-
Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
- Thread starter Folanator
- Start date
OK, in the post-Lance tour, I have been searching for somebody to root for. I kinda had Hincapie as a sentimental favorite. I've never really paid much attention to the sprinters, but I'm beginning to like Robbie McEwen. And now... Floyd Landis. He has vaulted himself into "badass" territory. Maybe not "Lance Armstrong-badass" territory, but he's probably as badass as an Amish cyclist can possibly be.
<hr align="left" size="1"> July 10, 2006
<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" "> Landis's Hip Will Need Surgery After Bid for Tour </nyt_headline>
<nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "> </nyt_byline>By SAMUEL ABT
<nyt_text> </nyt_text> CHÂTEAUBOURG, France, July 9 — Second over all in the Tour de France and a strong favorite to win the race when it ends July 23, Floyd Landis confirmed on Sunday a report that he had been riding in severe pain for four years because of a degenerative hip condition he had kept secret. He said he was planning to have his right hip replaced in an operation.
"If I hadn't had a bicycle-racing career, I would have had the hip replaced two years ago because I don't really want to deal with the pain," said Landis, the 30-year-old American leader of the Phonak team from Switzerland.
Describing the pain, he said in an interview at his team hotel in Châteaubourg before the Tour's eighth stage, "It's bad, it's grinding, it's bone rubbing on bone.
"Sometimes it's a sharp pain," he continued. "When I pedal and walk, it comes and goes, but mostly it's an ache, like an arthritis pain. It aches down my leg into my knee. The morning is the best time, it doesn't hurt too much. But when I walk it hurts, when I ride it hurts. Most of the time it doesn't keep me awake, but there are nights that it does."
He said he intended to compete after the operation.
He also confirmed that two years ago he had an operation, which he concealed from team doctors, to alleviate the condition, which is called avascular necrosis or osteonecrosis. "One or the other, they're both the same," Landis said after spelling them. The operation left his right leg an inch shorter than his left.
The condition, he explained, is caused when "scar tissue closes the blood vessels in the hip and the ball on the hip collapses" so that the bone does not swivel.
He developed the condition after a crash during a training ride near his home in Southern California in October 2002. Landis said he was talking about it publicly now because "I'm going to have to tell it at some point and everybody's here" at the Tour, "so they might as well hear it now."
Phonak team officials, who were told by Landis about the condition early this year, plan to show his X-rays and discuss the situation Monday in Bordeaux, where the race will have a day off.
Landis first spoke of his degenerative hip condition and intention to have surgery for an article that will appear in next Sunday's New York Times Magazine. The article is now online here.
Landis's team supports him, General Manager John Lelangue said Sunday morning.
"Floyd was honest enough to speak to me about this," he said. "It didn't change any of our plans. Since January, the objective was and remains the Tour de France. His condition was not a problem to our objective.
"We knew about the condition and that was important. I know we're talking about hip surgery, but if it's done well and planned for a good moment, I'm confident he will return to training normally and there won't be any problem next season."
Landis's contract with Phonak expires at the end of the year.
The team will also change sponsors, with iShares, a financial services company, taking over. None of its officials were available for comment.
Discussing Landis's pain, Dr. Allen Lim, his physiologist, said it was worse than Landis acknowledged.
"In the last Tour, he'd come out of the team bus and try to look good, but he'd tell me, 'I just want to vomit right now I'm in so much pain.' "
Landis added that he had taken a cortisone shot recently to help with the pain. "It doesn't work completely, but it makes it better," he said. The shot, ordinarily banned in the sport, has been permitted by racing authorities because of his condition.
"He's not the type to whine," said Dave Zabriskie, an American rider for the CSC team and Landis's roommate in Girona, Spain.
In an interview Sunday morning, Zabriskie added: "This condition could be having a good effect on his career because he knows his time might be limited, so he's going for it. He's on a rampage."
Landis finished second in a long time trial Saturday and trails the race leader, Serhiy Honchar, by a minute. Sunday, he finished in the main pack on the stage to Lorient in Brittany. This season he has won the Tour of California, Paris-Nice and the Tour de Georgia, all multiday races.
The hip replacement, he explained, may be done as early as this autumn.
"I know that it's getting worse," he said. "It's a slow process. Cycling doesn't increase the speed of the process. But if it hurts too much, something needs to be replaced.
"It's unlikely that it will fail catastrophically because it's a slow process, but it's getting bad.
"I've got to do some research to find out what the odds are that surgery will work. Maybe I'll deal with it at the end of the year."
If he does have the operation soon, Lim said, "he will come back and be much, much stronger than he is now."
"People haven't seen more than 80 percent of Floyd," he said.
Upvote
0
Landis just took the yellow jersey. He was 4:45 out of the lead, and finished almost exactly that much time ahead of the Frenchman. But since Landis was 3rd on the day, an 8-second time bonus gives him the lead.
Rough stage in the Pyrenees today. Four cat-1 climbs, plus the beyond-category Tourmaline.
Congrats, Floyd!
Menchov won the stage, with Leiphiemer and Landis the only others with him. Evans and Sastre 17 seconds back. Kloden was 1:31 behind, after T-Mobile did the early work to crack the peloton on the third climb.
Rough stage in the Pyrenees today. Four cat-1 climbs, plus the beyond-category Tourmaline.
Congrats, Floyd!
