Friday Roundup

H.L. Mencken of the Day

It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

News
ESPN Top 100 sports moments puts Landis at #3, gives an elegiac telling leaning towards guilty.

The San Diego Union-Tribune's Mark Zeigler rewrites this week's Landaluze story with analysis of implications for Landis.

BicycleRetailer talks about VeloNew's rider of the year, and the 15 lb weight regulation resulting in things like Landis being able to use a power meter.

Velonews letters run 2:1 against Landis as North American cyclist of the year.

HealthDay has an article referred by an emailer about research into alcohol and arthritis -- the possibly relevant, but probably too-speculative-to-be-interesting quote:

Tarkowski is interested in the mechanism by which alcohol might help prevent rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition in which the body attacks its own joint tissue.

"We have shown that it goes through the up-regulation [increase] of testosterone," he said. "That down-regulates inflammation, which is part of the arthritic process."

Forums
Landis returns to DPF, commenting on the UCI and rider organization.

Blogs
Boulder Report talks about Leadville, Lance Armstrong hizzownLiveStrong™self and Floyd! Freaking! Landis!. He also explains why it's confusing to buy a MTB.

PeakMan talks about the Floyd and Lance show, and is worried about hotels for Leadville.

Binza notes the Landaluze case outcome, and thinks FL may have had some good luck this week.

Vemos, way back on Dec 13, talked about the LAT articles, some interesting old talk from Catlin, and the thought that winning the tour was the worst thing that has ever happened to Landis. Also some kind words for TBV, with this credit-card "priceless" snip:

an informational effort that I think rivals the physical effort of a long distance ride, without the fun and exhilaration.

Can't stop the bleeding offers a strong candidate for Snark O' the Day in it's year end wrap up:

It’s difficult to think of Floyd Landis’s triumphant comeback in stage seventeen of the Tour de France without pondering some of his excuses for his positive doping result. When he first blamed his surgically implanted bat wings, I thought, “You know? I believe you, buddy. That’s why the Frogs can’t participate.” But then he continued naming culprits, blaming the nation’s methamphetamine epidemic, the role of Jews in Hollywood, and Randy Moss’s personal smoothie chain. That’s when I realized that maybe he did cheat after all.

Sammy offers this competitor for SoD:

Iraq's Cycling Coach was kidnapped and killed a few days ago by Iraqi insurgents. Floyd Landis said he was positive there will be a perfectly good explanation for it.

Just Call Me Juice ranks Landis as the #4 D-Bag of the year, but no SoD nomination because it's not funny:

What a jackass. Blamed his high testosterone on everything from Jack Daniels to just having naturally high testosterone. Did he really think he would get away with this?

Friggin' Burt at Doucheblog talks about Landaluze, tells some stories, and gives us a plug.

Rant wishes everyone happy holidays before going dark for a few days, digs into Landaluze and our rant of yesterday, and riffs on the "no miscreants welcome" message by British Cycling.

Fat Cyclist contemplates running into Armstrong at Leadville. Best of the comments:

[Fatty,] If he had been reading your stuff….he’d have hacked your computer by now

Comment least likely to be real:

Lance Says:
Prepare to be dominated at Leadville! You better wear 300 livestrong bracelets!

Fatty gets to Landis yesterday, and issues a challenge. I'm sure the comment by "Floyd" is fake :-), but I think Floyd should enter the contest. Instead of the 40 lbs TBV would need to lose, FL may need to drop, oh, 5-10 after next week is done -- Strbuk's baked goodies will do that.

[end]

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Saturday Roundup

News BBC Sport quotes what appears to be the same interview cited below...

""Even if I'm proved innocent, my reputation is ruined.This whole affair has ruined my life.

An interview in Het Laatste Nieuws and Gazet van Antwerpen has been filtering back, first on this DPF discussion, then later on this Frech blog (translated), finally in an APF report from VeloNews. Taking no prisoners, Landis will probably not be joining Quick Step. The confusing parts are whether he thinks he'll race again. As I said in the DPF thread, there are probably some context errors in the article and the translation. The first snip says,

But I don't think I will race in 2007. Who wants to have me?

