Floyd Landis.. I bow to you.

Floyd Landis?? Landis who?? This is the first question people ask when his name is mentioned. He was the second-in-command in Lance Armstrong's cycling team. And now that Lance is retired, he did some unimaginable in the Tour De France, a feat that will be discussed for time to come.

Here is an article from the website www.cyclingnews.com

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Without a shadow of a doubt, today will go down as one of the finest stages in modern Tour de France history. Today, a 28 year-old American by the name of Floyd Landis, written off by most after his collapse of yesterday, staged a comeback that defied logic. And in one fell swoop, he finds himself back in contention to win the 2006 Tour de France. His stage win was reminiscent of Charly Gaul's 100 km breakaway in the Alps in the 1958 Tour to put himself back into contention from a seemingly lost position, before Gaul went onto win the final time trial and the Tour de France.

"I don't expect to win the Tour at this point," said Landis after his ride yesterday. "It's not easy to get back eight minutes. But I'm gonna fight, because you never know what's going to happen next."

No, Floyd, we didn't expect you to win, either. No, Floyd, it's not easy to reverse an eight-minute time deficit four days from the finish of a Grand Tour. No, Floyd, we didn't know what would happen next...

... But Floyd, when did you know you were going to do what you did today?

"The plan was from the beginning," he replied. "I was very disappointed yesterday. For me to have a bad day was something I couldn't control. But today I thought, 'I could at least show them that I could keep fighting'.

"After that, all I could do was hope that behind me they were disorganised or not strong enough to catch me. I didn't have a whole lot of information. I only had the time differences every now and then. It's hard to tell what's going on behind."

Going alone
Photo ©: Sirotti

His solo move, on the first of the day's five climbs and 128.5 kilometres from the finish in Morzine, quite simply looked irrational by the very nature of what lay ahead. However, as the fiery-eyed Phonak leader continued to turn a massive gear kilometre after kilometre, downing bidon after bidon, and picking off and spitting out each of the eleven members of the early breakaway one by one, the numbers game began turning in Floyd's favour.

"When the time gaps didn't change for a long period of time, I was pretty sure that they were working as hard as they could, and that I was going to be okay," he said.

By the summit of the final ascent of the Col de Joux-Plane, Landis had turned the groupe maillot jaune inside out and upside down. Sastre was five minutes down. Moreau was six. And Schleck, Klöden, Sinkewitz, Evans, Zubeldia and maillot jaune Pereiro were almost seven minutes in arrears.

Carlos Sastre (CSC)
Photo ©: Sirotti

Crossing the line outside Morzine's Place de l'Office de Tourisme, the time gaps remained much the same. It took some time after crossing the line till Landis launched into his victory salute: a powerful, swinging right-hander, filled with fire and anger. Much the same treatment he gave to his rivals today, which left each and every one of them lying on the ground, winded, battered to a pulp.

"No matter what, whether I win or not, I'm going to prove to my team that I deserved to be a leader," said Landis. "But I didn't expect that I could do it quite so well."

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Trailing by about 30 seconds, and entering the 56 kms time-trials, which is Floyd's strongpoint, he stands a great chance of making it to the victory podium two days from now. If there is someone who has a chance, it is Floyd.

Floyd, I salute you, and I bow to you. You are awesome, and my wishes are with you. Go for it!