Tour De France Bicycle Race

The owners of the Tour de France and Tour of California cycling races announced Monday that they have entered a marketing and sponsorship agreement. Considering the events' longevity, it is an unexpected partnership between Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), which runs the 105-year-old Tour de France, and AEG, which has the 4-year-old Tour of California.

Cyclist Floyd Landis said Wednesday that he has appealed the arbitration ruling that stripped him of his 2006 Tour de France title and suspended him from competing for two years on allegations that he took testosterone during the marquee race. "There are things in that ruling that were just plain decided wrong," he said from his home in Murietta. "I still hold out a little bit of hope that there are people who care about the facts."

On the day after, Floyd Landis was fuming. "The deck was stacked," he said Friday from his home in Murietta. "It turned out that the best odds I had were zero." On Thursday, a three-member arbitration panel in a split decision stripped the Pennsylvania-born cyclist of his championship in the 2006 Tour de France and banned him from competition for two years, backdated to January.

Arbitrators in the doping case against Tour de France cyclist Floyd Landis said they formally closed the hearing record on Thursday, a procedural step that requires them to issue a ruling within 10 days, or by Sept. 23. That would mark four months since the three-member panel ended a nine-day evidentiary hearing May 23. The Murrieta cyclist is accused of taking illicit testosterone during his championship performance at the 2006 Tour de France.

Spanish rider Iban Mayo tested positive for EPO during the final week of the Tour de France, his team said Monday in a statement. Doping allegations and suspicions have devastated the 2007 Tour, which ended Sunday. Three riders, including former overall leader Michael Rasmussen, and two teams were expelled during the three-week race.

Beleaguered to the verge of wretched, the Tour de France actually zoomed onto the Champs-Elysees Sunday and concluded per vivid tradition. It kept sweeping by, enticing swells of cheers from those lining the boulevard five-deep. It wrought no apparent jeers. Had you just arrived from solitary confinement, you might've presumed it just another majestic competition rather than one of sports' most doping-addled events. One cluster of men did carry protest signage. DEHORS TIBET, these monks pleaded.

* Stage 19: Saturday's individual time trial took riders over 34.5 miles of flat roads from Cognac to Angouleme. * Winner: American rider Levi Leipheimer of the Discovery Channel team won in 1 hour 2 minutes 44 seconds. * Yellow jersey: Alberto Contador of the Discovery Channel team kept the overall lead, and the 24-year-old Spaniard will probably win the Tour today barring a crash. * Quote of the day: "I don't think it's fair, but if I have to then I'll take it."

Kazakh cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov said Saturday he will fight the accusation that he took an illicit blood transfusion during this year's Tour de France -- a charge that led to his expulsion from the race, in which he was the early favorite. Vinokourov, 33, said he has hired Maurice Suh and Howard Jacobs, the Los Angeles attorneys who are representing 2006 Tour champion Floyd Landis in his challenge to a doping charge, to defend him. Vinokourov denied the charge.