I'm putting all my energy in repairing my name and in the war against a system that gives athletes zero rights.

and the concluding:

And even if I win, I won't be back. In the current system I will never be a rider again."

My reading is that he doesn't think he can win the case quickly and still get a ride this season, and that he thinks the system must change in a significant way for him to ride again in 2008. It is not saying he won't compete again, but that he needs to win the case AND change the power structure to come back. I don't know if I'm that pessimistic -- should he win the case, he could legally come back, and I don't know if the old-boy-network would exclude him as he seems to think. Or maybe he doesn't think he can get motivated in that circumstance.

Also,

There is a LeMonde article reported in this Spanish blog, translated. The blog reads it differently than I did yesterday, but I still don't make sense of it. There is something going on with the WADA UNESCO treaty, with implications of France having not signed on to it yet for the Landis case.

Blogs
John Hawks Weblog entry "Is the Dawn of Gene Doping at Hand?"cites the AP article about WADA and DNA testing with analysis of the testing's actual relevence......

This is the same principle that incriminated Floyd Landis' urine samples -- it wasn't the presence of a high testosterone level, it was the presence of an isotopic signature (supposedly) distinctive to synthetic testosterone.

There is a lot of sense in the piece, suggesting WADA is drumming up FUD to justify funding. Hawks notes that someone who is good enough to genetically hack athletes would also be a candidate for a Nobel prize for medicine, and untold riches for curing various diseases. A good argument would be that the money WADA is spending on genetic doping research would be better spent on improving existing tests, doing large population studies to really validate existing tests, and improve supervision and harmonization of the labs. Not to mention learning what "due process" means. But none of that is as sexy as chasing hypothetical genetic dopers.

[end]

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Wednesday Roundup

News
AFP via Velonews has Lab admitting some "typing error" in Landis LDP. Slightly different AFP version here, also CyclingPost. The original Le Monde story is here, (machine english here) and emailer Marc provides this translation:

The national doping detection laboratory (LNDD) at Châtenay-Malabry (Hauts-de-Seine department, which was the target of a data piracy attack aiming at discrediting it (Le Monde 15 nov.--[note: le Monde is an evening paper published with the next day's date on it, so the Nov. 15 le Monde was yesterday's]), indeed did commit an error during the processing of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis' positive test for testosterone. According to our sources, the rider's B sample--whose analysis confirmed the presence of exogenous testosterone--was mistakenly logged with the wrong number in the official summary of the second analysis.

Floyd Landis' ID number was 995 474, while the lab's summary had it written as 994 474. This purely administrative error does not mean that the positive B sample was not the American's. But it was used by his lawyers today--who also are promising to present "new elements of the defense" Friday Nov. 17 in Tucson AZ--to challenge the positive doping test.

Also of interest, in paragraph 4, a police source states:

As of today, no one has been identified as the presumed author of this attack. We're only in the evidence-gathering phase. We're like the detectives who turn up at the scene of a crime.

Interesting stuff about organizational changes and Bordry too.

Le Figaro has a new article, translated by machine

Similar report from AP, with outgoing fire from Jacobs. IHT gets its own story from Sam Abt, after talking with Henson. Headlined: Landis camp denies it hacked computers at French laboratory. German Press agency story; Bloomberg too.

AP via Velonews has Mr. Pound talking about it all. Lets the typo off the hook, says monitoring everything, Landis will get his hearing, confidence in Lab. Want support for revision of the WADA code; also Reuters. Carlton of Bikebiz posts audio of the interview.

Eurosport reports Austrian libel suit by ski coach against Mr. Pound going forward.

Mail to Velonews thinks hacking lab shows shoddy practice, implications against Landis are smears.

20minutes.fr, translated, reviews hacking and forecasts slide show 2.0.
CyclingNews anticipates new slide show, and touches on hacking incident.

Blogs
Spinopsys says it's starting to look like "Spy vs Spy" ( can Alfred E Newman be far behind?)

All this over what appears to be a pretty amateurish attempt by some disgruntled or fame seeking idiot attempting to get their jollies from the media attention and sturm und drang generated on both sides of this case - in this instance I’m thinking one fifteen year old, an all-nighter, Google translate and sixteen cans of Jolt.

