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Breaking news made a just-finished column about the amazing ride of Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tailspin and then slam on the brakes Thursday.

A positive drug test, administered by race officials, cast doubt on the most improbable comeback stories in the event's history - heck, one of the most unbelievable comebacks in all of sports history.

That I felt sad as I called my editor to request that he hold my column - my perspective of the man from my adopted hometown who championed one of the world's most physically grueling races - is an understatement.

Landis: Yesterday, a champion of the world, today, a suspected performance enhancing drug user.

I'll be up front and say that I do talk about Floyd Landis often. I write about him all the time. I've done research his childhood, and I know where he lives today.

Depending on the results of Landis' additional drug tests, I may even be there to greet him when he comes home from Paris.

As a producer and anchor at a small television station in that covers Murrieta, Calif., we've been covering and talking about Floyd Landis at KZSW-TV for months. Our newly appointed sports director, Mark Stanley, first "broke the story" of Landis and his racing potential nearly three months ago.

Stanley was invited into Landis' home, and interviewed him in his kitchen as he scrambled eggs and helped his wife Amber get their young daughter out the door for school one morning. He entertained our reporters' questions on how he spends his day (perfecting his training regime, signing autographs and playing some very competitive games of air hockey with his manager.)

He let our reporter stick around as he prepared for a day of training around the hills of Murrieta.

Landis proved to be a good egg (pun intended) by letting our local viewing audience into his life, before the rest of the world came to the door.

Murrieta has never been a Mecca for anything, unless you consider an excellent school district and freeway friendly commutes a drawing force, which many do.

However, living in one of the fastest-growing cities in America for the past nine years, I had noticed some interesting changes in regard to professional cycling.

Periodically, while about town, I'd look out a car window and see a pack of professionally dressed cyclists. Their sleek outfits were decked with sponsor logos and their bikes were like nothing that would ever see the inside of my garage.

Those close-up looks at professionals in training made me think that San Diego or Los Angeles cyclists had found a nice, quaint town in which to ride. The hills surrounding the Murrieta and neighboring Temecula would help their training.

Two years ago the "Tour de Murrieta" surfaced. A small-town bike race with big name sponsors and out of town news coverage. At the time, I thought, "How nice, our small town is growing up."

Finally, I put all the pieces together. Landis, who resides in a gated community (where half of my sons' friends live) has had a quiet presence in Murrieta for five years. He was the reason behind the increased number of professional cyclists in our community and the impetus to the "Tour de Murrieta."

According to my Landis research, and our sports director's interviews with him, the man is a self driven, good-hearted. He's professional on and off the bike.

The days following his win in France, Landis helped put my current hometown on the map. As we wait and wonder how the dust will settle on the accusations of doping, Landis is still putting Murrieta on the map. If it turns out he's innocent, the American cyclist expects the disgrace will linger a long, long time.

"I think there's a good possibility I'll clear my name," Landis said to reporter Thursday. "Regardless of whether this happens or not, I don't know if this will ever go away."

The 30-year old Landis denied cheating and said he has no idea what may have caused his positive test for high testosterone. But he aims to find out.

"All I'm asking for," he said recently via teleconference, "is that I be given a chance to prove I'm innocent. Cycling has a traditional way of trying people in the court of public opinion before they get a chance to do anything else."

Today's headlines are filled with, among other things, the horrors of war, environmental chaos and villains who prey on the young and defenseless. Floyd Landis and his exciting win gave us something to smile, and if you're from Murrieta, to really cheer about.

This year's Tour de France competition and its subsequent fallout will be legendary. And these comments are from someone who has never seen a live race, on any level and barely rides her own bike out of guilt.

Now the cycling world and those of us who still believe in him will wait for results from a backup sample which, if negative, will clear Landis. If ultimately proven guilty, Landis could be stripped of the Tour title and fired from his team.

Until otherwise notified, I'm sticking by our hometown boy.