Hearing - Weds: USADA Closing Argument

Where will the emphasis be, science, rules, or monkeys?

Jacobs seems to be smiling, but it might be his forced one. Dunn is wrapping some things up to clear the decks, focused and with a blank expression.

There's eight water bottles on the Landis table. I see now the attorney chairs, though straight backed, have cushions. Paul Landis is wearing his vest and his jacket, but no tie, sorry Futterman.

There are exhibit boards being brought in, of course, shrouded in secrecy until the unveiling of each. We just say a flash of a USADA powerpoint, and the sound is up in the press room. Amber is reading the book we think is by the redhead sitting behind her. Mrs. Landis is nibbling a finger, and doesn't appear to be many pages in.

Young is hunched over the table, and McLaren shuffles paper, moves to the podium. The audience seats look perhaps 2/3 full. Landis is present, and here are McLaren and Campbell.

Show time.

---

BRUNET: Mr Young, let's begin.

[ think I won't do literal ]

BRUNET: before you begin, referring to GDC 1368, the isoprime manual, the 0.3 standard pointed to the newer instrument, not the instrument at LNDD. Clarification Mr. Davis?

DAVIS Identifies document at LNDD, only part of which has been produced.

YOUNG...

Thanks Panel and Botre for wise hand, making this a fair process. We said it was a standard case, and we've shown it is. They said conspiracies, bad acts and attempts to hide the truth. We've done what we've told you we'd do. But the bad acts and attempts to hide truth were by Mr. Landis and his business manager.

Typical doping case all you get to here is what was in the urine. Here the events and evidence also show a glimpse into respondants mind. The win at all cost attitude we have seen from him and his manager were displayed. It gives you an insight into "the principles and decision making process". Same as when he decided to dope in the TdF.

[more]


Also unusual in that Joe Papp broke the code of silence. The idea that it would have made no sense for Mr. Landis is different that Joe Papp describes. It also different than what you saw at Phonak. Desire to win is real, risk of trying to win at all costs is real. Simply, the respondant got caught on S17. Don't know what he did different, but his TE spiked enough to go through IRMS and you saw the results.

[slide 2 - metabolite(s) ]

"Single metabolite greater than 3". Difference here more than 6. Panel is entitled to rely on the WADA criteria.

[slide of USADA 173; chart of summary table ]

Hard to follow the chromatograms and samples straight. What's important is the clarity of what you're looking at. It's about a positive A and B sample for the 5a-pdiol metabolites. All of Ayotte, Catlin, Schanzer and Brenna, when they looked at the analysis, they had no issue whatsoever with the chromatograms.

There are two of them. The question is whether they can be believed.

The only attack on either of these chromatograms was when Meieir-Augustein said he saw a small peak. Theoretically, that small peak could have been in the IRMS analysis instead of where it should be. He didn't know whether it was, or how much it contributed. Using his extremes it made a 2 delta unit difference. But his assumption of which adjacent peak shift in value is wrong

[he's confused about that]

The speculation by M-A was directly refuted by "it is not included" by Dr. Brenna, showing background on either side of the peak.

The other thing worth noting in all the discussion of chromatograms is that there are before and after CG's for mix-cal-acetate are clean. Dr. M-A said they show the instrument is working.

[no, he didn't]

If there was no problem with the MCA's, then the instrument is working.

[slide about burden of proof]

USADA need to proof to comfortable satisfaction. ISL compliance is you've done your job. Presumption is the results are correct. Way to rebut by respondent is to show departure from ISL. Not a general problem, a departure from ISL. If there is departure, lab can show it didn't cause the positive case.

What we've seen here is very little for departures from ISL. None of their witnesses has expereicne with ISL, or ISO 170025, or in some cases any laboratory experience.

An example of that is the micky mouse ears, which isn't the isoprime insterument but the isoprime2. The evidence isn't to a violation of the ISL, but what they view as not good lab practices. Except it's not the Panel's job to make a decision on whether the lab should be accredited, or whether they do their work well, or even for IRMS. A accreditation body decides that.

