Landis

Washington: Embattled cyclist Floyd Landis bitterly hit back on Monday at world cycling authorities, accusing them of ambushing him with the premature release of doping tests that tarnished his win in the Tour de France.

In a series of interviews, the American again denied taking testosterone to power his dramatic stage 17 comeback last month and ripped into ICU and Wada officials.

Landis, 30, told a TV channel it was “a mistake on my part” to respond quickly with various defences, including the suggestion the substance might have resulted from drinking alcohol.

“The problem here, though, from the beginning was the fact that the people doing the testing did not follow their own rules and protocols, and made this public before I had a chance to figure out what was going on,” he said.

“I was forced in the press to make comments before I could get educated on this. Had they followed their own protocols, this never would have happened in the first place.”

Asked by another channel why he did not mount a more vigorous defence after disclosure of the doping allegations, Landis said: “I was completely unprepared for anything like this. When it happened, I tried to reason what it would be like if I was someone watching, and I wanted to explain in a way I thought other people would understand.”

Launching a public-relations counter-offensive, Landis appeared on the morning talk shows with his wife Amber, who voiced unquestioning belief in his innocence and described him as a cyclist dedicated to his sport above all else.

Vowing to get his name cleared, Landis said: “I have a new goal, to prove myself innocent.”

Asked whether he had ever used any performance-enhancing drug, Landis said, “No, I have not.”

Landis tested positive, reportedly for synthetic testosterone, and was above allowable limits of testosterone in the body in a test after the stage 17 that pulled him from nearly out of contention to nearly in first place.

Landis said the media knew the result of each of his samples before he did, including the original July 27 revelation of the A sample being positive.

“I just got the information on the A sample a day and half ago,” Landis said on newspaper website. “I had to find out about the B (sample) from reading it in the media.”

Landis cited another shamed US hero, 100m world-record co-holder Justin Gatlin, noting that the athlete had known about his positive result for testosterone ratio for months before the news became public.

“I had only two days to react to mine,” Landis said. “(ICU boss) Pat McQuaid said he had to release mine before the lab leaked it.”

Landis defended his amazing stage 17 effort, saying the comeback was less of an oddity than the positive sample.

“I put in more than 20,000 km of training for the Tour. I won the Tour of California, Paris-Nice and the Tour de Georgia. I was tested eight times at the Tour de France, four times before that stage and three times after, including three blood tests,” he said.

“Only one came back positive. Nobody in their right mind would take testosterone just once. It doesn’t work that way.”

Landis stopped short of saying his sample was tainted to make him look positive, but did say, “there’s some kind of agenda there. I just don’t know what it is.”