We have put the CAS hearing transcript into the archive. Eventually we'll split it into pages there, and update this posting with an index of what people find that is interesting.
Transcript
We are now going to dinner.
Thanks to all for thoughtful comments today from all sides of the matter.
We received the following, indirectly from Arnie Baker: The Court of Arbitration of Sport upheld the findings of the American Arbitration Association in affirming a doping violation against Floyd Landis.Having closely read the laboratory’s reports and the statements of its witnesses, I strongly disagree with the findings of these tribunals.The evidence documents conclusively that not only did the laboratory (1) never identify testosterone in the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio test according to WADA criteria, it (2) had no written procedure to identify substances in the more sophisticated IRMS test.Moreover, there is evidence of scientific misconduct/malfeasance. Records have disappeared and documents appear to have been fabricated. USADA, its experts, and the lab appear to have repeatedly made false statements. I document the reasons for my opinions in the Wiki Defense 2.0. Source documents are provided.
By all means download the material from my website—it is free—and come to your own conclusions.
Reading the award, we make the following quick observations.
First, it is annoying that CAS publishes them in a PDF format that precludes text search. A kind reader has produced a searchable version that may be of use to many people. We'll mirror it when possible.
259. There is a clear distinction between administrative deficiencies, bad laboratory practice, procedural error, or other honest inadequacy on the one hand and dishonesty or bad faith on the other. Some of the Appellant's expert witnesses appeared insufficiently aware of this distinction.
Landis has a hard task trying to climb this Olympus. The gods up top are trying to smite him for suggesting they are imperfect, because that is bad for business.
Landis' legal options include going to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, but that rarely used strategy has never resulted in a substantial change in a CAS decision.New case, same result.
"CAS's decision ... does little to require that laboratories and anti-doping agencies are held to the same high standards as are athletes," Suh said in a statement released after the decision.
Though Suh didn't convince either arbitration panel of that, those present at the first hearing last year in California would concede many of his arguments were compelling.
"We are pleased that justice was served and that Mr. Landis was not able to escape the consequences of his doping or his effort to attack those who protect the rights of clean athletes," USADA chief executive officer Travis Tygart said"
"I am saddened by today's decision," Landis said in a statement. "I am looking into my legal options and deciding on the best way to proceed.
"Maybe with finally being held accountable...he might finally realize that the best thing for him to do is acknowledge his mistake to dope and try to come clean," Tygart said"But that's a decision he will have to decide."
“The panel sent a pretty strong signal that while athletes are afforded the right to a vigorous defense, it must be a credible defense. In this case, they threw everything up against the wall in an attempt to take down the antidoping establishment.”
The litigation process is designed to get at the truth.
The truth is, Floyd Landis doped up in a bid to win. That much is incontestable.
But we still don’t have the full, complete truth of what happened. And history cares about the truth.
CAS confirmed that Landis is suspended until September 30 2009 and also ordered him to pay $100,000 towards the estimated $1.3 costs incurred by the US Anti-Doping Agency to fight the case.
"Everybody keeps asking," Farrington said of Landis. "There isn't a day that goes by that people don't ask about him." Farrington said the only thing Landis had really been hoping for was restoration of his good name.
"No matter what the verdict, everybody has already lost by the way this whole thing has been handled," Farrington said before the ruling was announced.
Landis' reputation will be forever tarnished by the charges, Farrington said. And, cycling — which was on the verge of becoming a mainstream sport during the years Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France — was probably set back 20 years by the doping charges, Farrington believes.
In addition, the three person panel chided the Landis experts for being too adversarial in their own analyses of the French lab's practices and results. Sad. Shorter version of the 58 page verdict: "the lab kinda messed up, but not too much, and you were a dick for pointing it out. Guilty!" That's enough of that. Floyd, see you next February
He fought as far as he could and he lost. That doesn’t change my opinion of him one bit. If anything, it strengthens it. He’s a great guy,” said Farrington.
