French court convicts Floyd Landis of hacking into doping lab's computer

Floyd Landis, the American cyclist who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drugs test, has been convicted by a French court of hacking into the computer records of the laboratory that tested the sample in question.

The 36-year-old, tried in his absence, was handed a 12-month suspended sentence. The state prosecutor had requested a penalty of 18 months, reports the Washington Post.

Prosecutors had maintained that Landis, along with his coach Arnie Baker, had illegally accessed the records of the WADA accredited laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry, operated by France's anti-doping agency, the AFLD, in an attempt to gather evidence to try and clear his name.

The laboratory had discovered that the rider, then with the Phonak team, had unusually high levels of testosterone in a sample taken after he had ridden his way right back into contention on GC with a storming ride to Morzine in the Alps, putting more than 7 minutes into maillot jaune Oscar Pereiro, who would eventually be awarded the overall victory.

Landis finally confessed to his drug-taking last year, and also levelled accusations of systematic doping at members of his former US Postal Service team, including seven times Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. An investigation into those allegations by Landis and others is continuing in the US.