Landis Explains What Is At Stake

"Key new information here is that Landis says he's has WADA scientists on his team and will testify that his test results are negative"

that was a hypothetical.... he said "even if I told you guys that..."

careful reader wrote:

"Key new information here is that Landis says he's has WADA scientists on his team and will testify that his test results are negative"

that was a hypothetical.... he said "even if I told you guys that..."

I believe he has clarified that a former WADA scientist is going to say his tests were negative.

So did they kill his father in law as a result of his positive test? I haven't really been following the situation, but I'm not sure how the death of his father in law could be a result of any of this.

AI wrote:

So did they kill his father in law as a result of his positive test? I haven't really been following the situation, but I'm not sure how the death of his father in law could be a result of any of this.

His father-in-law is also his best friend, and room-mate prior to his marriage. He introduced him to his daughter and Floyd married her (he was about 25 years older than Floyd). Point being they were very close and all their lives were woven together.

About a month after the tour end, when Floyd was at his low point, his father-in-law took his own life. Prior to to the end of the tour, their was few signs of depression. After the positive test, his father-in-law's life quickly went downhill until he comitted sucide.

Argue what you want but look at it from Floyd's angle. His life has been ruined, his reputation has been irreplacably harmed and his best friend killed himself. No, if he did not dope, how should he feel? Anger is an understatement.

Accusing a professional athelete of doping is serious business. The devastating mistake in this case was leaking the results of the a-sample. Had this all been a secret, none of this might have happened.

What you should have said had the lab followed protocol and prevented any media leaks until testing was completed, none of this might have happened.

God I hate you. Why say 'if he did not dope'? He DID dope. He tested positive and can only offer up a bucketload of rubbish excuses, none of which explain THE FACT THAT HE TESTED POSITIVE. The bad stuff that has happened to him since then (loss of respect of peers and even to some extent the suicide of his father in law) is HIS FAULT- he made that choice when he CHEATED. That is looking at it from Floyd's angle.

We have drug tests so we don't have to speculate about people's guilt. If you test positive you are guilty, and his positive test was in no way a surprise (massive comeback after previous day blowout anyone?).

xbcha1 wrote:

God I hate you. Why say 'if he did not dope'? He DID dope. He tested positive and can only offer up a bucketload of rubbish excuses, none of which explain THE FACT THAT HE TESTED POSITIVE. The bad stuff that has happened to him since then (loss of respect of peers and even to some extent the suicide of his father in law) is HIS FAULT- he made that choice when he CHEATED. That is looking at it from Floyd's angle.

We have drug tests so we don't have to speculate about people's guilt. If you test positive you are guilty, and his positive test was in no way a surprise (massive comeback after previous day blowout anyone?).

Your wrong, he did not test positive. The lab botched the test. That is the basis of his defense and many agree.

If you bother to look at the evidence, you understand he has a solid case and be appalled at how dope tests are handled.

But what the dope testers are hoping for is people that like you that don't bother with the details and completely and totally trust the guy in the white lab coats. You're no different than the pegans bowing before the kings that claim they are descendent from god. Never question authority, they always have your best interest at heart. Right?

Let's put this in a perspective you might be better adept at following. The law states that .08 BAC (blood alcohol content) is legally impaired. Pretend you had a single beer, decided to drive home, and on the way home, you were pulled over. The police officer gives you the whistle test, and you test .08 BAC. You're screwed, until... you and your lawyer find out that the officer didn't have his Breathalyzer calibrated per the PROTOCOL. Now let me ask you; are you going to go to court and argue that the officer DID NOT FOLLOW THE PROTOCOL, thus your test should be thrown out, or are you going to roll over and take it, because in all reality you actually had a beer?

Whether or not Landis took drugs is now a moot point because that lab handed him a "get out of jail free card" by not following the protocols that have been dictated to prevent problem tests.

I think the more apt analogy would be for a cop to pull you over to check if you're wearing your seatbelt. Then he springs a BAC breathalyzer on you - 4 TIMES in a row. The results: test 1 under, test 2 under, test 3 under, and test 4 over. You ask my tests are under or over what limit, and the cop replies there is no limit, but you're over it anyway.

I got a laugh from the post a few above that, about getting advice from lemond (i didn't quite get it until i read what he said in the article). Man, lemond sounds like a real jerk.

Casual Note wrote:

I think the more apt analogy would be for a cop to pull you over to check if you're wearing your seatbelt. Then he springs a BAC breathalyzer on you - 4 TIMES in a row. The results: test 1 under, test 2 under, test 3 under, and test 4 over. You ask my tests are under or over what limit, and the cop replies there is no limit, but you're over it anyway.

