CNY rider
07-09-2006, 06:40 PM
This is a total shock.
I've had patients get osteonecrosis of the hip, mainly as a result of therapy. Most of them can barely move until it gets fixed. Unbelievable he can ride the Tour.
No. 2 in Tour Confirms He Needs Hip Surgery
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By SAMUEL ABT
Published: July 9, 2006
CHÂTEAUBOURG, France, July 9 — Second over all in the Tour de France and a strong favorite to win the race when it ends July 23, Floyd Landis confirmed today a report that he had been riding in severe pain for four years because of a degenerative condition in his right hip, which he has kept secret. He said he was planning to have hip replacement surgery.
"If I hadn't had a bicycle-racing career, I would have had the hip replaced two years ago because I don't really want to deal with the pain," said Landis, the 30-year-old American leader of the Phonak team from Switzerland.
Describing the pain, he said in an interview at his team hotel in Châteaubourg before the Tour's eighth stage, "It's bad, it's grinding, it's bone rubbing on bone.
"Sometimes it's a sharp pain," he continued. "When I pedal and walk, it comes and goes, but mostly it's an ache, like an arthritis pain. It aches down my leg into my knee. The morning is the best time, it doesn't hurt too much, but when I walk it hurts, when I ride it hurts. Most of the time it doesn't keep me awake, but there are nights that it does."
He said he intended to compete after the operation.
Landis first spoke of his degenerative hip condition and intention to have surgery for an article that will appear in next Sunday's issue of The New York Times Magazine. The article is now online on The Times's Web site.
Landis also confirmed that two years ago he had an operation, which he concealed from team doctors, to alleviate the condition, which is called avascular necrosis or osteonecrosis. "One or the other, they're both the same," he said. The operation left his right leg an inch shorter than his left.
The condition, he explained, is caused when "scar tissue closes the blood vessels in the hip and the ball on the hip collapses" so that the bone does not swivel.
He developed the condition after a crash during a training ride near his home in Southern California in October 2002. Landis said he was going public now because "I'm going to have to tell it at some point and everybody's here" at the Tour de France "so they might as well hear it now."
Phonak team officials, who were told by Landis about his condition early this year, plan to show his X-rays and discuss the situation on Monday in Bordeaux, where the race will have a day off.
Landis's team totally supports him, General Manager John Lelangue said this morning.
"Floyd was honest enough to speak to me about this," he said. "It didn't change any of our plans. Since January, the objective was and remains the Tour de France. His condition was not a problem to our objective.
"We knew about the condition and that was important," Lelangue said. "I know we're talking about hip surgery, but if it's done well and planned for a good moment, I'm confident he will return to training normally and there won't be any problem next season."
Landis's contract with Phonak expires at the end of the year. The team will also change sponsors, with iShares, a financial services company, taking over. None of its officials were available for comment.
Discussing Landis's pain, Dr. Allen Lim, the rider's physiologist, said it was worse than Landis acknowledged.
"In the last Tour, he'd come out of the team bus and try to look good, but he'd tell me, 'I just want to vomit right now I'm in so much pain.' "
Landis added that he had taken a cortisone shot recently to alleviate the pain. "It doesn't work completely, but it makes it better," he said. The shot, ordinarily banned in the sport, has been permitted by racing authorities because of his condition.
"He's not the type to whine," said Dave Zabriskie, an American rider for the CSC team and Landis's roommate in Girona, Spain.
In an interview this morning, Zabriskie added: "This condition could be having a good affect on his career because he knows his time might be limited, so he's going for it. He's on a rampage."
Landis finished second in a long time trial Saturday and trails the race leader, Serhiy Honchar, by one minute. Today, he finished in the main pack on the stage to Lorient in Brittany. This season he has won the Tour of California, Paris-Nice and the Tour de Georgia, all multiday races.
The hip replacement surgery, he explained, might be done as early as this fall.
"I know that it's getting worse," he said. "It's a slow process. Cycling doesn't increase the speed of the process. But if it hurts too much, something needs to be replaced.
"It's unlikely that it will fail catastrophically because it's a slow process, but it's getting bad.
"I've got to do some research to find out what the odds are that surgery will work. Maybe I'll deal with it at the end of the year."
If he does have the operation soon, Dr. Lim said: "He will come back and be much, much stronger than he is now. People haven't seen more than 80 percent of Floyd."