Menchov won the stage, with Leiphiemer and Landis the only others with him. Evans and Sastre 17 seconds back. Kloden was 1:31 behind, after T-Mobile did the early work to crack the peloton on the third climb.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
That was a great stage. Worth the watch.
BTW - If I ever get in Nicole Kidman's knickers the look on my face will probably resemble the one Floyd Landis had when they interviewed him wearing the yellow. One happy camper.
BTW - If I ever get in Nicole Kidman's knickers the look on my face will probably resemble the one Floyd Landis had when they interviewed him wearing the yellow. One happy camper.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
Folanator
Brawndo's got electrolytes...
No shit. But if it happens to me I hope that I am not wearing lycra. Nothing like having a boner in bike shorts.
Great stage. Floyd looks good to go. I do not see anyone that is going to beat him. I was worried about Kloden but he got gacked today. I know the Alpes are different than the Pyrenees bla bla bla but Landis looked 100% in control.
Bet it pisses off the Euros something fierce to have another American look like he could win the Tour Day France.
To add, if Ulrich was in the race it would be lights out. Tellcom is soooooo strong and they sould have just launched him today.
Upvote
0
tmporter
All-American
Telecom has looked strong for years and never have had the nuts to really push as a team for a guy. Nevermind if it was Ullrich or Kloden or their Ukranain last year, what's his name, who is riding for some other worthless team this year. US Postal/Discovery always made the necessary team push for Lance. They would send guys out early so when Lance and the rest of the guys with him caught up they still had numbers to help. That was a major reason they won all the time( the tour that is). T-mobile don't function as a team in many of the stages, and that is why they could never get it done and they won't again this year.
Upvote
0
Taosman
Your Cousin In New Mexxico
It's been said that Landis is going to have hip-replacement surgery at the season end! That could effectively end his career. :(
Discovery team blew up yesterday. They lost 2 guys.
One guy crashed into a tourist AFTER the race! Required 14 stitches. :(
Landis isn't exactly "Mister Personality". I find him cold and weird.
This Tuesday the race goes back into the mountains. The Alps this time.
That will be worth watching. 3 very hard days. :tongue2:
Love those mountain climbs! :dead:
Discovery team blew up yesterday. They lost 2 guys.
One guy crashed into a tourist AFTER the race! Required 14 stitches. :(
Landis isn't exactly "Mister Personality". I find him cold and weird.
This Tuesday the race goes back into the mountains. The Alps this time.
That will be worth watching. 3 very hard days. :tongue2:
Love those mountain climbs! :dead:
Upvote
0
I agree with your assessment of T-Mobile. I think Vinokourov is the guy you're thinking of, and he's actually from Kazakhstan.
Upvote
0
tmporter
All-American
BB73 you would be correct, I had just read about Popyovych for Discovery and had that on my brain. And I bet the Europeans are going crazy, with another American in the lead. Bet they thought they had this year in the bag, and now, more American domination in a sport that many American's don't even know exists outside of Lance Armstrong.
Upvote
0
If you think through how a cyclist of that caliber spends his time and the amount of training they do - you gotta have a bit of weirdness going for you. These guys are the closest things to machines you will find among athletes.
Upvote
0
buckeyeboy
Still fortitudinous
I thought that this tour would be boring w/o Lance, Basso, Ulrich, Hamilton, etc., but I was wrong--I am really enjoying watching this year. After yesterday's stage, Landis looks like the man to beat. He was climbing in what seemed to be an effortless manner.
Upvote
0
Folanator
Brawndo's got electrolytes...
Nope not true IMO. It had nothing to do with Testicular fortitude with Telecom, or the team tactics of US Postal. It had everything to do with Lance. There were times when LA was completely isolated, surrounded by Vino and Ulrich and Mayo and the others teams top GC contenders and they could not beat him. They would attack, then attack and then attack again. Lance would chase down any breaks all by himself if he had to. Yes, Heras and others did a nice job setting him up and launching him at times, but it was LA that ripped the guts out of the other riders. If LA was on Tellecom, then they would have won 7 in a row.
Now in 05 Telecom did some weird things like chasing down Vino, but Urich was the team leader and Vino was a individual, he did not play in the team. That was one year. Other years they did a great job riding at the front at tempo, isolating lance and then launching Ulrich. But in the end, you still have to ride the guy off your wheel and no one was able to do that. LA was just better than they were.
US Postal and Discovery were the jockeys riding Secretariat. They were very good, but they never would have won that many times with another horse.
Back in the day I was riding 4-5 days a week with typically 3-4 40 milers and then a 60-90 one day on the weekend. I would run 5-7 days a week getting 60+. Also swimming 3-4 days a week at masters. I also was lifting 3-4 days a week. Raced 2-3 times a month. Yes psychotic but I got real real fast. :)
Last edited:
Upvote
0
A breakaway made up over 30 minutes today. Oscar Pereiro now leads the race, but he should once again lose big time when they get into the mountains.
Landis is no longer in yellow, but it's probably best for the Phonak team. They won't have to drive the peleton tomorrow, and can rest up for the Alps stages starting on Tuesday, where the race will be won or lost.
Landis is no longer in yellow, but it's probably best for the Phonak team. They won't have to drive the peleton tomorrow, and can rest up for the Alps stages starting on Tuesday, where the race will be won or lost.
Upvote
0