Manual reprocessing, or QC, as Dr. Brenna descibes it, it not a violation of the ISL. What Dr. Brenna, the SOP and the technicians say, it's a mechanical process. It's not subjective. It follows a mathmaticla formula. Dr. Brenna said someone could program that into a computer.

The criticism is that when they got the raw data, and did manyal reprocessing QC, they could have taken a snapshot to save everytime they reset baseline and peaks. First, why would they do that? Second, it is required?

The ISL, and Dr. Ayotte said it's not changing the recorded data, it's processing the data. They are not required to document and initial in the margin every step in processing. If they record final data and then change it, that's a different matter.

[ The standard doesn't say "final"; it does say "reported data" ]

Whether you would expect in common sense that they'd hit the save button. In the history of anti-doping cases -- the reason now is if you got the EDFs you could see the changes maed -- no one has ever gone back and gotten the EDFs. Under the WADA document, this isn't anywhere near what they are required to produce, and it isn't EDFS.

Dr. Goldberg, who said he'd testified in 125 or more criminal cases, has never had to produce data files. No lab has ever done it. It's wrong to fault them for not doing it.

Some of the defenses we've heard, and I will anticipate some. But that's hard because there are so many thrown up against the wall that went away when exposed to the light of day.

The first was "same person involved in A and B". As a result of that, Cynthia and Esther got their names in the world press.

Sample deterioration. Major point in briefs, haven't heard here.

Allegation that Mongongu, when performing analysis knew it was Mr. Landis because of TUE. That's gone away when they asked.

Correction factor, removing acetate. Didn't hear about that here.

It's little hard to guess what they may talk about, but let me try.

A general comment about briefing schedule, so we can exchange arguments and prepare.

The point they made yesterday about batch number being not-blank and numbers not matching is the very first time it has been raised in the case. You can go back and look in the briefs.

They insisted and we flew 6 people from paris. None of those people were asked about this point. This is pretty clear that this is not an attempt to aid the panel in finding the truth. It's about putting rabbits out of the hat at the last minute, so LNDD cannot respond, and the light of day cannot be show.

Classic that that argument is not based on the EDFs, but based on the LDP that they've had for more than six months.

Let me talk about linearity. Why is it that we just see a posting off the internet for the first time today? In terms of the merits of linearity. First the timing of measurements, the SOP says done monthly; in one case it was done within a month of respondants sample; in the other it was done within a week. The thing that matters is the 5a and the pdiol, roughtly the same size, where linearity makes the least difference.

Retention time. [ ex 12 ] First, if we're talking about the ISL. It does not talk about relative retention time, but retention time. says 1% or .2 minutes. If you look at the analysis on the instrument, all of the measurements are incredibly consistent, and well within that range.

What respondent is arguing isn't part of the ISL. That is the gist of Dr. Brenna's testimony is that you don't do that.

Let me talk about the defense, and Dr. Amory was a credible guy. I was surprised he's testifying as an expert on an anti-doping matter when he's never heard of a Berlinger bottle. His point was it makes no sense to use Testoterone for anything other than muscle mass. That's his opinion. He may be right. But if he's right, the cyclists of the world are listening to the doctor in germany. This is a letter from UCI showing testosterone cases from 2002-2006, USADA 1523, EX 98.

UCI's table of Testosterone positives

It was also interesting Dr. Amory agreed, yes your T goes down during a stage race. That's what Joe Papp said is why he and others used low doses of T to get it back up.

Let me look at the pattern argument Dr Amory and maybe others have made. When you look at the T/E results, does this show that something is wrong with the analysis? Should the endogenous profile be surpressed? Mr. Campbell asked Dr. Catlin about this. He said if you were talking THG or other Balco, you'd see suppression of T and E in the T/E ratio. If you were taking T in small amounts, which is why doping athletes would take T.

