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89th Tour de France - Grand Tour
France, July 6-28, 2002
2002 Tour de France rider journals
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Floyd Landis
Nationality: American
Team: United States Postal Service
A strong climber and time trialist, 26 year old Landis, from Lancaster Co., PA, burst onto the road scene in 1999 in his rookie road year, wearing the Maillot Jaune and finishing third in the Tour de l'Avenir stage race, followed by 4th place in 2000. After an up and down 2001 season with Mercury, Landis has been a great addition to USPS in 2002, recently placing 2nd overall behind winner and team leader Lance Armstrong in the Dauphiné Libéré.
Stage 1 - July 7: Luxembourg - Luxembourg, 192.5 km
Stress City Today
Today was a hard stage, with a lot of crashes. It was really stressful but our soigneur Freddy "Fingers" Vianen told me that the mental stress is just part of the Tour De France. I'm getting used to it already, but I was happy when the stage was over! I got in a break today over the last climb. Some guys ahead of me attacked so I figured that I'd go along and see what happened.
But there were too many strong guys so Zabel's team pulled us back. I think it was hard for (Telekom) today. It was nice to be in a break...to get out of all the action of the pack.
We (USPS) expected to lose the Maillot Jaune today...there was just no sense in defending it with such a small gap on the sprinters teams. I saw the stage winner go when he attacked...it was an impressive move on such a hard finish. We were going really fast up the final climb into Luxembourg, so he must be good. Tomorrow will be a quieter day for us.
Until next time,
Floyd
