" for Landis and his family after Landis had won.

But on Wednesday, LeMond began hearing the rumors that Landis had tested positive. By yesterday, when those rumors were confirmed, LeMond said he was "disappointed and disgusted in my sport" because performance-enhancing drugs had tainted it.

"If there's any positive outcome on this, I hope, for the sport's sake, that Floyd has the courage to come clean on everything," LeMond said. "He needs to say everything about the sport, what's happened in the past, what's happening right now. We need to be transparent about it, so we can look at the sport and say, how do we fix it?"

After each stage of the tour, several riders give urine samples for subsequent drug screenings: the overall leader, the stage winner and three random competitors. The tests from the tour are conducted at a French laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.

Landis was the overall leader five times and the stage winner once, meaning that he was tested at least six times during the race.

Landis is entitled to be present when his "B" sample is tested, but he said he wasn't sure if he would avail himself of that privilege. Testosterone is considered among the trickier drugs for testers to pinpoint because it occurs naturally in the body. WADA requires that samples that possess greater than a 4:1 ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone be subject to further analysis, which includes the gathering of at least three additional urine samples to show that the high ratio is indicative of drug use. This step can only be bypassed if the sample was analyzed with what is known as the carbon-isotope ratio (CIR) test, a more expensive and complex testing procedure that can differentiate between natural and synthetic testosterone.

Landis said he did not know which testing methods were used. The simple ratio test alone has been subject to extensive criticism.

Landis endeared himself even to the French with his unassuming style and daily heroics; he revealed during the Tour that he had a degenerative hip condition that would require surgery soon after the race. His ride during the 17th stage was immediately described as one of the most stunning performances in Tour history.

"We must respect the due process rights that are afforded to every athlete who competes in a sport that adheres to the World Anti-Doping Code," United States Olympic Committee President Peter Ueberroth said in a statement. "With that said, if the B sample confirms the result of the A sample, and if Floyd Landis is ultimately found to be guilty of a doping offense, it would be an incredible disappointment."

Material from The Washington Post and The New York Times was included in this report.