Sunday Roundup

News
Landis announced data erasure at LNDD shown above. Expert Simon Davis says the files on the instrument disk have been wiped, and what remains are what are claimed to be copies on CDROM with different dates. Other files are said to be completely missing.

We don't know what this means, really. If there are straight file copies with wrong mod-times, that would be no-harm, but there's no way to know. If other files were only on the drive that got wiped, they probably aren't coming back. It would have been smart to get MD5s or checksums of the files on the instrument,and to have taken a complete backup before wiping its drive.

But doing this wipe just before the experts arrived for testing the other B samples, that takes a special sense of timing.

We can't tell now if this all represents a real problem for USADA, or a hyped reaction by Landis to a wrong timestamp on a copy, reflecting yet another "harmless clerical error" by the LNDD. There's more to both sides we aren't hearing.

ABC Sports (Aus) gets the MSM prize for first story on the alleged data loss, or maybe a tie with Fox Sports (Aus).

The Pensacola News Journal.com published photos of a recent cycling event with Floyd Landis last Sunday April 22 and with all of Monday's breaking news we somehow missed them...





The Kansas City Star's Greg Moore says Floyd Landis knows exactly how much he is worth, not to mention how much he has lost.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Frank Fitzpatrick answers some of his own "spring questions" and thinks that believing in Floyd Landis' innocence is harder than swallowing Australian coffee.

The Toronto Sun Times in a sports compendium column opines that drugs cheats like Floyd Landis can get away with it because everyone else is guilty of something:

Know this about drug cheats like Floyd Landis: The labs are wrong. The doctors are wrong. The tests are wrong. Everybody's innocent even after being proven guilty

Lancaster Online.com reports on a pro am bike race, the Farmersville Challenge, which took place on the picturesque roads of Lancaster County, PA and went past the former home of Floyd Landis in the hamlet of Farmersville.


Blogs
Rant seems to anticipate the news of the day, and runs the release as do we. Before bed, he analyzes the lost data under the headline, "The New 18-1/2 Minute Gap", and agrees with us that this isn't (yet) the last straw against the USADA case.

Pommi catches the wave, and gets an "I told you so." Doesn't say if he did Diablo today; I did Pinehurst/Grizzly Peak instead.




The Floyd Fairness Fund has announced two new events for May 5 2007. Both will take place in San Luis Obispo, CA with one to be a social "Ride with Floyd Event", the donation for which will also cover the evening's Town Hall. The FFF Town Hall in San Luis Obispo will be held at the Kennedy Fitness Club and will begin at 6PM. You may register for either or both at the FFF website.


Luna Cycles is tired of ranting about Floyd Landis getting 'screwed" by USADA! but he's even more tired of the way the Landis is being treated by those in power.

Obituary Part One mourns what he considers to be the death of pro cycling, due in part to the Landis affair. He will not be returning until and unless there is a complete change in the pro cycling culture.

Zander blames the French Socialist employee system for allowing incompetents to remain at their jobs, thus explaining the shoddy work and constant leaks coming from the LNDD in the Landis case.

Around the Web On Wheels finds it increasingly difficult to defend the fact that she's a cycling fan.

Forums
DPF chews into the file management woes, and Floyd makes a rare appearance to clarify things we didn't understand or catch the first time through:

Floyd: [W]hat good reason could there be, or what loophole could exist that would make it explainable that the hard drive had been physically removed and placed in another computer and parts of the info saved and then the entire hard drive deleted? I guess I am assuming that you read the order that required that it be done by the independant expert who was appointed by the arbitrators. Also, do you not find it strange that it happened just after the damage done by the leaked "alleged" positives? To me it looks like they delayed it just long enough.

and then to make sure we really understand:

"But, Jimmy, if I read the release correctly, they may have done a resave in January, but the disk thing happened within hours of the scheduled arrival of the arb's expert. That's too coincidental for comfort."

Floyd: You read it correctly.

Bill Hue is depressed, because he thinks Brunet and McLaren can still accept everything, first:

Here is the answer you will hear:
"Sure you can confirm the content, just use the Cds. All the content is on there, honestly." Mr. Brunet and Mr McLaren will agree. Mr Campbell will disagree. The vote is thus 2 to 1 and all is well with the world.That decision will probably be upheld by a CAS Appeal Panel, probably by a 3 to 0 vote.
The rules against or for evidence tampering could be determined to fall within the general authority of the Panel but they found themselves without authority to issue an injunction in their Interlocutory Order and for the same reason may find themselves lacking authority to dismiss under these circumstances, even if they are so inclined (They will not be so inclined, by a 2 to 1 vote, probably). But they will not dismiss, again probably by a 2 to 1 vote. This will be upheld by a CAS Appeal Panel, most likely by a 3 to 0 vote.
Whether that makes a laughing stock of the process or the ADA seems not to concern the ADAs,WADA, UCI or any CAS-AAA Panel that has ever issued a published decision.
These arbitrators will continue to find work. Campbell will be chosen by athletes and McLaren and Brunet will be chosen by ADAs.

then:

[T]here isn't really any such thing as lack of foundation in a CAS-AAA arbitration proceeding. There is a non-negative "A" sample and there is a confirming "B" sample, either from Stage 17 or from another stage or confirming "B" samples from other stages under the law this Panel created 1 month before hearing.Then the burden turns for Landis to show that erasing data violates International standards. Then the burden shifts back again tio USADA to show that erasing data didn't cause the adverse analytical finding. Anything else isn't relevant.

The "Floyd is Guilty" folks have not been heard from.