A widely circulated Associated Press report this morning quoted an official with Momentum Sports Group, owner of the Health Net-Maxxis domestic professional team, confirming the company is negotiating with Lancaster County native Floyd Landis for his return to cycling.
Team director Mike Tamayo, speaking at the Tour of Missouri race Wednesday, confirmed the talks.
“We are in negotiations with Floyd Landis to ride for the team in 2009, but we do not as of yet have a signed contract,” Tamayo said.
Landis did not return calls to his Murrieta, Calif. home or e-mails, the AP article stated. His parents also did not immediately return a call for comment this morning.
The news of Landis’ contract negotiations came soon his former U.S. Postal teammate Lance Armstrong announced he was coming out of a three-year retirement to rejoin the professional peleton. Despite at least one news account this morning, there is little chance Landis, the 2006 winner of the Tour de France, could be lining up against Armstrong, the seven-time Tour winner.
Momentum Sports is supposedly negotiating with a new title sponsor for the team, but the team’s impressive record doesn’t include the high-profile European stage races. Health Net has raced outside the United States only once this year, in March’s Tour of Taiwan.
Local bicycle race organizer Rich Ruoff has been watching Landis’ career since he started racing mountain bikes as a teenager. Ruoff said he believes Landis still has the physical ability to be competitive at the top of the sport. It won’t, however, be easy for Landis to return.
“When you stop racing at the top level, it’s really hard to come back quickly,” said Ruoff. He said it may be a year or more after Landis begins racing again before he will be competitive.
“It’s doubtful that they will ever let him do the Tour de France again — that’s at the organizer’s discretion — but he could be a top racer at the domestic level,” Ruoff said this morning.
Long-time Landis friend Mike Farrington, owner of the Green Mountain Cyclery bike shop in Ephrata, said it is disappointing that Landis is considering signing with a domestic squad. Outside of a few prominent stage races, such as the Tour of California and Tour of Georgia, there are few events on American soil that will really allow Landis to shine.
“He can win the tour of Alabama, but what’s that,” said Farrington.
He said he hasn’t spoken to Landis for a few months.
Landis, 32, is approaching the end of a two-year suspension from professional cycling. The ban was imposed after a panel of arbiters upheld a positive doping test taken during the 2006 Tour. Landis appealed the ruling to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Switzerland-based court upheld the ruling in June.
Landis has always maintained his innocence. The positive test for the hormone testosterone resulted from errors in the French lab, he contended, and the findings were upheld by an anti-doping system which is rigged against the athletes.
His suspension ends Jan. 30.
During his suspension, Landis has participated in mountain bike races that are not sanctioned by the sport’s governing body. He took second place last year after crashing in one of those races, the epic 100-mile Leadville 100 in Colorado.
It was after taking second place in that event last month that Armstrong said he decided to return to cycling. The race “totally kick-started my engine,” Armstrong is reported to have said. Landis did not compete in that race this year.
Landis was widely expected to return to cycling in 2009. His first race may be the Tour of California in February.
The Health Net-Maxxis team, now sponsored by a California-based health insurance company and a tire maker, has been a powerhouse in U.S. cycling for several years.
In 2005, Greg Henderson won Lancaster’s professional race for that team and his teammate, Ivan Dominguez, took third. In 2007, the last year the professional race was in Lancaster, Frank Pipp of Health Net-Maxxis, took third.