Farrington said he believes Landis will come back to racing after the suspension is lifted. He believes his friend will be propelled by anger and a desire to prove his ability
In a press release just published, CAS rejected Landis appeal, and assessed costs of $100,000. Lausanne, 30 June 2008 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed the appeal filed by the American cyclist Floyd Landis and has confirmed the initial decision issued by a Panel of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) on 20 September 2007. Consequently, Floyd Landis is disqualified from the Tour de France 2006 and is suspended for a period of two years starting from 30 January 2007. Floyd Landis has been ordered to pay the sum of USD 100'000 to the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA) as a contribution towards its costs in the CAS arbitration.
The CAS website is melting down; we've got the award, and it is mirrored here if you have trouble.
Analysis to follow, when possible.
Floyd Landis
2006-2008
“He’s in every aspect the toughest man, ever,” Amber says seriously. “Physically tough, mentally tough, he’s just one tough bitch.”
Amber Landis
Bill Hue*
I stopped having heroes sometime after I turned twelve and I figured out my parents weren’t gods. I grew up pretty quickly after that and soon set aside all childhood things. As an adult, I was trained in and entered the practice of the most cynical profession there is, the law, ultimately becoming a judge. Floyd Landis doesn’t want to be nor has he ever intended to be anyone’s hero. But he is my hero.
Floyd is not my hero because he is an American or because he won the Tour de France. Greg LeMond and/or Lance Armstrong are not my heroes and they won many more tours than Floyd has. Floyd is not my hero because of his epic ride on Stage 17 of the 2006 race. Without demeaning that ride, others in cycling have had similar epic single day rides throughout the years.
Floyd is my hero because in the face of the biggest travesties of “justice” I have ever seen, he stood proud, determined, true to himself and his family and did not bow to those who define “the game” by making its rules, prosecuting those deemed to violate those rules and then stack the deck with those responsible to judge those “violations”. He made them work for it and we are all the beneficiaries of his efforts even though he ultimately derived no benefit, whatsoever.
Today, the Court of Arbitration of Sport finally declared the winner of the 2006 Tour de France after 2273 miles and 708 days. Floyd Landis won the race on the road but lost it, inevitably, to WADA and its useful idiots at the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory, the international media and those who slavishly kneel at the alter of the anti-doping gods.
Landis beat the likes of Oscar Pierrero, Carlos Sastre and Levi Leipheimer on the road, fair and square but he could not overcome WADA’s minions, Travis Tygart and Richard Young in particular, Dick Pound, of course, the rubber stampers on both Panels who call themselves "neutrals" with smug straight faces and a host of others who act out of self preservation rather than justice because that playing field was in no way fair or even.
I’ll have more to say in the hours and days to come as I deconstruct the fable that was Landis’ anti-doping prosecution.
For now, I simply and humbly thank Floyd, Amber, Arnie, Maurice, Howard and Floyd’s family, many friends and supporters who fought a fight they could not win because it was the right thing to do.
I also wish to offer my sincere gratitude to Dave and Mrs. TBV and Paula and Mr. STRBUK for their dedication to truth, fairness and justice and to their daily sacrifices to keep this matter in the forefront of our attention.
This is a sad day for justice.
Bill
*Bill Hue is a Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge. His opinions here are strictly his own.
Bruyneel: You know, I don’t know. … I’m pretty sure that if it would be a clear-cut case there would already be a decision. And the fact that it’s not clear … there must be something there. I don’t have enough information to know what happened. But all I know is that I don’t know if Floyd is guilty or not. But one thing I know is if, when he was in the situation to win the Tour and he knew he won that stage and he definitely knew before the stage that he was going to do something to take that jersey back, he also knew he was going to be tested. And, to me, it just doesn’t make sense to do something stupid like that if you know you’re going to be trying to win the race, and in a way like that. That’s all I can say about it. So I don’t know afterwards what happened with the testing or with the procedure, I don’t know. But it’s certainly something that doesn’t make sense.
