Early Tuesday Roundup

Floyd Landis in front of one of the powerpoint slides at yesterday's opening session in his hearing against USADA at Pepperdine.

Late word from Michael Henson , Landis spokesperson is that there will be no live feed today from Pepperdine, it will be playback only. If things change it will be posted here.

News
The San Francisco Chronicle's Gwen Knapp covering the Landis hearings, thinks that the Landis defense has misstepped in its case presentation, and should have streamlined the case to hit on one or two cogent points:

For his arduous arbitration hearing at Pepperdine Law School, Landis has put together a multifaceted defense, overflowing with complaints about drug-testing policies here and abroad. His legal team should have streamlined the case, building a reasonable argument around a few points, starting with an error they found in the labeling of a sample, then proceeding to the big mouth of Dick Pound, the pompous chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

But Team Landis, like an obsessive athlete, goes to extremes. His advocates are only a few hyperbolic breaths away from accusing his prosecutors at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby

Canada.com posts that Tour de France runner-up Oscar Pereiro is very anxious for the final verdict in the Landis hearings. Pereiro feels that he has suffered great losses due to the controversy.

The VeloNews legal commentator Antonio Gallegos sums up yesterday's tactics and proceedings at the Landis hearings in California.

The IHT prints a brief review of yesterday's hearing at Pepperdine with contributions on the story from one written last night by Juliet Macur of the NYT.

The San Diego Union Tribune's Mark Zeigler covers yesterdays beginning of the Landis hearings in Malibu, CA and notes how dry the largely technical testimony was. He does notes that things might heat up on Thursday when former Tour de France winner Greg LeMond may testify:

Both of yesterday's witnesses – Cedric Shackleton and J. Thomas Brenna – focused on the highly technical aspects of the case, answering questions about metabolite levels and chromatography peaks that indicate testosterone use. Today doesn't figure to be much sexier, except that it will be in French. Technicians from the lab outside Paris that performed the tests are next up on the witness list.

The hearing could spice up Thursday, though, when three-time Tour champion Greg LeMond is expected to appear. LeMond has been openly skeptical about Lance Armstrong's contention that he never doped in winning a record seven straight Tours. LeMond also is believed to have spoken with Landis by phone in the days after his positive tests became public

ESPN's Page 2 , though a real cynic, still roots for Floyd Landis in his battle against doping charges in hearings against USADA this week.

The New York Daily News covers the first day of the Landis hearings by noting that the lawyers representing Floyd Landis came out swinging, hitting hard at testimony by expert witnesses for USADA. Fairness to the athlete is being weighed against the anti-doping system:

Charles Yesalis,a steroid expert, also said athletes already start these kinds of cases at a disadvantage. Most accused jocks don't have the resources to hire experts and attorneys to mount a credible defense. Landis, who expects his defense to cost $2 million, has raised $500,000 through his Floyd Fairness Fund

The Albany Times Union's Mark Parry writes abaout a course being taught at Union College titled "Chemistry and Athletic Performance" and the Landis case, and hearings, fit nicely into the curriculum:

"It's got everything," Werner told his students Monday. "And so it will be very, very interesting to see how all this plays out.

CBS2.com has video of the Landis tea, arriving in court yesterday.


Blogs
Just Chromatography defines the process for journalists in an extreme thumbnail version.

Dugard writes about yesterdays hearings and some of the hits scored by Maurice Suh Landis lawyer. His general impression however, is that Floyd Landis may just prove his innocence, and that it will not matter.

Bicycle Musings knows full well what a roller coaster ride the Landis hearings will be.

The First 100 Miles' Sara Best agrees with Gwen Knapp who think that Team Landis needs to focus on a few important arguments in their case , rather than the shotgun approach. Thanks for the plug BTW.

The Angry Fan thinks that no matter which way the arbitrators rule in the Landis hearings, reform of the anti-doping establishment will take place.

Rant reviews yesterday's proceedings and gives us his preview of what we may expect to see today. Perhaps of greater interest is what is rumored to be coming up later this week:

Coming up later in the week: Greg LeMond is slated to testify, as is a former cyclist named Joe Papp. LeMond, the first American to win the Tour, in recent years has taken to claiming that he was forced to retire from the sport due to the rampant effects of EPO on the peloton in the early 1990s. At the time he retired, however, his story was that he suffered from a disease called mitochondrial myopathy.
Mitochondrial myopathy is a condition (if I remember correctly) affecting the energy factories of a person’s cells, which among other things causes the person to lose strength. Mitochondrial myopathy neatly explained LeMond’s problems in his last couple of seasons, where he had difficulty performing at the level he had previously achieved. Even if the peloton were all juiced up on EPO at the time, I suspect that LeMond’s latest story is designed more to ingratiate himself with certain people than to explain the real reason he quit racing — his body could just no longer do it. Who knows, perhaps Greg wants to become the next Dick Pound?

Belgian Knee Warmers posts a very thoughtful blog entry in which he states that of course WADA will go after Landis tooth and nail, their credibility is under severe attack. But due to the "win at all costs" circumstances surrounding the whole case we may never really know the whole truth:

Because the administrative process is not transparent and WADA and USADA seem engaged in a win-at-all-costs ideology, we are unlikely ever to learn the real truth to whether or not Floyd Landis doped at the Tour de France

CrystelZENmud summarizes the frenzied beginning of the Landis hearings, and laments what he considers the fall of the French press from honorable to insinuating. In an update ZEN wonders if Maurice Suh missed the opportunity to trap one of the USADA witnesses yesterday?

The FredCast Pod Cast notes, among other things, the beginning of the Landis hearings.

Forums
Discussion continues over at the DPF in the "Floyd's Hearing thread".