Dr. Amory's opinion as best I can tell is that based on 3 studies, Shackleton, Aquilerra and Schanzer. You've heard from the authors of those studies. Their opinion whether this pattern indicates an error with the measure or an indication of doping is that it indicates doping. So a guy who looks at studies by people who wrote the papers is coming to different conclusions than the offers.

Counsel took Dr. Amory the Saugy and Shackleton study, person by person, and asked if they looked by Mr. Landis, and answered "no." The point of Dr. Shackleton is is that everyone is different, and that the subjects were not dopers trying to conceal their doping. No mix and match of products, no efforts to evade detection.

What there was was a single application. No mix-and-match, no on-again, off-again to try to beat the TE test to avoid being subject to IRMS.



It shouldn't be an issue to the panel that you can have a TE under four and be positive on IRMS . Those were exactly the facts in the [lost] case.

Let me go back to corroborating evidence. Any attacks on the corroborating evidence are attacks on the corroborating evidence. This shows the reprocessing.

[chart "reprocessing validates result" ]

Opportunity to look at EDF's, and Davis acknowledged that respondant was free to look at them anyway he wanted. What respondant said was that if we look at them on better software, then we'll have the opportunity to accurately evaluate the case. The problem for them is that when they did analyse it there, respondant was still positive. It was their idea, not USADA, not LNDD.

Then they said they wanted to know if there were no manual operations. Again, 5a-pdiol is positive. So they tried it another way. They tried it with no background, and the results were positive.

This process had no issue of time gaps, or anything suspicious on the part of the LNDD people; under supervision of Dr. Boterh.

Look at further analysis. We've spent a lot of time trying to analyse these. Respondant fought and fought, finally analysed, now we know why they were fighting. They show presence of Exo-T; not a positive test, because there was no A.

Those yellows corroborate Exo-T, but "aren't positive tests"

TE ratio? Not for USADA to prove what caused respondant's TE to spike. But this is highly abnormal.

Admissions. You heard testimony of Greg Lemond, and that of Floyd Landis. One says he admitted, one says he didn't admit. In that, he threatened Lemond in a web posting, about revealing abuse as a child.
People who have principles, who make good decisions don't do that.

Blood results. USADA has been asking for for quite some time. You see that the results are 48, the highest recorded, would be over what he says the 47 limit of the Phonak team. In the normal case, we'd have checked calibration and the like. Now we can't say significance. When Demir turns it over at the end of the hearing, you can't go back and check.

Big picture. As you read through respondents briefs, the technicians have either been called incompetent or skilled evil geniuses. I think they'd like you to believe they are both. Given Dr. Davis' answers to Mr. Suh's questions about moving things to get desired results. Davis said he didn't think they were doing that. I hope that puts that argument to bed, that no one was manipulating to "get" anyone.

You've heard from most of them and can judge their credibility. They take pride in their work, and are not the sort to hide anything or tamper with the results. This is contrast to what see saw from Respondant's business manager, who did try to tamper with a witness. You hear Mr. Landis' response to that, and actions he took or didn't take. You can be the judge of the relative credibility.

The answer in this case is relatively simple. The science is solid. He had exogenous T. In an effort to win at all costs, he cheatet and got caught.

Oh, a red-herring. Ms. Frelat's knowing it was Floyd Landis' sample, was in order to introduce his expert and two lawyers, USADA 239, he wrote a letter to the lab saying he was sending them. So the reason she knew is because he told them.

This letter to the lab director is used to "prove" Landis told Frelat and Mongongu.

CAMPBELL: this system is supposed to protect athletes. And you have a code of ethics that says they can't point out mistakes of a lab, how does that protect the interests of athletes?

YOUNG: That code of ethics doesn't require people like Catlin, Ayotte, Schanzer to come forward and support a case, unless they really believed it. As we've heard from Dr. Catlin, this is no monolith. He's testified. And it's pretty clear he'd do it again.

CAMPBELL: If it's a code of ethics, why doesn't it say you have an obligation to say...

YOUNG: perhaps it should There's a world of scientists out there. For instance, on metabolic pathways of testosterone, there aren't many encodrinologists, and Dr. Amory isn't.

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