Arnie Baker has released an updated version of his e-Book, "The Wiki Defense 2.0", which is available for free download, also here if slow. This contains details of all the arguments that may have been used by Landis, including some not presented at hearing -- possibly for time, relevance and seriousness.
We'll be mirroring it on archive.org as we have time. TBV is suffering a flaky DSL internet connection thanks to AT&T. It was working fine at 6 mb/s for five years, and then went bad a few weeks ago, and AT&T says the line is no good and there is nothing they can do.
We've established the archive for documents related to the CAS appeal. The first two that Landis has made available are:
There is one thing to note about how this whole process works that hasn’t been publicized much. And that’s who gets to review the decision before it gets the final seal of approval. Who gets to pass judgment on the judgment?
In an article we didn't post yesterday, the AP/Eddie Pells reports Gatlin's appeal to the 11th circuit was rejected, and he's chosen not to try the Supreme Court. It's over for him for this year's Olympics. The AFP has a story where other runners are glad he's not there at the trials.
Eugene Weekly, home of this week's US Olympic track trials, notes doping is the elephant in the room. Jones, Landis, and Gatlin are targeted by dubious statements that probably reflect popular sentiment. Then it rips into one of Gatlin's erstwhile competitors who is happy Gatlin isn't there -- because it is his turn.
The Register-Guard takes a sympathetic look at the therapist, "one of track's great healers", alleged to have spiked Gatlin.
The AP runs a pre-Tour puff piece that touts ASOs efforts to ensure a clean race.
VeloNews catches up on the Monday release of the Landis award.
Velocity, to which we linked recently, discovered us in return. He "doesn't want to argue technicalities" about the Landis tests, because he made his mind up with the improbability of the Stage 17 ride. He cites Stewey O'Grady as his source of unquestionable judgment on the matter.
BikesnobNYC watched the HBO "Real Sports" on Millar and Slipstream, and came away less than impressed by the journalism -- perhaps warranting a "seal of disapproval."
Racejunkie says
Floyd Landis at least gets to enjoy The Crappiest Weekend Ever, as CAS kindly announces that they're gonna wait to formally announce their near-inevitable decision to jack him til Monday, giving a good two days for an alcohol-induced blackout to take effect before he has to hear the verdict.
I'm not a paid troll for disgusting dopers like Jan Ullrich and Roberto Heras, as those who believe I'm part of the cabal of amoral pro-doping sport-destroying scuzzbags might suggest--I do it for free-And so do we, though we mostly limit our sympathy to those who have experienced procedural and fairness related problems once in the sausage making machine that is a doping accusation.
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.
News
The AP reports Ian Thorpe is has filed an intention to take action on a defamation suit against L'Equipe to avoid running into statute of limitations deadlines. It doesn't mean he will actually file suit.
The CyclingNews reports that the AFLD/ASO will try to initiate a separate "blood passport" program for this year's Tour de France due to the ongoing dispute between the ASO and UCI. The lab in Lausanne, which the UCI uses to analyze its passports, will also be used by the AFLD. In other news, CONI has dropped its threat to interrogate non-Italian riders implicated in the OP investigation ostensibly because of a lack of cooperation from Spanish authorities.
Let's note this curiosity: The AFLD is not sending the work to the AFLD lab, but to the WADA lab in Lausanne, Switzerland. This is ostensibly because Lausanne is doing all the bio-passport work. Just like the French Open Tennis tournament last year found the Montreal lab was more "cost effective" than the AFLD/LNDD lab at Chateney-Malabry, one may suspect there is more to the choice. And equally unlikely to get straight answers from anyone about it.
ESPN says warnings for Salbutamol use were issued to a heptathlete by USADA after she did not get the proper exemption for the anti-asthma medication. No sanctions were issued other than the loss of a third place finish in the pentathlon in a recent track meet. Alessandro Petacchi was recently sanctioned for "overuse" of the same medication by the Italian CONI.
Yesterday's story about the broken EPO test is now making the rounds.
