[Ortho]

The hip condition press conference came much earlier. At the time, some cynical journalists speculated that it was a sort of "excuse prepared in advance" if Landis was to lose, while others speculated that it was a kind of PR move designed to put his performance in the future stages into context.

My own view is that it was simply coincidence that the hip news came out when it did. It was a relatively slow part of the tour, Landis was the favourite, journalists were looking for stories, one of him discovered the information somehow and asked him about it, and he decided to respond to it. I didn't ever read any PR or race strategy into it. In any event, imo it didn't have anything to do with doping.