Tuesday Roundup

News
AFP via Yahoo reports Catlin is retiring, apparently from day-to-day at the UCLA lab. He''s apparently going to continue research. Pointer courtesy Twoggle at DPF, who wonders if this makes Catlin more available for Landis to talk with and have testify. If he's doing research, maybe not -- he'd still be employed by the UCLA lab.

Washington Post has their own story on Catlin. It says he's leaving the UCLA lab to work for a new Anti-Doping Research Institute in LA, which wouldn't seem to be a WADA accredited lab. There's also mention a another US Olympic testing laboratory at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City under Dennis Crouch, which is news to us.

MSNBC updates a "Tour of Innocence" story from the ToC.

KTVU ran a pre-town hall interview with Landis on 2/21, which we just came upon. The sympathetic interviewer was reasonably briefed.

Bicycling's Boulder Report covers the Denver Town Hall, fairly covering the strengths and weaknesses. He thinks it's good PR, but wonders if it and the non-public information will be convincing in arbitration -- a wonderment TBV shares. Also raised is the possibility of Dr. Cedric Shackleton of Children’s Hospital, Oakland CA testifying about the CIR for USADA. Shackleton might not be a WADA lab employee, and more able to speak than those who are, and may be a lead for enterprising reporters to contact.

ESPN.com writer Bonnie DeSimone talks about the kind-of closing of Puerto as leaving pretty much everybody unsatisfied. If nothing else, we're flattered to be called "very smart", even though we naively see fluffy bunnies instead of apocalyptic horses in the ink blots.

Blogs
The New Buckit writes that Landis is out to clear his name, and what Buckit hopes most of all is that Floyd gets a fair shake. Included is a u tube video of Landis' ride on stage 17 of last year's TdF.

PJ laments the start of this year's cycling season as being in practically the same state of flux as it was at the conclusion of last year's. He continues to wonder why some riders are on teams and are participating, while other's lives are in shambles.

Rant writes about Operation Puerto, and thinks that it may not be dead yet:

The story is not yet over. Spanish authorities have the option to appeal Judge Serrano’s ruling, and may well do so. The judge, himself, noted that the evidence suggests that doping did occur with the assistance of Dr. Fuentes and others, and the UCI is trying to get their hands on the evidence in order to pursue anti-doping cases against all the riders implicated. If the UCI gets full access to the evidence collected by the Spanish Civil Guard during their investigations, they may well press ahead with anti-doping cases against those who have been implicated so far.

This would highlight the differences between law and doping enforcement -- under a de-jure legal system, there's no case, but the changed burdens and presumptions of the WADA/CAS system may support findings of non-analytic positives anyway. Sort of like the difference between the OJ Simpson murder trial and the civil wrongful death lawsuit.


Heavy is the Head longs for the old days when he would line up his mountain bike at the beginning of a race and face the likes of mountain bike champion Floyd Landis, who would go out and cream the field.

Cycling Through Crime feels the recent UCI anti doping measures are good public relations against the bad press gotten by cycling through recent drug scandals such as the Landis affair from the Tour de France last summer.

In Chicago, Landis demonstrated his sense of propriety
by adjusting the authorship of this fan's book.

Forums
At DPF, Klass Faber, author of a letter at chemometry drops in on a discussion about measurement error, which continues inconclusively. It appears that parties with completely differing conclusiong both argue that Faber supports their position!

For related but also tangential discussion, Faber adds at the end of his post:

Now the difficulty of the current discussion is, that we are talking about (1) a specific measurement (IRMS) and (2) a specific athlete (Floyd Landis). What would really help here is that the labs that are involved would provide details about (1) the raw data they obtained from the instrument and (2) the actual calculations they performed on these data. Rule #1 in scientific research is that the results be reproducible by someone else (another researcher). As far as I can see, they are not at the moment.

Our understanding is that Landis has been asking for the data files in question, including the calibration runs, since deBoer was present at the B sample test in August, reiterated in discovery request in October, and granted by the Arbitrators in a preliminary motion in January.

But USADA has still not produced them.

Also, You3 and Duckstrap continue their consideration of the TE measurement discrepancies.


Thought for the Day

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -Friedrich Nietzsche-

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