The NY Times reruns the same story we got yesterday via the IHT (they are corporate relations, and the IHT website is about to be "converged" into the NYT).
Velonews has short original coverage, citing the Times. Bloomberg has another summary.
A press release announcing the journal article reads like the primary source material for all the other coverage.
Blogs
Providentially, The NYT today has a blog where Gary Wadler answers questions submitted by readers. He starts an answer with an assertion that now stretches credulity in a number of dimensions:
Dr. Gary Wadler: WADA is extremely mindful of its responsibility to assure fair play while protecting athlete’s rights. The detection methods are accurate and reliable. They undergo rigorous validation prior to being introduced.
This is jaw-droppingly shocking. Not only are negative tests in question, but positive ones are too, as shown by the example above of the positive in which the EPO should have cleared the man’s system.
I’m obviously not a scientist and I don’t pretend to play one on TV or on this blog, but the uncertainty and the inaccuracy of the various doping tests, as well as the disparity between labs, deeply trouble me. Given what I’ve read about the Floyd Landis case (which involved testosterone as opposed to EPO), plus what I’ve read about the problems with the EPO test, I don’t know whether it’s fair to sanction athletes (and ruin their reputations) on the basis of tests that even the experts question.
And then there’s the whole guilty-until-proven-innocent aspect of positive doping controls, which runs counter to our U.S. jurisprudence (unless you’re Nancy Grace), but that’s a whole different issue.
That he did it with drugs or not is not really an issue for me (I'm assuming a good chunk of the riders on this year's Tour are also on the juice). Bent or not, Landis got me hooked again on the sport of cycling: the colour, the athleticism, the drama, the excitement, the intellectualism, the politics, the skulduggery, the nail-biting tension.
Old Friends: okay, doping bad, yap yap, anyone who does it has all the moral street cred of a serial killer and deserves to be banned for life, yap, anyone (and I name no names here) who won't shut the hell up about it afterwards should be smothered in barbecue sauce and thrown into a pit of starving rabid wolverines. But in light of the news that one's odds of sneaking a blood-booster past the narcs are somewhere north of "ginormous", am I the only one feeling a twinge of sympathy for our late lamented exile and monstrous cheating pig Jan Ullrich, for whom watching a slew of compatriots he knows damn well are still at this very moment no less stoked than he ever was triumph at the Tour must leave him wallowing in a particularly grim sludgepit of his own personal Hell? Sure, the sport's a cesspool, but please don't give up your love of the bike Jan--even poor Landis, who at least was spared your own quick-n-painless flameout in *his* endless miserable melodrama, still hits the road (and mountain) when he can!
Today the IHT reported on a study that showed blind samples from EPO users didn't turn up positives at a number of WADA laboratories.
The cited study was to determine what PED effects EPO had, and turned up unsurprisingly significant gains for endurance events. While doing those studies, they also sent some samples from the subjects to WADA labs.
[W]ithout telling the anti-doping labs what they were doing, the investigators sent the men's urine samples for EPO testing.One of the two labs, which the researchers refer to as Lab B in their paper, never declared any sample positive, even when the men were taking high doses of EPO every other day. Lab A was inconsistent. It found EPO during the high dose phase. But in the maintenance phase, it found EPO in only 6 of the 16 samples.
"The paper certainly is an eye-opener," said Don Catlin, the chief executive of Anti-Doping Research, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. "It's quite remarkable."
But Olivier Rabin, scientific director of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said his group had tested its labs, sending samples of urine from people who were taking EPO and from people who were not. In general, he said, the labs agreed. But Rabin added that when the agency sends samples to its labs, they are not sent anonymously — the lab knows the samples are from WADA.
The agency does not share data from the tests on its labs, so it was not possible to determine how the organization's research compared with the latest study.
The findings in the latest study should be no surprise, said Charles Yesalis, a professor of sports science at Pennsylvania State University. For decades, he said, anti-doping authorities have claimed they have tests that work and for decades athletes have been taking drugs without getting caught.