TdfBlog notes coincidental timing of breaking this apparently ongoing hacker story two days after the TV interview.

French Blog, translated, thinks it's cheat, deny, deny, attack lab, hack.

Michael Wentz takes the "typing error" admission and runs.
VeloGal does zee zame zing. As does AMcGLtd.
TdfBlog picks up too, translated.
SayOw changes his mind.
PJ weighs in, ditto dmotion.

Red State Rampage starts a political screed observing Landis seems to have been screwed.

Calendar
Landis on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel next Tuesday.

Forums
At comp.os.linux.advocacy, there's always a Microsoft angle.

At rec.bicycles.racing, one post offers a QoD candidate:

When did l'Equipe retract a story? I certainly don't remember it, in fact they stand over what they wrote..

While another wonders

What I surmised happened is that the Lamer tried to get into the system, failed, and then forged the lab reports - they are apparently forged - then dummied up the emails with the spoofed 'sender' fields. It's easy to do, and Davey has actually been doing it the last week or so since he got a net connection again until he can get all the configs etc. updated and DNS changed over

. . .

But if the perpetrator is liked to Landis, it could be another nail in his coffin

And to wrap up, our lesson in Hax0r speak:

4£0¥Ð £4nÐ1$ 1$ l33T!

(Microsoft's decoder ring for parents; teh Wikipedia version)

You are truly a net nerd if this cartoon has you ROFL.

[end]

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Monday Roundup

News
CyclingPost gives their monthly roundup; Landis still the #1 topic.

VeloNews reviews the course, says Landis would be the favorite if he is able to return.

Letters to VeloNews:

I'm in the U.S. Military, which has been conducting drug testing for years, and I'm amazed at the possibility that Floyd Landis' allegations could have merit- such sloppy record-keeping is a total disgrace if it's true. Although the truth appears far from certain in the Landis case, the ambiguity on both sides has caused this long-time ardent fan to falter in my support of what was for years quite literally only one of two sporting events I'd watch without fail, if not the only things I even watched on television all year.

CyclingNews reports on Phonak goodbyes; here's a link to the team site.

Forums
At DPF, Floyd gives a little lesson on economics. (Queue a replay of "There is Power in a Union"), also a little earlier wondering at what point the underpaid riders might start questioning their commitment to the world as it now is:

I have the support and sponsors to promote a one day race in June or July of next year for which the prize money will be 1,000,000 dollars for first and another mil split for the next few places. What are your ideas on that. Do you think it is a good start in providing some competition to the grand tours so that they improve things or do you have a reason why it is self serving? Keep in mind that for winning the vuelta you get 30,000 euros, and for winning the tour you receive 400,000 euros.

Later in the afternoon, in post #58, Will drops what he believes to be a bomb, in the 2006 Prohibited list, as adopted on Jan 1 2006, wherein the key passage reads:

a Sample will be deemed to contain such Prohibited Substance where the concentration of such Prohibited Substance or its metabolites or markers and/or any other relevant ratio(s) in the Athlete’s Sample so deviates from the range of values normally found in humans that it is unlikely to be consistent with normal endogenous production.

(Also, original from WADA which says the same thing.)

Which gets rid of the parentheses around the trailing 's' in metabolites, making it vastly more likely to mean the 'all' reading rather than the 'any' reading as used by LNDD. Still, there is confusion:

the above paragraph is about concentrations of metabolites, not about IRMS measurements of metabolites. To the extent that it might apply to IRMS, it says "and/or any other relevant ratio(s) in the Athlete’s Sample". In that case, any is clearly not all. If that applies, of course.

I've read this thing a couple of times, and, honestly, I'm not sure why Will posted it.

and then back:

This is not TD2004EAAS, however, it is a later WADA document which clearly spells out the determination of whether a prohibitied substance is in a sample.

This gives us more to chew on for a while. For discussion, the explanatory note of the 2006 edition says at 1.b says,

The explanatory note in Section 1b: "Endogenous AAS" have been reworded and expanded in order to further clarify the procedures and/or tests to follow whan an Advers Analytical Finding is reported for this category of anabolic androgenic steroids or for a T/E ratio.

But it is not clear if this clarfication is intended to encompass an IRMS determination of exogenous origin.

