Friday Roundup

News
Letters to cyclingnews.com contain four more comments about the LNDD, none positive.

Stepping up on the soap box, we don't like people identifying the LNDD as the "French anti-doping lab". We try to avoid calling it that, because we don't like confusing this particular lab with xenophobia about the French. It's not that "French lab" is wrong, it's that it is used and read at times to imply some "French conspiracy" or "French incompetence" which is not helpful to the discussion. It's best not to make the generalization, because it raises hackles that ought to be left smoothed down. If forced to avoid saying "LNDD" because that assumes certain knowledge, it seems best to say "the Landis Lab" or "the Lab in the Landis case". It's true that saying "French" is more specific, but it has become a codeword that carries inappropriate connotation, and should therefore be avoided. Thanks, we'll be here all week.

The Canadian National Press inflates Mr. Pound's ego by crediting him with, "Saying all the right things." I had to clean my monitor off from what happened when I read that.

Forums
Over at the wasteland that is Topix, pit bulls continue making arguments that Landis is guilty of another offense, taking an illegal IV after stage 16. I have made the counter-argument that if the UCI and USADA thought this was a viable charge, he would have been hit with it by now. This has been met with the retort, "wait and see."

This suggests that an "October surprise" from USADA would be a new charge of a non-analytical violation because of the IV. It's hard to say how plausible this would be. IVs are widely used in the evenings, and the prohibition exists to avoid morning IVs that bring the hematocrit down for the "vampire" tests. Trying to charge Landis over an IV at night would open a large can of worms. Doing it in a way that would be fair would probably involve charging every top 20 finisher of a grant tour in the last 20 years. Trying to spring it on Landis would be a pretty desperate move. It would be an indication the initial case was failing, or an attempt to bleed Landis by making him defend another front.

It would be great if journalists would ask ask some pointed questions about IV use to people at the UCI, USA Cycling, USADA, and WADA when the opportunity arises.

• Has anyone in cycling ever been charged for post-race use of an IV?
  
• If so, who and when?
  
• Is post-race use of IVs in Grand Tours widely done?
• Would the UCI refer or support a case involving post-race use of an IV?
  

Blogs
TBV tries to distill the best case for the Landis defense made by Duckstrap at DPF.

Smithers argues the handwriting-of-the-sample-numbers arguments is a loser, with pictures. He also relates new ProCycling article quoting SIAB's Audren as promoting the long term doping theory, with botched masking epitestosterone on S17. JaredRoy picks Smithers up.

Has any reader got the print ProCycling with the article they could summarize for us?

Access to the longitudinal data would enlighten this discussion, but it's been rejected, even though USADA has it. Posters at Topix have been flogging this theory, but it's all moot if Landis can convince people the results are negative. It's been my "most sensible" doping scenario for a long time.

Team-Swap thinks Landis would have come in 4th but for Puerto.

Neal@Road says Landis is a good interview, but Zabriskie is gold.

Web
The Wikipedia has standards, don't cha know, and "Wikipedia Defense" doesn't meet them, meaning no article about it. So there. I guess Colbert would have to use the term to make it qualify. [courtesy TAF]

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AFT (Water Carrier) and what people believe

Over at Rant Your Head Off, there have been several articles about the Anonymous Fortune Teller, who we've called AFT.

AFT himself started commenting over there feeling I'd chased him away. I tried to apologize. To make up, I'll give him his own article here...

[more]

[continuation]

At Rant, he expressed annoyance that I'd named him AFT, forgetting he'd said it himself:

Hi from your anonymous fortune teller.

so I feel justified, if not vindicated. I picked "ferret" out of a hat as well, without consulting the designee. Any other Anonymous should be wary if you leave me to the handle giving.