The anti-doping authorities, he said, "remind me of little boys whistling in the graveyard."
Expanding on our earlier collection of Gatlin documents, we now have the ruling of Jun 25th, rescinding the TRO in the archive we created earlier. All told, there are:
News
ESPN picks up an AP piece that states 30 "targeted" riders headed for the Tour de France have already been tested for doping:France's anti-doping agency has already conducted tests on 30 Tour de France cyclists, and plans more targeted checks before the race starts next month.
The tests were not carried out at random, as cyclists "were targeted based on information from federations, teams or newspapers," Pierre Bordry, head of the French Anti-Doping Agency, said Wednesday.
And so it begins...
CyclingNews reviews the HBO Real Sports piece on PED use in cycling, and Dutch mountain biker Arielle van Meurs denies any doping saying the elevated hematocrit levels found are normal to her:"The blood is too thick and the International Cycling Union (UCI) said it was too dangerous to ride. That has nothing to do with doping," she said. "I have naturally a very high hematocrit and it is often above the standard. Plus, the night was very warm and that doesn't help."
Blogs
Spinnin' Wheel watched the HBO Real Sports epi last night featuring David Millar talking about attempts to rid cycling of doping. She liked it, she likes St. David as well and doesn't understand those who don't.
Steroid Nation reviews yesterday's Florida court reversal in the Gatlin case. Info and discussion can be found here.
Racejunkie sort of previews the Tour de France, but also wonders if "Baby Contador" will be winning his seventh Tour when we finally hear the Landis CAS verdict. RJ is showing real optimism here.
Eric writes about his battles with Mt Palomar and mentions the climb is/was on Floyd Landis' regular training ride. Eric also posts his power output charts comparing last year's rides with this year's.
News
The VeloNews introduces something that will probably be declared illegal performance enhancement everywhere eventually, but which we could use right now actually.
A reader also points to a Velonews article on the continued canonization of St. David Millar, in an episode of Real Sports on HBO tonight. If anyone has HBO and watches it, post a report, please.
In Other VeloNews Andrew Hood reviews Johan Bruyneel's new book, "We Might as well Win", and interviews the former DS as well. Written for a wide "non-cycling" audience this book stays away from controversy:
VN: One name that is not mentioned in the book is Michele Ferrari, why did you avoid this topic in the book?
JB: I wanted it to be a positive book. There are a lot of things that have been said that are negative. I wanted the book to be focused on the philosophy of winning. That wasn’t necessary to mention, and it is controversial anyway. That’s a battle I gave up on a long time ago. I don’t want to have to keep explaining and keep defending ourselves. I’ve passed that stage a long time ago.
VN: One thing you don’t bring up a lot in the book are the doubters, how do you react to the people that just don’t believe in the victories?
JB: That’s too bad for them. We’ve tried to explain too many times. How much harder can we try to explain? Right now with Astana, we basically have the top team with the strongest riders, we’re dominating the races, at least the ones we’re allowed to race, and we have the strictest anti-doping program that exists. (Anti-doping director Rasmus) Damsgaard and what he’s doing – it can’t get better. There are a lot of cynics out there and critics who say they prepare for a race this way or that way. Now we go to the Giro, eight days before it starts, we show and we still win it. The team is a good level and that speaks a lot.
Judge Lacey Collier lifted a 10-day restraining order that would have allowed the 26-year-old Gatlin to take part in the trials in Eugene, Oregon starting on Friday.The judge ruled that determining the United States' participation in the Olympic Games was the "exclusive jurisdiction" of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).
A federal judge now says sprinter Justin Gatlin cannot compete in this weekend's U.S. Olympic track and field trials. The decision reversed his earlier order that allowed Gatlin to run.Judge Lacey Collier said Tuesday the court had no authority to overrule the recent Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that upheld a four-year doping ban against the defending Olympic 100-meter champion.