Blogs
Dugard says Landis will be in NYC later this week doing media, and may run into Lance.

Bicycling's Boulder Report summarizes recent DPF discussions with Landis, especially the financial ones, and his remarks about the UCI. There's the heavy implication that Boulder thinks Floyd has drunk his own Kool-Aid.

Boulder also plugs the Wiki and TBV, so we're happy about that at least, especially saying we're only slightly biased as a result of getting most information from Landis and Jacobs. It would be nice if any of the Lab Directors or Doping Agencies would return my inquiries that are not specific to the Landis case. There is information they ought to be willing to share with the public and perhaps we'd be informed in a more balanced way. (For example, this fruitless exchange with USADA).

OuchProCyling has more on the Canine Companions for Independance appearance.

Podcasts
CompetitorRadio talks to Michael Ashendon, involved in the Hamilton case and engaged in an exchange of barbs with Howard Jacobs over a previous show. An emailer listened, and says that

• Ashendon complains that the ADA side can't speak out now and that is unfair;
• He doesn't talk directly about Landis, but says smoke implies fire.
• He thinks "metabolite(s)" is perfectly clear.
• Elite cyclists have to be doping.
• Athletes should submit to DNA testing to resolve Puerto.

Which sounds pretty much like the standard ADA position -- all cyclists are dirty, anything the ADA side does is fair, indisputable, and no errors can be made.

[end]

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TBV Quarterly Report

It's another 29th of the month for TBV, and being the third, it is time for the Quarterly Report. Let's hope there will only be one more of these and we can all get on with our lives. [more]
Previous reports were at the one and two month milestones of TBV.

Status
The next formal steps are

1. Selecting the arbitrators.
2. Scheduling the hearing.
3. Identifying requests for materials.
4. Resolving pre-hearing requests with the arbitrators
5. Exchanging briefs and witness lists at least 5 days before the hearing.
   
6. Conducting the hearing.
7. Receiving a decision.

Then, the losing party may appeal to CAS, and we'd repeat 1-7.

We have heard that Pepperdine Law School has been proposed and tentatively accepted as a location, with exact scheduling to be determined, probably sometime in January. If it happens, TBV is there.

Some Rumours

We have also heard the following conflicting and unverified reports:

• USADA has accepted the open hearing and Pepperdine
• USADA is balking, wondering what "public" means.
• USADA wants to go directly to CAS, skipping a public hearing.
  

Notable Events

Since the last monthly report, we have had the following significant events

• Landis is proceeding with post-op physical therapy, regularly riding stationary bike, has thrown away his crutches and started gingerly on a road bike.
• Three sets of (one, two, three) "Ferret" documents and their interpretation and reconstruction.
• Landis announces the "Wikipedia Defense", but says not all of his cards will be revealed.
  
• Release of the full Lab Documentation Package, ADRB Filing, and the Baker PowerPoint.
• Several week appearance of Landis on the Daily Peloton Forums.
• DPF has emerged as the premier site for serious technical discussion of the case.
• A Wiki has been created to organize the data and interpretations.
• Despite skepticism on DPF, Landis has been sounding downright cocky, telling an audience in Madison, WI., that he wants to bring down the UCI. This suggests he thinks he is holding cards are pretty darned good.
• The route for the 2007 Tour was announced. The introductory video didn't duck the doping issues, but was seen by some as being excessively critical and disrespectful of Landis.
• The UCI and the GT Organizations continue to snipe at each other. Too many instances to link.
  
• Operation Puerto has fizzled, with all riders apparently cleared, and no one charged with anything. This has frustrated McQuaid to no end. Basso out at CSC, Ullrich out at T-Mobile, both looking for teams. Astana doesn't have a ProTour license, and maybe not contracts for it's leading riders. Both are held by Saiz, implicated in Puerto, but not charged.
• We learn that Mr. Pound of WADA has a term that is expiring next year, and that the Euro candidate to replace him will be Lamour of France.

Proffered Defense

We need to keep in mind that Landis has said repeatedly that he has not revealed all of the defenses he will be offering, so we should be careful not to dismiss his case based only on the evaluation of what is currently known. The two likely presumptions are that he is holding back what he thinks is dynamite that will pretty conclusively make his case, or that he has nothing, and is trying to sow confusion.

