Floyd Landis Said Le Tour is Over For Him

Yesterday afternoon was certainly one of Landis' worst times in his professional life. After regaining the "yellow jersey" only a day ago, the American suffered a lot in the last portion of yesterday's La Toussuire climbs and lost almost 8 minutes to former teammate Oscar Pereiro. The Phonak rider didn't manage to produce the right response to Carlos Sastre's attack with 15 kilometers to go in the race and lost contact with the Tour's leading positions.

After passing the finish line, the American's face said it all. Struggling to finish the stage, Landis was very disappointed and knew that Le tour was pretty much over for him this year. And, with Lance Armstrong, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich out of the race, this might have been the only chance to squeeze a win in the greatest cycling race of the world.

"I had a bad day, a wrong day. The teams were going really well but I suffered from the start. I tried to hide it. Sometimes you don't feel well and today was one of those days. It was not a good time to have a bad day. There was never a flat part for 15 minutes for me to recover. Once I was dropped there was only a certain speed I could go and it wasn't very fast. I don't expect to win this Tour anymore. It's never easy to get back eight minutes but I'll keep fighting till the end and try", admitted Landis.

As for the new leader in the overall standings, the American seemed very pleased that Pereiro was the one who got to "steal" him the "yellow jersey", since they were teammates at Phonak in the past: "Seeing Oscar in yellow certainly doesn't disappoint me in any way. He's a great person and a former team-mate. I never assumed that the Tour was won at any time, which is why I tried to ride a conservative race. The bad day just came at the wrong time. I'm disappointed and I would be lying if I didn't say I wanted to forget about it. I did everything I could to be the best at this Tour and I would change what happened today, but I can't. I understand that a golden opportunity to win has gone".