Fredke
05-25-2007, 07:53 AM
A nice account of the whole Landis trial from Joe Lindsey (http://boulderreport.bicycling.com/2007/05/which_way_out.html):At the Floyd Fairness Fund roadshow, a major point of Dr. Arnie Baker’s PowerPoint presentation was given over to supposed sample contamination. None of that was introduced at trial. We were told that the science behind the tests was not nearly as bulletproof as its proponents claimed. At trial, the bedrock science of the test was never seriously challenged, only whether the lab personnel accurately ran the test. We were told that USADA had willfully – possibly even criminally – obstructed Landis’ access to documents. None of that information was ever the focus of testimony at trial, although it was the sniping point of a number of objections by Landis’ lawyers. We were told that Landis’ independent observers were barred from observing some of the proceedings at the testing of Landis’ other B samples from the Tour de France. This particular allegation was so incendiary that it was the subject of its very own press conference just weeks prior to the hearing. At trial, Paul Scott, one of those experts, did not testify. The other, Simon Davis, did, but not on that count. What we did hear was Cynthia Mongongu, one of the IRMS technicians at the lab, testify that she felt so pressured by the observers that she felt compelled to slap down a piece of tape and admonish them that they were not to cross it. Finally, we were given the bomb that USADA had tried to coerce Landis to give up information on an athlete “he could only infer was Lance Armstrong” in exchange for a lighter sentence. At trial, the only time Lance Armstrong came up was during Howard Jacobs’ attempted cross-examination of Greg LeMond, who refused to answer the questions.
That’s what we expected to see, but didn’t. Both sides were limited to 23 hours of direct- and cross-examination of witnesses, but since Landis spent three experts talking almost solely about lab practices like manual versus automatic calibration and identifying peaks, it’s hard to argue he simply ran out of time to discuss these issues which seemed so important before.
...
Floyd has done nothing to materially convince me of his evidence. He might win a narrow technical victory, but all he’s done then is to show that the authorities were competent enough to find something weird in five of his eight samples, but incompetent enough to be unable to prove conclusively that it was synthetic testosterone. Legally, a win’s a win, but saying that someone can’t prove you did it is a far cry from proving that you didn’t.
For that, Landis relied on a character defense – he wouldn’t cheat to win the Tour because it would be a hollow, meaningless victory. Sorry, no dice. Such a statement – even under oath – is about as authentic as the Cinco de Mayo menu at the Applebee’s in Minnetonka.
...
But if Landis became collateral damage from his own public relations strategy, he also scored a direct hit on the anti-doping system, which is showing its fallibility. The all-important question – an issue of arguably greater importance than the outcome of this trial – is what we do about it.
I credit Floyd’s trial for exposing these problems; in doing so, he’s actually done the sports world a service. Should Landis win, he may try to press his luck - anything from suing USADA to trying to pressure Congress to slash its budget. And the agency – the entire anti-doping movement – needs change. It may also need some new people running that change.
The anti-doping world needs to change, but the cycling world does too. But I no longer believe that Floyd is in this for anything other than his own narrow purposes, whatever high-minded rhetoric he has about making the system fair to athletes; as such, I want Floyd nowhere near any reform efforts.
That’s what we expected to see, but didn’t. Both sides were limited to 23 hours of direct- and cross-examination of witnesses, but since Landis spent three experts talking almost solely about lab practices like manual versus automatic calibration and identifying peaks, it’s hard to argue he simply ran out of time to discuss these issues which seemed so important before.
...
Floyd has done nothing to materially convince me of his evidence. He might win a narrow technical victory, but all he’s done then is to show that the authorities were competent enough to find something weird in five of his eight samples, but incompetent enough to be unable to prove conclusively that it was synthetic testosterone. Legally, a win’s a win, but saying that someone can’t prove you did it is a far cry from proving that you didn’t.
For that, Landis relied on a character defense – he wouldn’t cheat to win the Tour because it would be a hollow, meaningless victory. Sorry, no dice. Such a statement – even under oath – is about as authentic as the Cinco de Mayo menu at the Applebee’s in Minnetonka.
...
But if Landis became collateral damage from his own public relations strategy, he also scored a direct hit on the anti-doping system, which is showing its fallibility. The all-important question – an issue of arguably greater importance than the outcome of this trial – is what we do about it.
I credit Floyd’s trial for exposing these problems; in doing so, he’s actually done the sports world a service. Should Landis win, he may try to press his luck - anything from suing USADA to trying to pressure Congress to slash its budget. And the agency – the entire anti-doping movement – needs change. It may also need some new people running that change.
The anti-doping world needs to change, but the cycling world does too. But I no longer believe that Floyd is in this for anything other than his own narrow purposes, whatever high-minded rhetoric he has about making the system fair to athletes; as such, I want Floyd nowhere near any reform efforts.