A FRENCH COURT has convicted American cyclist Floyd Landis in absentia for his role in hacking into the computers of a French doping lab.
The court in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre has given Landis a 12-month suspended prison sentence — six months fewer than the penalty sought by the state prosecutor.
The WADA-accredited lab in the town of Chatenay-Malabry south of Paris uncovered unusually high testosterone levels in Landis’ samples from the 2006 Tour de France, and he was later stripped of his victory.
Prosecutors say Landis and coach Arnie Baker masterminded a plot to hack into the lab’s computer system to obtain documents as they sought to defend the cyclist’s name.
