Thursday, July 10, 2008

Fallout XI

News
USAToday/AP posts an Eddie Pells article on the newly established "My Victory" pledge program instituted by USADA. Olympic athletes are encouraged to go to the "My Victory" webpage and sign their names, vowing to participate in their chosen sport clean of doping and without cheating. Anyone can go there to sign up if they choose and while it's a nice thought, and good publicity, it does nothing to address the plethoric problems apparently inherent in the ADAs .

The Daily Texan editorializes on the differences in the public's reaction to juicing ballplayers as opposed to Tour de France cyclists. People like Floyd Landis are doomed, while the "stick and ball" crowd are making money and being forgiven:

Maybe fans are just forgiving. We have been known to allow athletes (and celebrities in general) back in our good graces after their transgressions. Adam Jones all but made the police blotter synonymous with the NFL, yet he has a brand-new lease on life via the Dallas Cowboys. It still doesn't explain why the Rick Ankiels and the Andy Pettittes of baseball are still making salaries while Floyd Landis is out to set a record for number of courtrooms seen in a single life.

No matter what the reason, the message has been made clear. Cyclists juicing: a travesty in sporting principles. Home run sluggers juicing: an explanation that will be forgotten after the press conference apology.

The Houston Chronicle reviews "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" and asks some really tough question about what constitutes "cheating".

CyclingNews' mailbag provides some advice from readers for Greg LeMond.

An emailer passes on scuttlebut from a Velonews Forum:
I don’t think there’s a question that FL will be the DS for Rock next year earning a fat paycheck. The team will be racing foreign and domestic and FL has shown considerable interest in the team. The only problem for Rock, FL still wants to race so he will need to choose. People are talking that FL had a part in the sacking of Clinger. Word is that Clinger might have tested dirty with there in house testing program to “parting drugs” and was told at the start of the year by FL if he was caught off the wagon he would be gone. This is just a rumor but we may see Clinger on that show intervention next. Clinger is really a tragic story especially with how hard he has tried to comeback to compete at the highest level. Bummer there will be no tour of Britain for Clinger

That's juicy grist to ponder -- plausible, and completely unconfirmable. There's certainly no love lost betwen Landis and Clinger, but it's not clear how much influence he really has at Rock. Last year he was spending time with Vaughters and Slipstream.

12 comments:

Nancy Toby said...

Ha ha! Sign up on The Pledge right underneath the names of Patrick Sinkewitz and Marion Jones!

snake said...

yah, you know this list looks awfully easy to spoof.

hmmm ... "ada bites" sounds like a champeen athlete.

bobble said...

Gee almost every name on the list is from CO Springs!

You don't think the athletes were being told, errrrr asked to sign up?!?!?!

Josh said...

Thanks for the great work TBV! Floyd got screwed but he will be back. This was posted on the Velonews forum by a guy who works with Rock Racing. His kid rides for Rock juniors.

...

I don’t think there’s a question that FL will be the DS for Rock next year earning a fat paycheck. The team will be racing foreign and domestic and FL has shown considerable interest in the team. The only problem for Rock, FL still wants to race so he will need to choose. People are talking that FL had a part in the sacking of Clinger. Word is that Clinger might have tested dirty with there in house testing program to “parting drugs” and was told at the start of the year by FL if he was caught off the wagon he would be gone. This is just a rumor but we may see Clinger on that show intervention next. Clinger is really a tragic story especially with how hard he has tried to comeback to compete at the highest level. Bummer there will be no tour of Britain for Clinger.

Re: Floyd - what does he do next?

robo said...

I'd take the pledge, but:

My inhaler and anti-baldness medication probably have prohibited substances.

The beef I ate tonight had a high concentration of steroids.

I don't really know what's banned and what's not anyway.

I'm afraid a USADA tester will show up at my door at 3:00 AM and send the sample to LNDD for testing.

LNDD will declare an adverse finding no matter what the test really shows.

USADA will then remove my name from the pledge list and ban me from pledging again for 2 years.

USADA will change that to a lifetime ban when it finds out I contributed to the Floyd Fairness Fund.

I will be unable to afford the arbitration/CAS hearings to clear my name.

On second thought I'll go to the hearings anyway and represent myself. After all, the decisions will come out the same no matter what I say.

