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Top 10 Championships Stripped for Rules Violations
Floyd Landis (2006 Tour de France)
Posted On 05.17, 2013

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‹‹ Marion Jones (2000 Olympics) Ben Johnson (1988 Olympics) ››

The sport of cycling has long been dogged by performance-enhancing drug use, from amphetamines in the early days to HGH and blood doping of late. And the Tour de France, cycling's grandest race, was often a live lab for the newest and most sophisticated designer drugs.

But despite numerous scandals throughout the years, particularly a severe case in the late '90s that nearly toppled the Tour, no winner has ever been disqualified post-race because of a position test - until 2006.

After Lance Armstrong's retirement in 2005, Floyd Landis, a former Armstrong lieutenant, looked to continue the American mastery of the Tour. He seized the yellow jersey halfway through the race but was seemingly out of it when he "bonked" during Stage 16, losing nearly eight minutes to his main competitors. Yet, in the very next stage, he went on an epic comeback that's nearly unmatched in Tour history when he made up all of his lost time and then some. He rode into Paris as the third U.S. cyclist to win the Tour (after Greg LeMond and Armstrong).

But four days later, his Stage 17 drug test came back positive with extremely elevated level of testosterone. When the backup sample also came up positive, he was stripped of his Tour victory and it was awarded to second-place finisher Oscar Pereiro. Landis protested his innocence but ultimately lost all of his appeals. Four years later, he acknowledged that he doped throughout his career and implicated Armstrong, leading to the recent charge against the seven-time Tour champion by the USADA.

Top 10 Championships Stripped for Rules Violations




‹‹ Marion Jones (2000 Olympics) Ben Johnson (1988 Olympics) ››

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