Antoine Vayer steps out of an elevator in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Paris, and strides purposefully towards the conference room that houses the press corps of the Tour de France during its final stage, with Floyd Landis and a group of Landis’ friends in tow. The former Festina coach turned provocateur is here to file his final column of the race for Le Monde and rattle some cages in the process.
Landis? Well, he’s sort of tagged along to see what happens.
Vayer and Landis are wearing grey t-shirts bearing the legend ‘Floyd’s of Leadville’ and the group draws double takes as the Frenchman guides them through the maze of corridors, but their progress is arrested at the door of the press room. The path is blocked by two security guards, one burly and one wiry.
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Undeterred, Vayer flashes them his accreditation but none of his four companions have a lanyard, and the two guards hold an impromptu conflab. The wiry guard is adamant that they shall not pass, but the burly guard argues for a more relaxed door policy, immediately recognising the red-haired man with the beard and the shy smile. “This man won the Tour de France,” he says, pointing at Landis. “Let him through.”
It’s quickly apparent that the wiry guard’s greatest fear is that Landis might cause a scene. He shoots a wary look at Landis’ friend and business partner Scott Thomson, and, perhaps mistaking his muscular frame for that of a bodyguard, reluctantly relents. They are all allowed in. Vayer bustles into the room and ostentatiously whisks out his laptop, while his four companions tip-toe quietly behind him, speaking in hushed tones as though entering a church.
Landis pulls up a pew at the back and taps self-consciously on his mobile phone, though the room is half empty at this point in the afternoon and only a handful of reporters seem to have clocked his presence. All the while, the security guards are deliberating with members of the Tour’s press office, and within a couple of minutes, the wiry guard is hovering over Landis once again. “I’m sorry, but you have to leave,” he says politely but not exactly apologetically. “Rules are rules.”
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