On the Road ... Tour de France

What is it with American cyclers?

MACON, France — So it now looks like Floyd Landis will win the Tour de France on Sunday. He trails by only 30 seconds and he's the prohibitive favorite Saturday in the race's final key individual time trial stage. If Landis does win, it will be the 11th Tour title in the last 21 years by American cyclists, including seven victories by Lance Armstrong and three by Greg LeMond. But what is it with American riders who win the Tour? Landis, who won last February's Tour of California, faces potential career-threatening hip replacement surgery sometime later this year. LeMond won his last two Tours after a two-year recovery from a near-fatal accidental gunshot wound. Armstrong won all his Tour titles after recovering for two years from his well-documented ordeal with cancer. But the weird ways of American cyclists doesn't stop with the trio of American winners of the sport's biggest event. Tyler Hamilton, now near the end of a two-year drug suspension, finished fourth in the Tour after winning a stage with a broken clavicle. Davis Phinney, the first American to win a Tour stage (1987), has Parkinson's Disease. Perhaps there's no connections to varied dilemmas among great American cyclists. But it is something ponder. - James raia

posted by dave kellogg at 9:03 PM

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