Cyclist Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title and will serve a two-year suspension from all competitions after an arbitration panel upheld findings that he broke the doping rules in winning the cycling’s most prominent tour.

The panel confirmed a French laboratory's finding that the 31-year-old had unusually high levels of testosterone in his body during Stage 17 of the Tour in July 2006. The three members of the panel reached the decision to uphold the lab's finding after a 2-1 vote.
Former Olympic wrestler Chris Campbell disagreed, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

"This means we will give Pereiro the victory,'' Patrick McQuaid, president of the International Cycling Union, said. "The system has been under pressure for the last few months because of the attacks from the Landis side.''

The American’s only chance to save his title and avoid becoming the first cyclist in the 105-year history of the tour to lose it because of a doping offense, is if he appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Landis has a month to file his appeal, but he is still weighing his legal options.

"This ruling is a blow to athletes and cyclists everywhere" Landis said. "For the Panel to find in favor of USADA when, with respect to so many issues, USADA did not manage to prove even the most basic parts of their case shows that this system is fundamentally flawed. I am innocent, and we proved I am innocent."

Many people reckoned that Landis' stunning comeback in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour wasn’t possible without the help of some performance enhancing substances. Then he managed to fly into the lead near the start of a tough Alpine stage, regained almost eight minutes against the leader and went on to win the three-week race.

Spanish rider Oscar Pereiro, who finished second to Landis in the 2006 Tour and will receive the 2006 Tour de France title, said he hadn't heard the news yet, but he is not thrilled to win it in such a manner.

"You never want to win a competition like that," he said. "But after a year and a half of all of this I'm just glad it's over."

During a public hearing, Landis affirmed his innocence and also underlined the supposed incompetence of the French lab, which made errors while testing his urine.

Although the panel didn’t consider Landis’ French conspiracy theory, it did find areas of concern as they had to deal with chain of command in controlling the urine sample and also with the way the machine was prepared and the "forensic corrections" done on the lab paperwork.

Nevertheless, the majority stated that any errors done at the laboratory were not enough to dismiss the positive test, but also sent a warning.

"If such practices continue, it may well be that in the future, an error like this could result in the dismissal" of a positive finding by the lab.