Monday, November 06, 2006

Monday Roundup

News
Bicycling.com has a new interview with Landis with up-to-date progress, even referring to yesterday's "No Documents for You!" with a link to TBV. He's riding again, getting used to having his leg being an inch longer, and anticipating the hearing at the end of January or beginning of February.

BikeBiz picks up "no documents for you" with an excellent piece from Carlton Reid on the "Leaky Lab", document worries, and more about the unreliability of testosterone testing. pjk .

Letters to Velonews, a writer compares Landis to NFL's Merriman case, and concludes cycling is doing "better" and we should be "proud" because it is taken more seriously and results in steeper penalties.

PezCycling News has an interview with American Chris Horner, saying,

You look at the situation with Floyd (Landis) and he’s being accused of it right now, and no one has any faith that the guy is innocent. Everyone just wants to go ahead and start putting him on the barbeque! Everyone just gets that perspective, and I don’t know what the sport will have to do to change it.
Motley Fool talks up Smith & Nephew, maker's of Landis' hip hardware. Author is rooting for Smith and Landis.

EMail
Bobby passes on information about specific people to write, as suggested yesterday. Bobby says,
all may also consider writing the bureaucrats in charge of usada funding which accounts for ~65% of their funding. it's the 'Office of Federal Drug Control Policy. google 'ondcp' and you can feedback directly via the homepage. it's in the executive office of the president. Main source of funding comes through a senate committee "Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation" chaired by none other than Sen John McCain of AZ! oftentimes the bureaucracy responds more quickly and with better results than politicians.
Rant offers a Sample Letter as a starting point.

Emailer Tony reports:
The BBC has just run a interesting scientific programme looking into testosterone testing and abnormal ratios. You can listen to it on the web for the next week by going to [this link] and clicking Listen next to Latest Programme on the top left

Some very interesting stuff in there, especially the low ratio of positive test findings for those outside the 6:1 and 4:1 ratios and some discussion of the Landis case
Anyone who listens, please send a summary.

Blogs
We'll pass on the announcement that Now That's Amateur! is going on extended hiatus, being a cheerful participant in a friendly cooption by the Canadian Olympic Committee. We have mixed feelings -- happy for him, but sad we'll be losing his voice in the Landis discussion. Later, Peter!

Rant does his thing about "no documents for you!"

PJ is bothered that USADA is speaking for UCI. TBV isn't sure why this is a surprise -- procedurally, UCI gets the report, refers it to USACycling, who sent it to USADA. It would have been more of a surprise to hear from the UCI second guessing USADA, in our opinion.

John in Australia notes Ride Magazine discussion of Landis, notes debate rages. But less important than news his girlfriend broke up with him. Again.

VitalAccurateThinking snarks about the meatball defense.

MidwestWheelevents discusses Stern criticism of WADA.
The Interlocuter is unhappy with the NBA store, so he thinks Stern should shut up already.

DocAdvocate uses Landis as an example of a hip resurfacing.

Forums

At DPF, Bill Hue writes,

The arbitrators have to make a very public choice in what for the first time is a public rather than closed door proceeding; whether they will aid the USADA/UCI in their prosecution by adhering to the prosecutor's narrow definition of what is "relevant" or whether they will be independant fact finders and give the athlete a chance to see all evidence, even that deemed "irrelevant" by the USADA's attorney, under the rules they authored to aid them in their prosecution.

Whether you like due process, hate it or ignore it, any rule adopted by an organization which precludes any inquiry into the truth that goes beyond the organization's charging documents is more akin to a star chamber than a fact finding hearing.

Maybe people like that, to achieve this particular end. I don't think anyone who has ever been in a star chamber would recommend it to others,
Another DPF thread runs down "no documents for you", but veers off into EC review of CAS decisions, and finds some of TBV's broken links.

LetsRun has a really good thread, capped by a post from "Donald Trump", who claims Landis would have been negative by the UCLA and Australian lab positivity criteria. (We haven't seen those criteria to substantiate the claim.)

[end]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

TBV question:

If USADA/WADA/UCI wanted to do a longitudinal study (comapring his AAF to other tests around that datem correct?), they could use this data. Correct? Because they elected not to, Landis cannot see it. Also, correct?

So, as the rules are written, the "doping cops" gets to spread all the available info on the kitchen table (so to speak) and cherry pick the best case from that and the accused is not allowed to see what they decided not to use.

Is any of this intepretation wrong?

DBrower said...


So, as the rules are written, the "doping cops" gets to spread all the available info on the kitchen table (so to speak) and cherry pick the best case from that and the accused is not allowed to see what they decided not to use.


That certainly a plausible interpretation. Those making the rules probably would not characterize the situation that way. They would probably reduce it to saying that they have presented the facts immediately relevant to the case, and no more are necessary to judge culpablity.

Whether that is a correct, fair, or just position is something decided outside the process.

TBV