"Should he wish to appeal this CAS decision, he must go before the Swiss Federal Court"
Seven died of heart failure: Jim Clack, 58; Ray Oldham, 54; Dave Brown, 52; Mike Webster, 50; Steve Furness, 49; Joe Gilliam, 49; and Tyrone McGriff, 41. (In 1996, four years before the steady succession of Steelers deaths, longtime center Ray Mansfield died of a heart attack at 55.)
There is speculation that steroid abuse could have played a role in some of the deaths, but no hard evidence. It's just as plausible that weight issues were a factor. Counting Mansfield, five of the eight heart-attack victims played on the offensive or defensive line.
Blogs
Have you had your pills has been vegging out, but somehow got a clue the Landis decision will be in by the end of the month. We'll see.
We've got some copies of documents in Gatlin's Florida case, and placed them in the Archive.
[W]ithout a finding of fault on this first violation, Plaintiff would not be subject to an enhanced penalty under the current rules. However, because at the time of Plaintiff’s first violation the rules did not require a formal determination of whether an athlete was at fault, no such determination was ever made.2 Defendants, in considering the second violation, nonetheless maintain that they cannot revisit the first violation and formally determine that Plaintiff was not at fault. In what can only be characterized as a procedural mire, Defendants suggest that Plaintiff may try yet another round of administrative appeals to the discretion of the various Defendant agencies in an attempt to gain a beneficial ruling in this regard.
In the midst of this intractable situation, it is abundantly clear that, if anyone were to actually deal with the facts of this case head-on, they would readily conclude, formally, that Plaintiff was not at fault for the first violation, and would as a consequence end his suspension immediately. The only obstacle to this result appears to be a “musical chairs” situation in which nobody appears willing to take that step.
In yesterday's roundup, we had some quotes from an article in the Denver Post (now available again) about Travis Tygart and the USADA. A number of things Mr. Tygart said there seem significantly out of touch with reality (as noted at Rant), that one has to wonder about his grip on the facts. Can he really be this mistaken, or is he taken grossly out of context?
Let's look at some of the whoppers in what we quoted from the article.If there's anybody out there that has the sophistication and the wherewithal to defeat the testing system, it would be Floyd Landis or a Justin Gatlin, and they're not," Tygart says.
Let us put aside Landis for the moment, since the case still isn't finally decided, and it is probably inappropriate for Tygart to be commenting on the case at this point at all.
The implication given here about Justin Gatlin is that he somehow had sophistication or wherewithal to defeat the testing system. This is just wrong on a number of different levels. Gatlin has never tried to "defeat the testing system." He has never disputed test results. He has been, in the most cooperative ways possible, trying to get an interpretation of sanctions that he thinks is fair, based on the specific circumstances of his positive tests. He has played nice, said nothing bad about USADA in public, worn a wire for investigations, been a spokesman for the cause, and Tygart is still slamming him in inaccurate public statements."When you have an effective out-of-competition, intelligently based testing system like we have in the Olympic movement in the United States, there's very little room for a cheater to survive."
Unfortunately for Mr. Tygart, he doesn't cite any cases coming from his "effective out-of-competition, intelligently based testing system."
As far as we know, exactly zero of the major cases of the last few years have come from USADA's out-of-competition testing, or targeted testing. The cases he cites immediately preceding this unsupported statement, Landis and Gatlin, come from in-competition testing. Marion Jones, Kelli White, Tim Montgomery -- not OOC testing, in fact, not testing at all.
“My job,” Tygart says, “is to not let a skilled advocate like Howard [Jacobs] or anyone else use smoke-and-mirrors and technicalities to let a cheater like Tim Montgomery go free.”
News
The USOC and IOC told the Gatlin Court in Florida today that they don't want to play there, but in Switzerland, according to the AFP and AP. We now have Friday's TRO that will let him run at the US Trials.
The CyclingNews says Eugenio Bermudez, the secretary general of the Spanish Cycling Federation, was acquitted last week of leaking information from OP. The court also supported former Spanish Superior Council of Sports director Rafael Blanco, who was accused by former Liberty Seguros manager Manuel Saiz of "prevarication, falsification of documents and revealing secrets." So some kind of proceeding was held to determine where the OP leaks came from and who made them -- it just didn't go anywhere.
