Landis

This morning Landis' "B" sample test results confirmed that there was a lot of testosterone in his system after his amazing ride on Stage 17 of this year's Tour.

While it is possible that one of the four excuses that Landis and his handlers have given over the past week is reasonable, I doubt it.

When this news first broke a lot of experts and reporters questioned why Landis would have taken testosterone because, in an endurance sport like the Tour de France, testosterone doesn't do you a lot of good.

What these people missed, however, is that after breaking on the final climb of Stage 16 and losing minutes to his chief rivals, Landis was desperate to do something.  He was dehydrated, suffering from a sore hip and he didn't have a lot of energy.  He needed the kind of pick me up that a healthy dose of testosterone would give an athelete.

My theory is that, out of desperation, Landis took a bunch of testosterone and it worked better than he expected.  He came out for Stage 17 and he crushed his competitors.  At the beginning of the stage he was over 8 minutes behind the leader, at the end of the stage he was just 30 seconds behind the leader.  In two days, Landis lost the race and won it back.

My other theory is that someone either working on Landis staff (like a cook or something) or one of the technicians at the French drug testing lab spiked his food or his sample with testosterone.