But if I repent the errors of my ways and thank USADA for reforming me, my name will be restored to the pledge list, even in a place of honor just below Travis Tygart's name.

So maybe I'll take the pledge after all.

Thomas A. Fine said...

Speaking of Velonews, way back in January (I think) Velonews published a Floyd interview. They said they held key parts of the interview back for later publication. I assumed that the rest of the interview would show up after the decision was announced, but so far nothing. Did I just miss it? There's no reason left to hold anything back.

tom

strbuk said...

Yeah I was going to sign "the pledge" too, but I refuse to give up my cosmos.

str :--)

DBrower said...

TAF, the only reason to hold it back now is to avoid Floyding the Tour coverage. That might be considered bad form. Maybe a week after the tour, when the positives come out, and the dust is settled, or still floating, as the case may be.

TBV

wschart said...

It has now been almost 2 weeks since the decision. I am assuming that there are some here who have gone over the transcripts. Has anyone discovered any clue over what pissed off the panel so much? Any indication that indeed witnesses crossed some line?

m said...

Wschart,

" Has anyone discovered any clue over what pissed off the panel so much? Any indication that indeed witnesses crossed some line?"

I think the reasons are pretty much given in the decision itself at pp.47-49, and from my reading of the record (I haven't read all of the transcript), are supported by the record.

1. Landis as part of his case alleged fraud, deceit, forgery and bad faith on the part of the Lab and opposing parties. The judges found no evidence for this, and also that Landis had failed to call as witnesses persons he had accused of dishonesty so that they might respond to those charges. Judge Paullson, the judge picked by Landis, who in the Landaluze case threw out the doping case against the rider, was particularly concerned by the fraud and dishonesty allegations. He asked Landis to put up or shut up on the fraud charges. The Landis team didn't put up, but refused to abandon the fraud claims, and this counted heavily against them. In American Law also, fraud and dishonesty charges must be specifically proved, and if one fails to do so, one can be subject to sanctions.

2. The Landis expert witness were found to have acted in too partisan a manner, rather than as ideal unbiased experts. See footnote 108 at p.49 of the decision. They expressed opinions about the injustice of the case. They accused the lab of intentional deceit without sufficient evidence. Goodman appeared to have allowed the Landis attorneys to draft his statement rather than giving his independent opinion. I don't know if this "pissed off" the judges, but this lead them to discredit their testimony.

3. At paragraph 263 the judges note that Landis's strategy "was to take down the French Lab in an embarrassing way". I don't think the judges were happy with the unsupported fraud charges being used to discredit the lab in this way.

DBrower said...

I believe wschart was looking for source material in the transcripts, as compared to the conclusions drawn in the award. The questions was what specifically led to those conclusions?

TBV

m said...

TBV,

The CAS decision contains many references to the transcript and witness statements, in particular at footnotes 107 - 110.

For example the evidence that the Landis experts had been too partisan and had not exercised their independent judgment is listed at footnote 108:

"As Respondent stated in its closing brief, see Respondent's Closing Brief at 5, this advocacy manifested itself in
many ways, including Appellant's expert witness statements uniformly stating that "to uphold an anti-doping
sanction on the evidence in this case is morally and ethically wrong" (see Goldberger Statement at ~26; Amory
Statement at ~18; Davis Statement at ~12; and Goodman Statement at ~5), language Dr. Goldberger admitted was
drafted by Appellant's counsel. See CAS Tr. at 300:22-301 :9. Dr Davis's expert statement goes beyond technical
opinions to include accusations of lies and cover~up, See, e.g., Davis Statement at '-:4 and paragraph 260 above. As
noted by the Panel, see paragraph 76 above, Dr. Goodman went so far as to incorporate verbatim entire sections of
the brief prepared by Appellant's counsel months before he became involved in the case. See Annotated Copy of Dr.
Goodman's Statement at ~47-1l0; CAS Tr. At 621 :16-622:4; 628:6-632:25."

So I could read Goodman's testimony that he had apparently incorporated erroneous temperature information from the Landis lawyers' brief in his supposedly independent witness statement, and relied on that erroneous information in rendering his opinion about the temperature ramps.


I didn't want to cut and paste all the testimony from the transcript since it's quite tedious to remove all the line numbers.