Well, this is disappointing

From this morning's news:

Floyd Landis' stunning Tour de France victory just four days earlier was thrown into question Thursday when his team, Phonak, said he tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race.

The team suspended Landis, pending results of the backup "B" sample of his drug test.

As Peter of Rubber Side Down writes:

What are we to believe about pro cyclists? With Ullrich and Basso along with 55 others forced out of the Tour due to suspicion of drug use and now Landis, can we have confidence that anyone is clean? And let's face it: with each new accusation, we reluctantly and even embarrassingly begin to question Lance Armstrong's seven Tour victories. Was he using? Did he somehow get away with it?

I've always stuck by Armstrong--in part, I'll admit it, because I liked calling the spoilsports at L'Eqipe  "pee fetishists"--but I always knew my standard defense of Mister Seven was ever-so-carefully parsed. See if you can detect the part where I'm hedging my bet just a teensy bit (it's subtle):

I want to believe he's clean--and I'm convinced that if anyone could win seven Tours clean, it's Armstrong.

Not a ringing "absolutely-one-hundred-percent-not-guilty" endorsement, is it? And that was before today's news.

And the pisser--so to speak--is that 2006 was the first actually exciting Tour in several years. How long has it been since you didn't know who was going to win by Day 17?

Waiting for the results of the "B" sample, but not with loads of optimism.