Friday Roundup
News
FLASH- Thanks to eagle eye emailers, we are informed CAS intends to issue the Landis decision on Monday, 5:00 pm Swiss time. That is 8:00 am Pacific ( I think). We will keep you posted. Watch for Eddie Pell's articles (A.P.) earlier, though, as he usually gets to jump on Landis case matters. We will, too!!!!
Bill Hue
http://www.tas-cas.org/en/infogenerales.asp/4-3-1405-1092-4-1-1/5-0-1092-15-1-1/
"Cycling - Landis v/USADA
Lausanne, 27 June 2008 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will publish its decision in the procedure CAS 2007/A/1394 Landis v/USADA on Monday, 30 June 2008 at 5.00pm Swiss time.
The decision and a press release will be published on the CAS website (http://www.tas-cas.org/). "
The AP carries the announcement, briefly, as does Podium Cafe and tuttobiciweb.it
The CyclingNews chronicles Iban Mayo's understandable frustration with the apparent delay in his CAS decision which is allegedly overdue:Mayo said. "I expected it in May, but it was merely a review, a procedure for submitting claims. I thought that everything was going to be faster. There is no choice but to wait and be patient," the Basque rider said to Biciciclismo.com.
Floyd Landis surely feels his pain, and more, as he awaits his own fate at the hands of the CAS.
In other news, the same CN post notes the EPO urine test inaccuracies study stating that this is precisely why the UCI has gone for the "blood passport" program.
Lab Technologist thinks the different testosterone test annouced last week will make cheats easier to detect, which is more mis-information. See our previous coverage.
Blogs
Rant writes about Canadian parathlete Jeff Adams' extraordinary efforts to qualify for the Paralympics this summer, despite he very recent exoneration by the CAS. Rant also reviews the coverage of the EPO test scandal news noting that reporters often miss "the rest of the story".
Velociti seems to be just getting around to the Inside Sport article that carried Dugard's article about Landis, and can't wait until Monday to declare him guilty of doping.
29 comments:
Cycling - Landis v/USADA
Lausanne, 27 June 2008 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will publish its decision in the procedure CAS 2007/A/1394 Landis v/USADA
on Monday, 30 June 2008 at 5.00pm Swiss time.
The decision and a press release will be published on the CAS website (www.tas-cas.org).
---
That's Monday, 8am PDT.
Here is the AP announcement:
"LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP)—Floyd Landis will find out Monday if he can keep his 2006 Tour de France title.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Friday that it will announce the result from a five-day appeal hearing held in New York City in March.
Three CAS-appointed lawyers heard 35 hours of testimony from 24 witnesses at the closed-door hearing at a Manhattan law firm.
Landis appealed to the court after an American arbitration panel ruled last September that he used performance-enhancing substances during his victory."
Of course, the first sentence is debatable. It is by no means clear that the ASO will give back, no less "let him keep," his yellow jersey if he wins.
If he wins, there will be a whole host of such problems to address/battles to fight.
syi
And just when I'm leaving to go on vacation for two weeks! We're taking my wife's laptop, so I'll try to check in when we come into town.
24 Witnesses? Does that sound a little excessive?
I wonder what new information was brought forward?
Could it possibly be almost over??? Floyd can get on with his life, and we get to see him in cycling again. Be still my heart.
I'm not sure the ASO would "give back" or let him "keep" anything, except the jersey he has at home! The y like to play by their own rules.
You Americans are lucky, you'll get the decision first thing on Monday morning, whereas I'll have to wait until I've almost finished work on Monday.
And I'm like a million miles closer to Switzerland than you. How does that work ?
As you're going to hear before me, be sure to post the results so I can read the decision before it's released (huh ?)
:-)
See I knew if I made a public prediction, the powers that be would have to prove me wrong. They live in fear of me of course. haha
So, one last stab at meaningless guessing. That it is the week before the tour is hardly a surprise, that's one that many have predicted for a long time, because that's just how things work in the cycling world. It's not the fourth of July, so it isn't an intended insult (or present for that matter).
It's timed for biggest possible media impact. That's not so great. Anti-doping would want a win to be milked for as much news as possible. On the other hand, it's possible that this was simply the farthest away from the start of the Tour that they could manage. I suppose the interesting question here is, is there a written decision sitting somewhere waiting to be distributed, or are the arbitrators working their fingers to the bone this weekend?
That's all supposing that tas-cas cares about it's clients interests in this case. It's also unclear who would have the power to decide the timing. If one assumes that there was pressure to get the decision out before the tour, this could allow the arbitrators themselves to be selective in the timing.
