Irregular Report 34

Velonews published a letter by TBV about life bans and misrepresentation of the Landis case in a prior letter.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Darcy (in the Oct. 24 Mailbag) feels the need to say those who disagree with him are "morally bankrupt." This seems to reflect the tenor of the times where we people can't come to different conclusions without disrespect.

Mr. Darcy misstates a number of points regarding the Landis defense. Landis' position has always been that he didn't do what he is accused of, and he has been trying to find out why the tests have reported incorrect results. In particular, his' defense team has never agreed that the second type of tests (IRMS) can't produce false positives. Here, Mr. Darcy puts words in Landis' mouth.

The IRMS test is complicated and subject to many possible errors and interpretations that can lead to erroneous conclusions. At the same time, the WADA Code's adjudication procedures are not designed to reveal such errors, but to find the accused guilty. When riders are caught literally red-handed or confess, this is not at issue. There is no doubt that much doping does occur, and that most reported results are correct. Problems arise when someone who may be innocent of the charge runs into the stone wall of The Code, and the circled wagons of agencies protecting their own interests

The Italian Association's call for life bans is well intentioned, but may be problematic given the fairness and due process problems inherent in the WADA Code. It is not helpful for those who want harsh penalties to label those interested in fairness and transparency of the enforcement as "doping apologists" who are "morally bankrupt." It ought to be possible for us to agree that doping is a continuing problem in many sports, and that we should have a trustworthy enforcement mechanism.

As to whether the current enforcement systems in cycling are trustworthy, it is probably fair to say that nobody is happy.

The IHT re-posts what appears to be an ancient bit from 2007 that the organizers of the Zurich Championship race are blaming Landis' for their failure to secure sponsorship -- and they hope to run the race again in 2008.

We've learned that our own Mr. Idiot has joined the ranks of the desperately seeking attention and validation by starting his own blog at Swim Mike Swim! He must be cleaning up his act, as he didn't take the blog title one would have expected, but we fixed that for him.