He says he'd rather be called "Water Carrier", and makes the following claims:

1. I almost made it to the Olympics (with a few 1,000 others…)
   
2. I rode with Lance (like a few 1,000 others…)
   
3. I was “in” the Tour (as a rider you ask?)
   
4. I race (what license, you scream!)
   
5. I have contacts who tell me inside scoop.
   
6. I rode with Jan (to hell?)
   
7. Riders have told me about their doping in ways not to endanger themselves(some of it rather amateurish)
8. I have never doped (unless you count caffeine)

For #1, he doesn't say it he got to trials or was ranked for possible selection;
for #2, it might in be the Tour of Roses;
for #3, he's right, we don't know if it was as a rider; nor do we know he's an American;
for #4, he might race SCCA automobiles, or cross-country skiing;
for #5, he may live near a coffeehouse in Girona;
for #6, I don't know what to think;
for #7, hardly surprising;
for #8, who cares unless he's trying to make us think he's not Frankie;

Rant made some guesses, but I'm too lazy to play, and I'm not sure how much I care. The hearts of AFT's claims are interesting rumour, but the import is not clear.

• The "word" is that Floyd blood-doped: there's no evidence of this, but the claim is that this is widely believed in the peloton. There's not easy way for an outsider to validate the claim.
  
• And the blood was contaminated in some way that led to the positive: the science seems to be arguing against this possibility. Given the dubious science used in doping, that is not as strong a counter-argument as it might be. Almost anything could have happened, I suppose.
• There is an Illuminati running American cycling, with Weisel, Lance and Och at the top of the pyramid. You're either on board with them, or not: Let's pretend this is true.
  
• Landis is getting the bum's rush because he's pissed off the conspiratorial Powers of American Cycling by not playing ball with Lance and the Discovery team: Which doesn't compute with the rumours that Lance has given money to the defense, or even with the supportive co-appearance on Larry King. If Lance had wanted hang him out to dry, he could have skipped that show easily enough. Why would these Illuminati want to destroy an American TdF champion, for whatever reason? How can this be good for their long-term investments in the sport and their teams?
  

I said in a comment to his recent post that his stories have the fascination of Area 51 UFO legends. It is not so much what the truth of the story is (which may not be known, ever), but the way they seem like they could be believable. How and why people might believe them are interesting reflections of those believers. Why they might be rejected reflects the worldviews of those people as well.

My opinion about the the whole thing is that circumstances are far more mundane than a grand conspiracy. I've always leaned towards the "he didn't do anything wrong" position, and nothing has moved me from that posture. This may mark me as naive, but so be it.

It seems most likely to me to multiply simple human error by bureucratic entrenchment. Something wrong happened at the lab that wasn't recognized, and an initial positive was made. This rapidly escalated to a point where the heavy rhetoric was employed. It became impossible for any other explanation to be considered by the officialdom, and the same problems were experienced to get the expected results in the B sample. After more spouting, calmer heads prevail in some organizations, but USADA is saddled with a charged case it feels it cannot lose for all kinds of political reasons. This leads them to progressively harden their position into near absurdity.

That's where we are now, I think.

Landis can still get screwed unless he comes up with concrete evidence of problems at the lab, for which he may need discovery he may not get.

It will help if there are provable inconsistencies in the interpretations of the tests as seen at various places by the labs with expertise. Maybe there cases, perhaps Turnbull, that were judged negative or inconclusive by some other labs, but would have been positive by the criteria that appear to have been used in his case. That's tricky -- a narrow view of the rules could say that the Lab gets its own criteria, and the LNDD is entitled to use the set it uses.

It might help Landis can find evidence of an LNDD operator spending August holiday in a Hamburg brothel paid for by some Swiss account, but that seems pretty unlikely.

A lot is going to depend on the neutral arbitrator -- if it is someone who is concerned about the truth, he'll be in better stead than if it is someone with a reputation for strict constructionism.

As for AFT/Water Carrier, I'm happy to have him around. What he says makes us all think, and that is rarely a bad thing to do.

TBV

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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.

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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.

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