So far, there's nothing in the wind. Nothing from L'Equipe, no jump-the-gun announcement from McQuaid. These are all good signs.
And then there's yesterday's news about AFLD not using LNDD for their testing, and my wild theories on what that might mean.
Or in other words, who the heck knows, it just really sucks to wait, but it's nice to see the finish line.
Good luck Floyd.
tom
My guess is that the written decision is pretty well done by now that they are announcing a definite release time. There may be a little polishing up, and perhaps getting it translated into various languages.
The timing is such that much of the impact should die down by the time the Tour starts.
I agree with Thomas - a pro-USADA ruling would be published in the French Tabloid L'Equipe this weekend. If it is pro-Landis, they will not report it until the CAS does.
I presume they will have it in advance. How can we assume otherwise?
I don't think there is any political maneuvering in the timing at all. Call me naive, but they originally said they expected to issue the decision in June, and they are doing so on the last day of June, which would of course have given them maximal working time to dot the i's and cross the t's, so they don't come up with just plain wrong and self contradictory statements like in the AAA majority decision.
I think the 24 witnesses might have to do with some basic findings of fact. USADA/LNDD probably tried to "prove" that they didn't actually use different columns in the tests, which given the "errors" in the documentation, means they would have needed to rely on the memories of various people about some insignificant thing that happened two years ago.
Hopefully the fact that they have taken as much time as possible, according to their original schedule, shows that they really took a new and hard look at the evidence and haven't just, in effect, re-written the AAA majority decision.
I'm hopeful, but by no means confident, for good news on Monday.
syi
I don't know. CAS isn't LNDD and L'Equipe doesn't have easy access to CAS.
I'm pulling for Floyd and hope for the best. By the best, I mean a well supported decision, in his favor.
Whatever happens, he's a stand-up guy from a fine family.
The second part of the "interview" with Dr. Gary Wadler, WADA apologist, is now up at the NYT. I forget how to do a link, sorry.
A couple of good questions from eightzero are included, along with their poor and misleading answers from Dr. Gary Wadler, WADA apologist.
syi
Of course, the original deadline of late June could have been set at the time of the hearing, but still with the Tour in mind. Like "However we end up deciding, let's get this out before the Tour starts so we don't steal their thunder."
Of course, this is all pure speculation.
I will hope the decision correctly reflects the truth of the matter; irregardless of anything else; and hopefully, the party that erred would 'fess up and confirm the decision.
OK, so long as we're reading tea leaves on the timing of the CAS decision ...
I'm with Mike regarding the meaning of the DATE of the release of the decision. The critical timing element is that Monday is the last day of June, not that it's Monday. Production of the decision is a group project, requiring a minimum of project management: dates for production of initial drafts, dates for meeting and consultation, redraft deadlines and of course a deadline for final release. Focusing for the moment on the planned date for final release of the decision, I imagine that the arbitrators (1) initially set a tentative release date for the decision for shortly after the conclusion of the Giro, (2) missed the initial release date, and then (3) set a firm deadline for themselves for the end of June, figuring that a later release of the decision would interfere with the Tour de France or the Olympic Games. Then like many human beings, the CAS arbitrators have waited until the last day of their self-imposed deadline to finish their work.
I've considered whether there's anything to the announced TIME of release: 5:00 pm local time. Why 5:00 pm? Isn't this kind of LATE IN THE DAY for an announcement? I was thinking, maybe the plan at CAS was to put the decision in the fax machine and head out the door before the phones started ringing. But I checked on the web site, and CAS closes for the day at 6:00 p.m.
My best guess at the moment is that it's CAS policy to announce the decision based not on the time of day in Switzerland, but on the time of day in the athlete's home country. For Gatlin, the CAS announced in advance that they'd release the decision by 4:00 pm Swiss time -- pretty close to the planned time for release of the Landis decision. But for Australian swimmer Nick D'Arcy, the advance ammouncement was for a 6:00 a.m. Swiss time announcement -- 2 pm on the east coast of Australia.
So, sorry everyone. I don't think we can read a thing into the CAS announcment as to which direction the decision will go.
In an attempt to make this the "most commented weekend post in the history of TBV..."
1. Wadler's "WADA doesn't prosecute doping violations, ADA's do" is a crock. "We were just following orders" didn't work well at Nuremburg; it shouldn't work here.
2. The original CAS press release in March said, IIRC, that the Landis decision wasn't due until June at the earliest. They never announced a NLT date.
