Jul 10, 2006
Hurty Hip Landis
(pic from Yahoo!)
The news was out yesterday as the “blabber mouth” 
New York Times released an article about Floyd Landis’ hip. Seems that Floyd Landis has been riding with a degenerative hip since he signed with Phonak. Landis started suffering chronic pain associated with the hip around the time he signed with his new team. He only put the hip replacement off since things were not very secure career-wise at Phonak. Tyler Hamilton and Santi Perez’s positive drug tests did not help Phonak’s bid to join the ProTour and a medical absence would probably have meant the end of Landis’ career at that point. Floyd decided to run the hip int the ground much like an old car. He had some decent performances last year despite the chronic pain. Now 18 months later, Floyd has a few stage race victories under his belt and is sitting pretty in second place in the Tour with the mountains to come.
The hip problem explains Floyd’s radical seat position which in turn requires him to have his hands almost in front of his face. It will be interesting to see if Landis keeps this radical position once his hip is back to normal. My guess would be no since his position does get some UCI scrutiny and it cuts down on visibility. This is pending Landis’ return next year which is a big mystery since no athlete has ever come back from hip surgery. But those atheletes such as Bo Jackson were in weight bearing sports. Landis may not be affected as much since cycling is not a weight bearing sport.
Assuming Landis does return, rumors are flying around about what team he will ride for next year. Seems that will probably revealed at next week’s rest day. Speculation is ripe now that Floyd will sign with Discovery Channel since Armstrong is heading out to visit the Tour next week. I would doubt that since Phonak is being replaced by American company iShares who would probably want to keep a high profile rider such as Landis. Given Floyd’s hip announcment,it would seem that the deal for next year is done, and it would probably be with his current team.It would be difficult to switch team and come back from hip surgery in one year even if the new team is the friendly and familiar confines of Discovery Channel.