Hue: Strange Currencies

The hearing just opened up. McLaren appears confident, a slight smile on his face, hands folded in front of him. Brunet appears nervous. Campbell looks somewhat distant already.

Suh indicates he would like a review of his motion to strike as it relates to USADA's opening statement. Campbell indicates Suh should object to evidence subject to motion to strike during the opening statement. USADA disagrees and doesn't want to be inturrupted. Brunet rules in USADA's favor. Campbell again invites objections during opening.

USADA is having some technical difficulties with its PowerPoint.

Here we go, now! Mr Young says USADA will call the chair of the WADA committee responsible for the language "metabolite(s) and clarify that any single metabolite is enough to establish exogenious testosterone. Their first witness, Dr. Shackleton, will testify that there is no natural way the Landis results 5-alpha and 5-beta could go up and down together and also exceed 6 (Is 3 the limit?). USADA posulates injection and/or testosterone gel would cause similar results, based on an experiment done at UCLA and one subject in particular whose results after controlled administration of exogenious testosterone exhibited similar numerical results.

USADA comments on LNDD proceedures, pointing out the many things the lab did correctly and highlighting what they did.

USADA says Landis "Bet the House" on his proposition that the data would be negative if tested using the newer software but that the results not only confirmed the results but he was even more non-negative in that regard. the samples were apparantly also re-tested using the old software because it confirmed the results as well.

USADA indicates that the historical longitudinal study negates any theory that Landis has a naturally elevated testosterone level. This is claimed to confirm the use of exogenious testosterone use. 4 out of 7 of the additional "B" samples using IRMS were also non-negative and a different IORMS machine using the MassLynx software was used.

USADA says LNDD's IRMS method was inspected and that 5 months before the tests at issue chain of custody was satisfactory as was IRMS control.

Mr. Jacobs objects to the UCLA study "results" being showed to the Panel on the PowerPoint being used. Mr Brunet asks "Howard" to hold on, the Panel confers. Campbell also calls Jacobs "Howard" and indicates the Panel agrees. Campbell asks Young when USADA got the Cologne (scientist not city) study referred to in opening. USADA admits the study came to their attention in 2007. Young can't confirm that it is a completed, peer review study. young tells the Panel it will present a witness later, not today. Brunet defers ruling to a later date. Campbell refers to Young as Richard and corrects himself to call him Mr. Young. He wants to know about the longitudinal study.

Mr Suh does in fact opens calling the case a "disaster". He accuses USADA of hiding evidence and that LNDD preformed the tests wrong. Suh says proof of use is incongruous and that 4 of 5 screening tests were negative. He says the results of the tests were not reproducable.The theory only works, he says, if you believe Landis is guilty and then "back into" evidence and "cherry-pick data to support the conclusion.
Suh talks about the Landaluze case as it relates to the 3rd burden turn He proposes to raise the burden of proof to as close to "beyond a reasonable doubt" because this case is so important. He talks about the identification of testosterone and epitestosterone and the quantification.

Suh says you want to see clear and resolved peaks that do not overlap. There must be a clear chromatograms and they do not exist here. Look at the data underlying the conclusion. He shows the chromatogram of Stage 17, downward sloping and poor peak separation, a violation of WADA Code and the ISL. He says Landis will show these defects throughout. LNDD used manual process of data, a person picks the start and end of each peak. He says the USADA said the machine did it. Last week it was reavealed this was done manually. Suh says "these guys" didn't tell Landis and the process has nearly Bankrupted him. They tried 20 times to duplicate results and the one they have is the best they came up with. suh calls it an embarrassment, cause by poor chromatography. He critises the use of one diagnostic ion, instead of 3, which is their own Internal Operating Proceedings. He talks about other rules violations, any one is enough. He says Floyd is innocent, . LNDD reports adverse analytical results 3 times more than any other WADA lab. Are they 3 times better than any other labs or are there 3 times as many violations in France?

Suh asks who watches the watchers? Is USADA playing fair? He comments on Pound's statements.
Brunet cuts him off because of time limits.

The Panel breaks.

Both sides seemed pretty nervous in their presentation. Suh seemed mad and personalized the issue, effectively.

For the long wait, USADA didn't seem to embrace the moment in being "finally" permitted to put forth its case. Rather, they seemed lost in technology, unable to respond immediately to arbitratror's question and perhaps that may become the overriding problem on many levels, in the case.
Bill