Call it, Floyd Landis Syndrome

One look at Floyd Landis and I just know he’s not cheating. His Tour de France victory is now in jeopardy after a test found he had suspiciously high levels of the hormone testosterone. But, here’s a guy who can’t seem to muster up enough testosterone to fill in what’s missing on that scrawny beard of his. And his arms are the size of a couple of coffee stirs. Aren’t dopers supposed to have more of that Jason Giambi exploding out of your skin look? I see Landis’ emaciated physique and I want to force feed him a few Snickers washed down with a chaser of Bosco – straight up. It would probably double his body weight. He makes Nicole Richie almost look normal. And don’t those performance enhancing drugs actually shrink the “performance” area? One glance at Floyd in his spandex tells me all I need to know about that region.

Besides Floyd told his mother he didn’t cheat. Who could lie to a woman who wears a doily on her head and doesn’t own a TV? Although Momma Landis might be a Mennonite/cycling psychic. After all she did warn her son about the evils of biking and how it would all come to no good. Maybe my Momma’s not be a pious person, but I have first hand experience that Mom’s are always right. Just ask mine.

I think the real reason Landis was tanked up with testosterone goes back to the day before the test, that’s the day before he rode the greatest comeback in tour history. That was the day was when Floyd flopped, falling behind by 8 minutes. That fueled an anger in Floyd. It was an anger so powerful that Floyd’s male steroids spiked so high it gave him almost super-hero powers. I call it Anger Motivation Hormone Imbalance Disorder. (AMHID for short.) It works sort of the same way my P.M.S. hormone surge makes me want to reach through the phone and strangle the 411 Operator for putting me on hold and then giving me the wrong number.

After all who among us, male or female can deny rage as an incentive? When was the last time you accelerated SLOWLY after being caught in an agonizingly long traffic jam? Who isn’t charged with a super-sonic bag-it-yourself energy after impatiently waiting behind someone with not 10 -- but a limit-busting 13 items at the express check-out? (And what do you mean you want cash back!) Who hasn’t found a superhuman strength to overcome a deaths-door case of the sniffles when told the doctor is running two hours behind schedule?

Even now, I’m certain I’ve given some anger management academic the notion to siphon off a big bucks government grant linking male hormonal imbalance with anger and athletic achievement – a sisterly scholarship to P.M.S. So, if Floyd were smart he’ll give up that silly idea of defending himself and waiting for the “B” sample to prove him innocent. I think he should embrace AMHID, get some rubber bracelets, cash in with a drug company sponsor, do a few confessional commercials and for goodness sakes, get out of that spandex and put on some real pants.

by Stephanie Becker

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