3. I am fearful of some screwy Petacchi-esque ruling on Monday. What if the CAS rules "USADA broke the rules. The tests are faulty. They did not properly prove a doping violation per the code. But we think he doped, because no one could do that S17 ride without help." OMG. It is possible we could have even more chaos, more uncertainty by Monday evening. We are expecting this to be the final say in the Landis case. What if it isn't?
4. OTOH, presumably Monday is the beginning of the end for the TBV site. I am really, really going to miss this place.
5. Could the CAS wish to issue a pro-Landis ruling prior to the start of the 2008 TdF so they can truthfully say "he was cleared before the next race. We are not responsible for his missing it."?
Larry and Mike. Yeah, you're probably right, but that's boring. There's always an open question about arbitration - are the arbitrators partial to the party paying the bill?
The arbitrators should be insulated and not care, but there may be hints dropped to them by their bosses.
In a high-pressure case like this, there's even more temptation to respond to that pressure. Hopefully their bosses are smart enough to realize that the best way to handle a high-profile case is to keep everything even extra squeaky clean and above board. It would be REALLY bad to have an arbitrator step forward and say "yeah, I was pressured to do this".
Most likely, things have been handled professionally. As long as no one was partying in China with all the heads of cycling and anti-doping in the past six months...
tom
Tom -
Boring? MOI? LOL! Perhaps you've READ my Curb Your Anticipation opus?
I agree with you, there's probably pressure on the CAS panel to get the decision released, and get this case out of CAS. I also agree with you, there'd doubtless pressure on the panel to confirm the finding of an AAF. I discussed this with you, Mike, 8-0 and others at length on June 18.
As far as keeping things squeaky clean ... expect a LONG decision. This will give the appearance of fairness and due consideration of all arguments, and deter all but the most determined of us from a consideration of the panel's reasoning.
I concur with Larry. The decision, either way, will be lengthy.
We might even see a 1-1-1plurality. Then what?
I can even imagine a comment like "uncertainty is the essence of sport. We are pursuaded that there can be no certainty in this case, so we leave the previous award unchanged."
Does everyone believe the full decision will be released? In the Gatlin case, a press release summary was released on June 6. As far as I can tell the entire decision has not yet been released. I wonder if they find in favor of the AAA finding, if they might only release the summary and wait until much later to release the entire decision. Maybe if they are going to overturn the decision they will release the entire decision with the rationale on Monday.
Cal
Cal, the CAS announcement today specifically said they will release "the decision and a press release." So I think we will get the whole thing.
syi
Mike, the CAS announcement in the Gatlin case ALSO stated that CAS would "publish its decision".
See Gatlin CAS pre-announcement.
Cal, on reflection, I think you're right: it's likely that the CAS will simply announce the result reached by the CAS panel without releasing the formal opinion. In fact, if the decision goes against Landis, I'd expect the announcement without the opinion.
Here is the direct link to the CAS site on the 6/6/08 Gatlin release:
http://www.tas-cas.org/en/infogenerales.asp/4-3-1330-1092-4-1-1/5-0-1092-15-1-1/
The "decision" in the Gatlin release looks format-wise very much like the last page of the Petacchi award. If this is a "slip" (haha!) on the part of the clerk (they have unintentionally indicated they won't be releasing the full award) this could indicate a pro-USADA result. Even a restrained arbitrator would recognize the importance of showing failures of the anti-doping efforts in advance of The Big Race.
As I see, if the decision is against Landis, that will pretty much end things. He might possibly have some civil case against USADA, but the US courts lack jurisdiction over WADA, etc., which of course has recently been confirmed in the Gatlin affair. Even in the US courts, a suit against USADA would be quite a long shot, given our hypothetical guilty verdict, which would make a double shot.
And whatever the results, I think Landis has raced his last TdF. You think they would let him in next year if his is cleared Monday. And if he ends up serving the full suspension (don't forget the extra 2 years ban on Pro Tour team) and was still racing in 2011, would he be allowed in then?
Maybe his recent mountain bike efforts indicate he intended career direction.
wschart, expect that win or lose, Suh, Landis and the team will sue USADA and USA Cycling in federal court, shortly after the CAS decision is announced. I would not be shocked to see the papers served on Tuesday.
My guess is that Suh and Landis want their day in court, before a real judge and a real jury. You know, the kind of proceeding that Judge Hue keeps reminding us about? You know? With due process and constitutional guarantees and all that?
Nothing ends on Monday, I predict.
Larry, I hope you're right. If thery were to take this to a real court and prevail, it might force some changes. Of nothing else, it would be fun to watch!
I heard a rumor the release of the CAS decision will be delayed by 9 seconds on Monday. Teehee!
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