This is a good analogy.

But add to it your employer finds out that you were "drunk driving" and fires you. They withhold your huge year-end bonus, your reputation is ruined and you believe it contributed to the sucide of your father-in-law. Lastly, you neighbor is xbcha1 who screams "drunk" at every opportunity. When you try and explain why happened, he's not interested, all he cares is that the cops said you were drunk driving as he read the three sentences in the police blotter and that, to him, is iron clad proof you screwed up and should go directly to jail.

Any wonder he's angry and out to destroy the ABA's and UCI?

very good....this makes a great deal of sense. i just want to know who the ahole neighbor xbcha1 is. sounds like a real nice person.

All doping tests produce false positives.

That's why there are back-up tests.

If the back-up test is botched, mis-labled, etc. than the athlete must be considered innocent.

There's nothing worse than convicting an innocent man. Even if Landis is not an innocent man, the system MUST be administered to ensure that every benefit goes to the accused, not the accusor.

This is basic to any rational version of legal theory.

bump.

Lady Terps wrote:

All doping tests produce false positives.

That's why there are back-up tests.

If the back-up test is botched, mis-labled, etc. than the athlete must be considered innocent.

There's nothing worse than convicting an innocent man. Even if Landis is not an innocent man, the system MUST be administered to ensure that every benefit goes to the accused, not the accusor.

This is basic to any rational version of legal theory.

Very true. And consider that you're not allowed to argue the science in your defense. It HAS TO BE assumed to be correct (Mary Slaney's defense was the science was statistical crap, and while the appeal board was sympathetic to some of her claims, they could not rule on the science). You can only argue a mistake was made by the Lab.

So, if the athlete has agreed that the science is correct, then the lab CANNOT make any errors, no matter how trivial. Some of the errors in Landis case are NOT trivial, by WADA's rules the b-sample was containamented. But the language implies some wiggle room over the hard thresholds. If so, why even have a rule about cantainmation at all. As I argued before the if the free T ratio in the b-sample is above 5% (Landis' measure was 7.7%) and that means it containamted, then case closed no postive no exceptions.

If you cannot argue the science and Paris Lab cannot give you thresolds for what exactly is a positive test (in the "more accurate" IRMS/CIR test, not the t/e ratio), case closed no positive test. Call me when you have uniform standards and we can talk again (only the UCLA Lab and the Austrailian Lab Publish their standards are they do not agree).

If you admite to labelling errors, no matter how trivial, themn the entire chain of custody is in doubt. Case closed, no positive test.

Finally, to turn it around, if Landis loses despite all these problems, then we should lose confidence in the process. Wada wants to get rid of the b-sample. They just want to hand out bans 24 hours after the test without dissent. Allow this to happen and the entire process gets much much worse, not better.

as an elite athlete, i must say that this case has me really worried. i don't trust wada, and yet there seems to be nothing i can do about it. wada doesn't seem to giving a flying-f about athletes; they are just out to nail somebody, anybody. there must be a more transparent method then whatever the voodoo crap is they do behind closed doors.

i wish they'd just collect our blood on a weekly basis and keep all of our blood profiles on a public server for anybody to see, so that sudden large fluctuations in hormones/hematocrit/etc would raise a red flag.

The test he took I don't believe is as cut and dry as the BAC test. That is the basis of his defense. In order to test positive or negative a lot of TEST INTERPRETATION needs to be done. Part of his defense is that one lab would come back positive while another negative, that the lab procedures are extremely vague. That's his defense.

I think he was on something, just like every other elite cyclist on the tour. Doesn't matter to me. He won a race in which all of his closest competitors are doped to the gills. Would you rather see Bill Smith win the Tour? No Landis, no Basso, no Ullrich, no Armstrong, all the big names...gone in a flash, replaced with mere mortals. That isn't sport.

Alan

Although Dick Pound is canadian...His French roots are coming through enough that I think he's on a personal mission to sooth the battered French Cycling ego after the last 8 years of having to listen to the USA's National Anthem played on the Champs Elysees. This is purely his EGO attempting to try to take away something that was rightfully earned. Unfortunately, Mr. Pound will have his scandal unravvel faster then Nixon and Watergate.....The truth will come out, and will will be Mr. Pound found guilty of fraud. When this happens, I hope they throw the book at him for the wrongful death of Floyd's father in law as well.

Testosterone....it's not like an adrenaline shot that kicks in immediately. In order for it to start triggering the transcription of myofibril construction genes, it takes TIME. Even if Landis had pumped his body full of testosterone overnight, it would take at the very least a week and half before any muscular, VO2max or other benefits began to manifest themselves.