Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Late Wednesday Roundup

For more Landis hearing news check the Early Wednesday Roundup


News
The San Francisco Chronicle prints Eddie Pell's wrap up, as the Landis hearing finally ends it's 9 day run. As the author states "they turned the lights out on the Landis heairngs". But, much more was debated than just pure science and this showed in the closing arguments of both sides:

It will be more than a month before the three arbitrators who sat through nine days of testimony sort through the evidence and decide whether the Tour de France champion is guilty of doping. Whoever loses is almost sure to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.


YahooNews
prints the Reuters wrap up of the Landis hearings which ended this evening at Pepperdine University. The majority of the day's testimomy was devoted to the science behind the case as the session wound up and the closing arguments were made by both sides, The arbitration panel will likely not make a decision on the matter for at least a month.

The San Francisco Chronicle posts the midday Landis hearing report by Eddie Pells. Today they are sticking to the science of the case and leaving the drama behind. Simon Davis continues his testimony about the LNDD:

Davis said the software was so unreliable, it was impossible to trust any results.

"What we're looking at is very expensive, rather large random number generators," Davis said.


There was rebuttal questioning from USADA and Dr Brenna was called back to the stand by USADA lawyers as well. Closing arguments are planned for this afternoon, but it will be quite some time before a decision will be reached by the arbitration panel.


SuperCycling prints the Reuters piece on this morning's testimony at the Landis hearings, where the emphasis was back on the disputed science that is at the heart of the case. Closing arguments should be made in the afternoon session.

Stuff.co.nz reports that this morning Simon Davis testified that he was "flabbergasted" by what he saw at the LNDD:

Responding to questions, British mass spectrometry expert Simon Davis said he was "flabbergasted" by the way technicians operated at the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory (LNDD) outside Paris.

Davis, an observer for Landis when the samples were re-tested at the LNDD in April, said data from the lab had been manipulated and described the instrument used as a "very expensive and random number generator".

He added that critical evidence had been removed from the lab's computer hardware.

"Frankly, I was flabbergasted when I saw they were reprocessing it manually," he said, referring to how the LNDD technicians had reprocessed the results.




USAToday's Mike Lopresti is suffering from some inaccuracies in his report on some of the drama of the Landis hearings.

The Colorado Springs Gazette's Kate Crandall reports that the science is back on the agenda today and that a decision from the arbitration panel will be a long time coming.

The CyclingNews
notes that today the Landis hearings end,

Blogs
Rant thinks that Maurice Suh might have been getting the better of USADA witness Dr Brenna, more to come with closing arguments:

Team USADA, on the other hand, want to slow things down, and have already objected a few times, just to give Brenna some breathing room. It’s hard to say for certain, given that I’m not getting the video feed, but judging by Suh’s questions and Brenna’s answers, Brenna may be on a sinking ship.

Rant posts his last update of the day on the Landis hearing closing arguments. He was interested not only in what USDA said in it's closing, but also in what they simply chose to ignore, "trust us he's guilty". In Maurice Suh's closing it was pretty much what you would expect from the side that concentrated largely on the science of the issue, it was never a positive, and the lab was faulty. On a personal note, Rant deserves a hand, and a long rest for all the great work he's done.

Racejunkie thinks that in closing arguments today in the Landis hearing USADA tried portray Floyd as a real real meanie, while the Landis side stuck to the science of the case.

The RoadBike.com reminds us that Chris Campbell admonished USADA for not allowing lab employees to testify about another lab after Mr Young's closing statement today. Seems like maybe one of the arbs is on Floyd's side anyway.

Hieu writes that there are two steroid stories in sports in America now, and one of them is the Floyd Landis story.

Thoughts from the Apex is a recreational cyclist, and thinks that the most important thing about the Landis hearings is that the anti doping system needs to be fixed.

Tea Leaves comments on the Tour de Floyd, and wonders what strange twists ans turns this may take in the future.

Transformatum has seven unrelated but not random things, two of which are Genesis, and Floyd Landis t-shorts not purchased.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot wait for Jason Giambi (Balco doper of Clomd, insulin & steroids), George Mitchell (ESPN steroid auditor) and Curt Schilling (red painted sock) and MLB steroid task force farce to chime in on Landis alleged innocence.

Work ethic
Integrity
Mennonite religion
cool friends like Will
Doped teams Phonak & USPO

and a Nike contract make the world go round.

Anonymous said...

I think the entire thing boils down to this. The lab and USADA (and WADA) is all in a mess. The tests they did were flawed and they didn’t follow their own protocols. So they go on attacking Landis’ character and the bit with Lemond/ Geoghegan did nothing but fuel this. Landis said some stupid things right after the finish (I don’t blame that because I say stupid things). Because the lab is a joke and the process is a joke the public will never know if the 2006 TdF was 100% clean; the public will never know if Landis got screwed or he was a cheater. We should all write our Congressman and Senators on abuse of taxpayer dollars by USADA.

Anonymous said...

As it stands now, Landis is out of the picture. Because of what is now exposed as an obvious sham, the arbitrators are now on trial with the arbitrators to pass judgement upon themselves.

Anonymous said...

I have been developing LC methods for nearly 20 years. I am quite surprised that LNDD is an accredited lab based on what I have read.

Are there any on-line links to any of the chromatograms from LNDD. I'm very curious to see how shoddy the work actually is.

Anonymous said...

Mike Lopresti needs to research his subjects. His careless journalism is no better than the trolls lurking these blogs.

Anonymous said...

Just occured to me: There was testimony that WADA did periodic quality control testing by givng the labs sets of samples to test. Presumably that data is available to USADA and they could have used it to demonstrate that LNDD got the same results as the other WADA certified labs.

I wonder if that data was requested and not provided. I wonder why USADA did not trot it out if it showed that LNDD performed on a par with the other labs. It would be very compelling evidence IF it vindicated LNDD.
pcrosby

Anonymous said...

This comment doesn't really belong anywhere in particular. But I have been noticing the huge number of hits to the TBV site. I have not been keeping track of this but today there were 33,079 hits between 8 AM and 7 PM pacific time. I would say there is a huge amount of interest in this issue and this blog is ground zero of information. Not sure if the salacious day of Greg Lemond testimony exceeds this number. Thanks to Marc in France, Struk whereever, to Judge Hue in WI, and to David Brower in CA for a tremendous effort making information available to those of us with passion and less than 60 hours per week to devote to this subject.

Anonymous said...

I'd like add my appreciation to the pile. Trolls aside the TBV site has been very informative. Judge Hue, thank you for your insight, and professional posts, info, etc...

Pitty, but someone earlier made used the anology of sport's "instant replay". While I see clear evidence that the basis for the positive tests were terribly flawed, I doubt that the WADA lacky (Mssr Botre) on the board will. Unforutnately for Floyd he has not proven that he did not dope, just that the LNDD is, as I've suspected for quite a while...in the hip pocket of Dick Pound (Does he have a monetary interest in that lab?) and the WADA...and it appears likewise to l'equipe (doesn't their parent Co. have an interest in the LNDD?).