Innocent man or drug cheat?

When Floyd Landis won the Tour de France in Paris last July, a quarter of a million people lined the Champs-Elysees to watch him. Last week, his presence in Borrego Springs, a sparsely populated community in the Southern California desert, caused barely a flicker.

Not that Landis is complaining. "I like

it here," he said. "Nobody knows about what I'm supposed to have done. I'm anonymous and, right now, that's as good as it gets."

It was the first time the American had returned to this remote corner of the United States since his victory in the Tour de France collapsed around him when, two days after being hailed as

the champion, he tested positive for

illegal levels of testosterone.

Landis was branded a drugs cheat, sacked by his Phonak team and had his winner's cheque for around

£300,000 withheld. Nearly three weeks later, on August 15, his father-in-law and close friend, David Witt, shot himself dead in a San Diego car park.

Family and friends insist the furore

over the Landis doping case played no part in Witt's suicide. He was known to have been worried about his restaurant business and the debts he had incurred in trying to take it upmarket. But Landis cannot rid himself of guilt and the belief that he may have played a part, however small, in his father-inlaw's death.

"I don't know why he did it," he said. "But I'd be deluding myself if I thought the dope case did not play a big part in his stress. He was a good friend long before he became my father-in-law.We

used to cycle together, we even came

out here, to Borrego Springs, to train.

"He was in the Champs-Elysees the day I won the Tour and he was at the victory party.

"I didn't talk to him the week before he died. I feel really bad about that but I was completely consumed by the accusations levelled against me. Maybe, if I had, he would have said something about how he felt. Now it"s too late and we'll never know why.

"It's been the toughest few months of

my life. One moment I've realised a lifelong

dream in Paris, the next I've become one of the biggest doping stories of all time. But if it"s been hard for me, it's been a great deal harder for my family."

Three days after Witt's death, random dope testers knocked on the door of the Landis family home in California.

"My wife, Amber, answered the door and almost had a total breakdown,"

Landis said. "She started to scream and

cry, telling them that they had ruined

her life.

"I apologised to the man because he was only carrying out his job. He told me that he'd been asked to do a random drug test on me the day after David died and his death became national news. The man told me he refused to visit me then but had to come two days later. I asked him to let my family have some dignity. We still had to go through with the funeral."

On the face of it, the Landis case appears straightforward. People were already questioning how he had transformed himself from a beaten

man after the Tour's 16th stage into one

capable of an almost superhuman achievement in winning the 17th.

Eight members of the now disbanded Phonak team had previously been banned for doping offences and Landis added to that shameful tally when his

ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone

was recorded at 11:1, way above the

highest permitted ratio of 4:1.

Landis, predictably, denies his guilt,

although he understands why the

global public remains sceptical.

"I don't fault people for believing I must be

guilty," he said. "If I were looking in from

the outside, I'd be feeling exactly the

same way. But I'd like to be given a fair

trial and the evidence to be considered

with an open mind."

His defence rests on his claim that

three out of four testosterone tests

used on his sample were negative and

that the one positive test could have

resulted from laboratory error.

The Landis defence team also say that the test considered by the World Anti-Doping Agency to be the best indicator of long-term testosterone

use was negative. The testers at France's national

anti-doping laboratory have already owned up to an error in recording the identification

number of Landis's B sample, writing the figure

995-474 as 994-474.

Landis did not help his cause in the days following news of his positive drug test by citing a whole host of excuses, from the whiskey he said he had consumed the night of the

16th stage and the cortisone injections

he was allowed for a hip injury (the

joint was replaced in September) to his

thyroid medication and even naturallyproduced

testosterone.

Last week he said: "It was a mistake to

come out with those things but I"m not

an expert and I'm very unhappy that

I've had to become one."

But what about the history of drug use within

the Phonak team? Landis said: "I hardly knew most

of those guys. I don't know whether they did it

or not. But I do know that people have

assumed doping was a team policy

because of the numbers involved. I'd

only been there two years but if it was

a team policy, and as eight guys lost

their jobs, their salaries and their

reputations, don't you think someone

would have been embittered enough

to take the team down with them?"

The aspect about the positive test

that rankles most with Landis is not a scientific one. It would, he says, have

been absurd to have taken a large dose

of testosterone in order to win the 17th

stage because stage winners on the

Tour are always tested.

"The chances of me getting away with

it would be zero," he added. "Even if I

had taken that course,would I then be

so useless in the Press conference and

so devoid of explanation? Wouldn't I

have my defence all worked out? This

must make me the dumbest person on

the whole planet. The accusation, in

reality, is that I"m an idiot."

Landis says his defence has already

cost him $150,000. His hearing, due to

be heard in January in Malibu, has

been put back by at least a month.

Landis is not optimistic about the

eventual outcome.

"The sport doesn't want me to win

and it's going to be very difficult to do

so," he said. "Even if I do, people will

believe I've got off on a technicality. I

want people to understand the true,

scientific reasons behind my innocence,

not a technicality.

"If I lost, I'm not sure I could carry on. I wasn't the highest-paid cyclist and it's

looking like this might cost me

$500,000. I think the authorities know

I'll run out of money. They've said

they'll appeal if they lose the hearing

and that might take another year.

"If I'm banned for four years and

stripped of my title and prize-money,

I'll never race again. My desire for it

would have been obliterated."

Whatever the results of the American's case, he admits his sport is in deep trouble.

"How can cycling win?" he said. "Either the winner of its greatest race is a cheat or the credibility of the system is in tatters if I'm found innocent. Neither is a great result."

At that point, Landis bursts out laughing. "I may never get my prize money and I may lose my title as Tour de France champion, but there's one thing they'll never get from me," he said.

"I have the yellow jersey at home and that's where it's going to stay for the rest of my life."