Leaks say Panel will find Landis...

Leaks say the panel is likely to find Landis on the end of his iPhone at the time the public announcement comes.

One of the things that's a little gratifying about the wait for the decision is that, as far as we know, there haven't been any leaks. There may yet be some

Sources: Landis to be Cleared

or

Landis Guilty, says L'Equipe

headlines to make a mockery of this post, but it hasn't happened yet. For this we should be grateful -- it shows at least some part of the adjudication of doping enforcement isn't rife with rule flouters.

We do note that Messrs. Pound and McQuaid have been pretty silent on Landis for quite a while. Perhaps they are occupied by other problems or perhaps they have learned some discretion. Naah, not discretion. Maybe they've chosen not to be calling attention to the case. Maybe they think it's a loser and want to bury the news, or maybe they are focussed on more immediate problems, like the Paris Doping Summit, or the WADA Congress and selection of Pound's successor. We notably haven't heard them spout off much lately about Vinokourev, Rasmussen, or Mayo, which is uncharacteristic.

We are all puzzled by the delay in reaching a conclusion about Mayo's B samples. We're informed that "double-checking" EPO results is common and proper by rule, so that's not odd by itself -- Though it does raise issues about what makes the EPO test to finicky that it needs to be double checked, and why the Exo-T IRMS/CIR does not get the same treatment. Does it mean the EPO test isn't reliably done by all labs and needs to be confirmed, or does it mean that WADA hasn't recognized the same problem with the IRMS/CIR?

But, there have been no leaks out of the Mayo case, nor from Vino, nor any of the other recent batch. Let's call this progress.