What has been made public of the defense so far is intriguing, but not yet convincing for many people. As broken apart by the Wiki, based on discussions at DPF, the following Issues have so far been identified and considered:

1. TE confirmation - may have been done wrong, looks plausible to discredit.
   
2. CIR Positivity criteria - may be done differently by different labs; by loosest plausible standards he would be positive. This hinges on the interpretation of the snippet, "metabolite(s)" being either "all of the tested metabolites" or "any of the tested metabolites". Intelligent people can argue this till they are blue in the face.
   
3. Contamination - possible defense at first glance, sentiment is now that it was probably not contaminated, but this may get revisited.
   
4. Bogus delta 13C - unresolved, with suspicion that cortisone taken under TUE may have conflicted with that used as a reference compound.
   
5. Natural Variability - interesting, but may not be helpful for procedural reasons. The various studies supporting the test suggest he may be within one range of normal that doesn't happen to be the range used to set the criteria for the letter of the test. Should the arbitrators be literal rather than concerned about the spirit and correctness of the regulation, this is of no help to the defense.
   
6. Cortisone - has been dismissed in terms of its affect on 13C in testosterone metabolites, but its excreted effect on comparisons made with it as a reference compound are not yet fully explored.
   
7. Most reliable metabolite - this seemingly good argument has been discounted, but it subservient to the "positivity criteria" discussion. If it must be "all", then it matters; if "any", then it doesn't.
   
8. Doping Scenario - no one has come up with a doping plan that makes any sense in the context of the race situation. In particular, a theory that he got caught with a transfusion of tainted blood from an earlier program have been fairly thoroughly dismissed because of the mechanics of blood doping.
   
9. Paperwork - the paperwork botches on sample numbers noticed in the Filing seem very important to commenter's who work in or near labs, and essentially irrelevant to lay people. Unless there is something else to suggest a sample mix up, it appears to be merely embarrassing.
   
10. Beer. There is continued puzzlement what effect alcohol may have on CIR ratios, especially in an elite athletes who bonked and then drank while their body was trying desperately to replenish itself. The theory is considered speculative, inconclusive, and unlikely to have any effect on the case, even if it turns out to be true.
    

Trust But Verify

TBV experienced a massive traffic spike with the document release on October 12th, which has settled back to a lower level that is higher than before the release. Readers have been a big help finding items and commenting on pieces I've been unable to listen to or watch on my own.
Our special thanks to all those who have helped!

I keep hoping that we'll enter into some kind of lull, which would be good for my sleep schedule, but it hasn't happened yet.

Reflections

It should come as little surprise to anyone that the case has turned out to be quite complicated, at least to people who are willing to look at the evidence. Many people who had been pretty firmly convinced of Landis' culpability are now willing to consider that he may not have done anything. For the most part, they are unwilling to accept the defense that has been offered as being completely convincing, but they are willing to see that it is not open-and-shut clear. Better defense arguments may persuade a lot of people that he has been unjustly accused.

At the same time, there are fanatics of both persuasions who will never be convinced by anything, what Mr. Rumsfeld used to call "dead enders". All you can do is be patient and hope such people will eventually see reason.

Thanks for reading! We'll keep going as long as it takes to get to a resolution.

TBV

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Thursday Roundup

News

Ullrich cleared in Spain; ESPN's Kreider thinks it's good news for Landis.

If the result serves anyone, it may just be Landis, if for no other reason than that the Ullrich case makes it abundantly clear, once again, just how slippery the truth can be.

Tour Route unveiled -- CyclingNews, VeloNews/AFP, IHT/AP, Grauniad: 3547k, 11 flat, 2 ITT, 6 mountain, 3 mountain top finishes. AP:

In the presentation, the traditional eight-minute film ends with Landis on the winner's podium, with the screen then switching to become a cracked mirror.

Guardian:

Unfortunately, the issue today is not where the Tour goes, but rather the direction in which it and the sport it represents are headed.

The rhetoric from Prudhomme and Clerc has not moderated.

Reuters quotes Oscar and Prudhomme as more ambivalently waiting an outcome that is not under their control.