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I've had patients get osteonecrosis of the hip, mainly as a result of therapy. Most of them can barely move until it gets fixed. Unbelievable he can ride the Tour.
No. 2 in Tour Confirms He Needs Hip Surgery
Reprints
Save
By SAMUEL ABT
Published: July 9, 2006
CHÂTEAUBOURG, France, July 9 — Second over all in the Tour de France and a strong favorite to win the race when it ends July 23, Floyd Landis confirmed today a report that he had been riding in severe pain for four years because of a degenerative condition in his right hip, which he has kept secret. He said he was planning to have hip replacement surgery.
"If I hadn't had a bicycle-racing career, I would have had the hip replaced two years ago because I don't really want to deal with the pain," said Landis, the 30-year-old American leader of the Phonak team from Switzerland.
Describing the pain, he said in an interview at his team hotel in Châteaubourg before the Tour's eighth stage, "It's bad, it's grinding, it's bone rubbing on bone.
"Sometimes it's a sharp pain," he continued. "When I pedal and walk, it comes and goes, but mostly it's an ache, like an arthritis pain. It aches down my leg into my knee. The morning is the best time, it doesn't hurt too much, but when I walk it hurts, when I ride it hurts. Most of the time it doesn't keep me awake, but there are nights that it does."
He said he intended to compete after the operation.
Landis first spoke of his degenerative hip condition and intention to have surgery for an article that will appear in next Sunday's issue of The New York Times Magazine. The article is now online on The Times's Web site.
Landis also confirmed that two years ago he had an operation, which he concealed from team doctors, to alleviate the condition, which is called avascular necrosis or osteonecrosis. "One or the other, they're both the same," he said. The operation left his right leg an inch shorter than his left.
The condition, he explained, is caused when "scar tissue closes the blood vessels in the hip and the ball on the hip collapses" so that the bone does not swivel.
He developed the condition after a crash during a training ride near his home in Southern California in October 2002. Landis said he was going public now because "I'm going to have to tell it at some point and everybody's here" at the Tour de France "so they might as well hear it now."
Phonak team officials, who were told by Landis about his condition early this year, plan to show his X-rays and discuss the situation on Monday in Bordeaux, where the race will have a day off.
Landis's team totally supports him, General Manager John Lelangue said this morning.
"Floyd was honest enough to speak to me about this," he said. "It didn't change any of our plans. Since January, the objective was and remains the Tour de France. His condition was not a problem to our objective.
"We knew about the condition and that was important," Lelangue said. "I know we're talking about hip surgery, but if it's done well and planned for a good moment, I'm confident he will return to training normally and there won't be any problem next season."
Landis's contract with Phonak expires at the end of the year. The team will also change sponsors, with iShares, a financial services company, taking over. None of its officials were available for comment.
Discussing Landis's pain, Dr. Allen Lim, the rider's physiologist, said it was worse than Landis acknowledged.
"In the last Tour, he'd come out of the team bus and try to look good, but he'd tell me, 'I just want to vomit right now I'm in so much pain.' "
Landis added that he had taken a cortisone shot recently to alleviate the pain. "It doesn't work completely, but it makes it better," he said. The shot, ordinarily banned in the sport, has been permitted by racing authorities because of his condition.
"He's not the type to whine," said Dave Zabriskie, an American rider for the CSC team and Landis's roommate in Girona, Spain.
In an interview this morning, Zabriskie added: "This condition could be having a good affect on his career because he knows his time might be limited, so he's going for it. He's on a rampage."
Landis finished second in a long time trial Saturday and trails the race leader, Serhiy Honchar, by one minute. Today, he finished in the main pack on the stage to Lorient in Brittany. This season he has won the Tour of California, Paris-Nice and the Tour de Georgia, all multiday races.
The hip replacement surgery, he explained, might be done as early as this fall.
"I know that it's getting worse," he said. "It's a slow process. Cycling doesn't increase the speed of the process. But if it hurts too much, something needs to be replaced.
"It's unlikely that it will fail catastrophically because it's a slow process, but it's getting bad.
"I've got to do some research to find out what the odds are that surgery will work. Maybe I'll deal with it at the end of the year."
If he does have the operation soon, Dr. Lim said: "He will come back and be much, much stronger than he is now. People haven't seen more than 80 percent of Floyd."
Next Article in Sports (3 of 31) »