CyclingWeekly provides its usual hodgepodge of news from the cycling world and says that this week is when we should hear the Landis verdict from the CAS. Let's hope this is correct, but we are not holding our collective breath.
HuffPost has a roundup of interesting articles about commercial interests, the IOC, and the Beijing Games. Remember, about doping in cycling and the Landis case, "It's the Olympics, stupid."
Take a look at "The Beijing Olympiad: The Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-event", which talks about "the "IOC's commitment to a market-oriented, private-sector partnership approach to financing the Olympics." The authors call this part of an "Olympics social compact," one that provides an extraordinary convergence... between modern Olympism and the ideals and tendencies of market capitalism."There's a riff about exploitation of the working (athlete) class to be made, but we wouldn't dare.
Hands relaxed, pointing in target direction. Photo: KKNews
The Denver Post prints a story about USADA "crusader" Travis Tygart who is determined to rid Olympic sports of "evildoers": cheaters and the suppliers who provide PEDs to them. Even though former Landis lawyer Howard Jacobs is quoted in the piece as saying Tygart has used "McCarthy-like tactics" Tygart is convinced he is doing the absolute right thing in his zealous quest to defeat those who would besmirch sport and cheat the system, such as the "sophisticated" Floyd Landis:If there's anybody out there that has the sophistication and the wherewithal to defeat the testing system, it would be Floyd Landis or a Justin Gatlin, and they're not," Tygart says. "When you have an effective out-of-competition, intelligently based testing system like we have in the Olympic movement in the United States, there's very little room for a cheater to survive."
Tygart believes his job is to not let those like Howard Jacobs stand in the way of his quest, and he is convinced of USADA's absolute right to go after and convict anyone it considers a "cheater". This is despite any "technicalities" which may indicate necessary exoneration:My job," Tygart says, "is to not let a skilled advocate like Howard or anyone else use smoke-and-mirrors and technicalities to let a cheater like Tim Montgomery go free."
There may be a mirror that Tygart should look into more closely.
News
The CyclingNews says the UCI is prepared to contest any plans on a return to competitive cycling by Alexander Vinokourov. The UCI dropped plans to appeal his case to the CA when he retired, but rumors persist that he is training for the Olympics and the UCI vows this will not be allowed:"We have had indirect reports that Vinokourov is training again," said UCI legal adviser Philippe Verbiest to AFP. "Should it appear that Vinokourov really is training for a comeback we will start up the appeal procedure again." According to the Belga news agency, the Kazakh cycling federation has made little secret of its desire to see the 34 year-old participate in the Beijing Olympics.
In other news, the hacker who got access to Michael Rasmussen's email has been jailed proving once again that your email password should not be something the average Joe can guess. Finally, Bjorn Leukemans will learn his fate on Friday the 27th when a decision in his testosterone usage case will either be thrown out completely, or submitted for reexamination.
VeloNews reports Tom Boonen is back to winning races after his dust up over out of competition cocaine use, by the way he says he's learned a lot about cycling.
Blogs
Gift Cycle, a program that takes gifts of an artist's work from one town to another artist in the next, is resting today in beautiful Lancaster, PA. Farmersville to be exact, as it appears they stayed with the most generous Neal and Tammy Martin who are good friends of the Landis family. It is rumored that sleeping in a signed Floyd Landis t-shirt will allow one to climb hills with the greatest of ease, good luck with the project!
SpeedDream Sports (Shirk Cycling) has us as a team favorite link. Thanks!
Cycle-racing.com lists us as one of but 10 US sites for cycling news -- good company.
News
Late in the day, the AP reports that Justin Gatlin has gotten his first good news in two years. A Federal Judge in Florida has granted him an order that may allow him to compete in the US Olympic Trials, and possibly compete in Beijing. A further hearing is to be held on Monday.
