PARIS – Cycling is a circus and the thrill is gone – from this year’s Tour de France anyway.

That was the lament from some cycling fans and former pros to news that Floyd Landis tested positive again for doping.

Landis’ second test confirmed a first, showing higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone, leaving the American in danger of becoming the first Tour winner to be stripped of the champion’s yellow jersey for doping.

Race organizers no longer consider Landis the winner, but only the International Cycling Union can strip him of the title. Landis insists he is innocent; he and his defense team are beginning a disciplinary process that could take months.

“The yellow jersey must not be sullied,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme told France-2 TV. “It is a huge waste.”

Unlike their tough treatment of seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, French media heaped praise on Landis for his show of grit to rebound from a near-disastrous performance in Stage 16.

Many fans hailed Landis’ stunning win in the 17th stage, when he erased nearly all of an 8 minute, 8 second deficit to then-race leader Oscar Pereiro of Spain.

Former Tour director, Jean-Marie Leblanc, called the ride “the best performance in the modern history of the Tour” – and fellow riders were astonished at the time.

“There is no drug that exists that could make a guy do that,” said British rider David Millar, who returned to the Tour this year after a two-year doping ban. “That was just otherworldly.”

But Landis’ urine samples, taken following that stage, tested positive, and the mood has grown somber.

“I regret this situation, because we experienced a beautiful Tour de France, with a lot of drama and a lot of suspense about who’d win,” said former rider Richard Virenque, who won the polka-dot jersey of the Tour’s best climber a record seven times.

In 1998, Virenque’s Festina squad was ejected from the Tour after customs officers found a large stash of performance-enhancing drugs in a team car. He was once the poster-boy for doping in French cycling.

This year’s Tour began under the taint of drug use.

On the eve of the race, nine riders – including pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso – were ousted after being implicated in a Spanish doping investigation.

“Now, the winner this year tests positive,” World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound said. “You’ve got a sport that’s got a real problem that the organizer and the federation do not seem capable of dealing with.”

Pound said cycling has been so battered by doping scandals that sponsors could consider pulling out.

“Maybe the long-term solution is the teams and sponsors and broadcasters say, ‘Either you clean this up or we’re out of here and you go back to amateur pedaling,”‘ he said.

One of Germany’s main television channels, ZDF, already has threatened to ax coverage of the Tour de France, demanding guarantees that cycling’s world governing body and Tour organizers will take firms steps against doping.

French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said Saturday he wants to strengthen laws to crack down on doping, and reach out to riders who expose drug-running networks.

The tough part could be wooing back fans, many of whom seem fed up with year-in, year-out doping scandals – even if Landis clears his name in the months ahead.

On the Champs-ElysDees in Paris, where Landis stood proudly in the yellow jersey two weeks ago, some American tourists were in disbelief.

“I wanted to believe that it wasn’t true when I heard it the first time, but now I guess it is,” said Joyce Warner, 47, of San Diego, not far from Landis’ home in Murrieta, California.

Her daughter, 25-year-old Dena Warner, said: “I think it’s ridiculous that he would go and take drugs and make a bad name for Americans. It’s pretty sad.”

One French fan regretted Saturday’s result but said it’s unlikely to change the sport fundamentally.

“It’s awful. It’s ugly. It harms the Tour de France and sports in general,” said Jean-Louis Cailhol, 64, of Nancy in eastern France. “In any event, it’s all just a circus, and the circus will carry on.”