Pez passes on quote from Axel Merckx:

Floyd is a friend. If he has said to me that he is innocent, I believe him. Firstly because I have seen nothing and then because I don’t know why he would lie to me.

Same Pez article has outgoing TdF head Leblanc telling L'Equipe he is concerned

for the sport he loves becoming ‘dehumanised’ with the ProTour encouraging teams to become too big. This expansion of the teams to meet the ProTour demands is, according to Leblanc ruining the sport. “The big teams are becoming these big machines…one can not speak truly of the team spirit. There are riders in the same team who never meet each other.”

McEwen scoffs at the "shorten the tour to reduce doping" suggestion.

Hall of Fame Magazine considers Landis:

It's doubtful that we will ever know if Landis knowingly and willingly used synthetic testosterone to gain an unfair advantage. Even the most astute follower of the case may only reach a judgment call at best. . . .

In a brilliant tactical move, Floyd Landis has placed his entire defense of the charges online (www.floydlandis.com). It is perhaps, the single greatest case of Cyber Ethics put forth in our post-electronic society...

Quite honestly, the way immediate and mass opinion railed against Landis, we don't deserve the truth in this case.

Bradley Wiggens probably won't be sending Landis a Christmas card, based on comments reported in BikeBiz.

Snark 'o the Day
Tufts college paper with a top-ten list of cheaters. Landis at #2.[courtesy emailer Gene]

Forums
Anyone wanting to contribute to the DPF cursed by popularity fund can send donations via paypal here, according to this post.

Blogs
Rant returns with a chew on the unveiling: "Surreal"

PJ wonders about the geography depicted in the 2007 Tour logo, and also says the riders will make the race.

Podium Cafe calls the broken glass video classless, also considers contractual issues and DNA samples, finding the UCI position wanting. Comments agree with Landis that UCI should go away.

Smithers says Landis's chances in 2007 tour are less than excellent:

I can tell you for sure who is not going to win: Floyd Landis. Even if, by some miracle, he skates by being sanctioned and is allowed to race in 2007, Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) is never going to invite what ever team Landis finds himself on to race the 2007 event. That’s just the reality of it. ASO is still mortified that their race was tainted in 2006 and they have proven time and again that they can hold a grudge.

Quincy discusses Wikipedia Defense, misses the LandisCase wiki.

Mention of the Saris/Wisconsin fundraiser points to pictures here. Still has crutches in some of these shots. The Floyd Watch continues.

[end]

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Friday Roundup

News
Wisconsin Radio blurbs Landis appearance for bike paths, notes controversy.

Letters to CyclingNews are appalled by the lab work, critical of an attempt to hold to the one metabolite standard, and scathing to the organizations that shot their mouth off.

Letters to VeloNews all dope, all the time. Says one,

I am astounded to hear him [McQuaid] talk out of both sides of his mouth in his answer to the first question:

"iShares put this off because of what Floyd Landis did." followed shortly after with "As I keep saying over and over, until the process on Landis is completed, he still has the presumption of innocence."

Forums
At DPF, some interesting wandering may be turning something up on the cortisone interactions around post 316.

Blogs
Manic Cyclist has his impressions of Menonites [sic] change again.
J's Place says Not Guilty.
La Flamme Rouge reviews current affairs mostly LA and UCI, in google translation from Francais.

Brad Kearns, author a new Lance book, throws Floyd under the bus in an article titled, "Why Lance is Clean."

Neil bags interview with Landis for ROAD magazine, but doesn't spill anything.

PodCasts
Bloodthirsty Vegetarians riffs that "Floyd Landis thinks people are still listening..."; I haven't listened.

[end]

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The Wiki defense gets its Wiki

DPF participant Thomas A Fine, of research we've linked before, has started a Wiki for technical details. It's at LandisCase.wikispaces.com, and opened today after Tom spent several days setting up and seeding it. I've subscribed to the RSS feed and will post pointers here at TBV.

I hope Tom can get, collect, sift and organize the DPF material, which has gotten too fast moving and technical for me to do it justice. I'm out of time to do much more myself. With luck, this will produce coordinated investment of effort, resulting in dynamic synergy of the refactored disorganizational workload, as well as full ISO-9001 buzzword compliance.

[end]

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