"In the midst of this intractable situation, it is abundantly clear that, if anyone were to actually deal with the facts of this case head-on, they would readily conclude, formally, that plaintiff was not at fault for the first violation, and would as a consequence end his suspension immediately," the judge wrote.
"We view this as an anti-doping matter and believe the appropriate forum for adjudication and resolution is through the American Arbitration Association or the International Court of Arbitration for Sport," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said at the time.
"Mr. Gatlin's defenses to his steroid doping violation have already been fully considered and rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport which he agreed has exclusive jurisdiction over this matter," USADA spokeswoman Erin Hannan said in a statement.
News
Bike Biz says that the Olympic issue of Journal of Mass Spectrometry reveals a new and "improved" method of testing for testosterone usage:A team of scientists the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory at the University of Utah have developed a test that makes use of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. This method has incredibly high sensitivity (down to 1 ng/ml) and increases the power with which officials can search for both testosterone and epitestosterone within a sample.
Our system means that we can determine testosterone/epitestosterone ratios in a sample with greater confidence, and therefore be in a better position to spot doping violations without falsely accusing innocent athletes,” said lead investigator Dr Jonathan Danaceau.
But, not everyone agrees that this an actual step forward towards the more accurate detection of testosterone. TBV is quoted:“[It’s] the bad test made cheaper and less prone to execution error, but leaving the same problems - high/low mode people, the recently noted genetic issues, and general variance. Will WADA re- evaluate the 4:1 limit with this method?”
Expanding, this is not a "new test", but an improved method of carrying out the confirmation of the T/E test. As we recall, there are two parts to a T/E test: a screen, which remains unchanged, and a confirmation. In the existing methods, the confirmation is done by GC/MS, and the GC/MS step is where the LNDD messed up by not collecting and examining enough diagnostic ions to meet identification requirements. The new confirmation method is faster/cheaper then the GC/MS method, is more sensitive for low values of T and E, and it is said to be easier to get the diagnostic ions. This is all good, and an improvement over the existing methods. Bravo.
However, it does nothing to address the fact that the T/E test isn't a very good one.
The most recent news is that for more than half the population, the T/E test can make an incorrect conclusion about doping. Thirty some odd percent of dopers have "lucky" genetics that will prevent them from showing positive on even the 4:1 value; and some proportion of clean people have the "cursed" gene that will have them appear positive even when they are not doping. This method does nothing to change those statistics.
For several years it has been recognized by CAS and WADA that to get an AAF upheld based on a T/E alone, the values needed to be sky-high, an/or a longitudinal study done to understand the physiology of the individual in question. (This is presumably among the data collected by the passport system.)
Now, the T/E test (both parts) is used as a screen for the tedious and expensive carbon istotope ratio test (CIR IRMS), and that can be triggered by the simple screen without the confirmation step. In fact, it's always OK to run the IRMS, without having even run a T/E test, though that is expensive to do. ( Landis got nowhere arguing the IRMS should not have been run with invalid T/E results.)
What this article does is improve the least interesting of the methods involved in the Landis case. If there had been improvements making the IRMS test cheaper and more robust, that would be a real significant breakthrough. But, in our opinion, improving the T/E confirmation step just provides a marginal, though significant gain for the budget of testing laboratories. It does little to improve the liklihood that innocent athletes are cleared, or guilty ones found to have doped.
If I was a doper, I wouldn't feel threatened by this test at all. If I was already beating the old T/E tests, I'll be beating this one too.
The article may be accessed for the next month at the Wiley web site.
Blogs
Bike World News wonders if today, June 19th, is the day we might all hear the CAS decision in the Floyd Landis case. BWN wonders if Landis was a no-show at the Lumberjack because of intense training for this year's Tour de France, should a favorable ruling come his way. Sounds far fetched, but stranger things have probably happened.
Sing Zion shares attendance numbers for a Mennonite adult choir and maybe we now know what Floyd Landis has been doing with his time.Then again it's probably a different Floyd Landis, or is it?
