Cyclists: Keep A Paper Trail

My cycling buddy and me were discussing the Floyd Landis case the other day when he asked, "so who is next?" After a startled exchange of glances we both came to the same conclusion: Leipheimer.

I have never been much of a fan of Levi Leipheimer. He always seems to get dropped on one H.C. climb during the Tour de France. The 2007 Tour was no exception. After Stage 15, Leipheimer was fourth on General Classification. If Leipheimer was to move up in General Classification he would have to put out an extraordinary effort during brutal Stage 16, Orthez to Col D' Aubisque. Orthez to Col D' Aubisque contained one category 3, two category 1, and two H.C. (beyond category) climbs with a mountain top finish. Unfortunately, even though Leipheimer and his Discovery Channel teammate Alberto Contador attacked throughout the climb with explosive out of the saddle efforts, Michael Rasmussen, wearing the golden fleece, dropped both Contador and Leipheimer near the summit of the Col D' Aubisque. Calmly riding tempo while waving off a television motorcycle Rasmussen soloed home to win the stage. Leipheimer finished Stage 16 :26 behind Rasmussen. Leipheimer also remained fourth on General Classification at 5:59. One more year of almost making the podium.

Then disaster struck. After winning the stage in pure Marco Pantani style, alone, Michael Rasmussen looked a sure winner of the Tour. Next day accusations surfaced that Rasmussen had missed mandatory out-of-competition drug tests prior to the Tour, and that he had lied about his whereabouts to the UCI. Rasmussen claimed to be with family in Mexico while in reality he was training in Italy. Rasmussen was fired by his Rabobank team the day after he won Stage 16. The Tour suddenly had no clear cut winner. Contador, Cadel Evans at 1:53, and Leipheimer at 2:47. In the most improbable way Leipheimer looked like a sure podium finisher after all.

The 2007 Tour de France final General Classification was a pure shock to me. (1) Alberto Contador (2) Cadel Evans at :25 (3) Levi Leipheimer at :31. The closest podium finish in Tour history. I suddenly realized that Levi Leipheimer could win the Tour de France after all.

After the smoke cleared, Operation Puerto and rouge doctor Eufemiano Fuentes raised it's ugly head. Spanish Guardia Civil raided Dr. Fuentes offices. Spanish Guardia Civil found stored blood bags, vials of Epogen (EPO) other prohibited substances and coded records of athletes who had business dealings with Fuentes. DNA typing identified 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich as owner of bags of the stored blood. Giro d' Italia winner Ivan Basso was also identified as a patient of Fuentes who had his blood manipulated with performance enhancers. Also implicated was 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador. Although the Spanish Cycling Federation cleared Contador of all wrong doing there is still a possibility of appeal by the UCI, WADA, or both to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. Speculation is rife that Contador will not be allowed to start the 2008 Tour de France if he is still under Operation Puerto suspicion. Suddenly, the prospect of Levi Leipheimer winning the 2008 Tour de France looms larger than ever.

Why should the prospect of Levi Leipheimer winning the 2008 Tour de France be of concern to cycling fans? The UCI, WADA, and several Pro Tour cycling teams have advocated a biological passport, a record of biological markers such as hematocrit values for riders that would be stored on a massive Internet accessible data base. The data would be assembled by five WADA accredited labs and testing records from Pro Tour teams would be added to the WADA data for a more comprehensive profile of riders' physiological composition. I applaud the efforts of Pro Tour Teams CSC, Astana, Slipstream, and High Road to combat doping and I hope they are successful in their endeavours. However, I would be more assured of the commitment of WADA if they would be more transparent and tell us which WADA accredited labs, beyond reproach, they intend to employ to do the testing for the biological passport.

May I make a suggestion to WADA? Do not use the WADA accredited lab at Chatenay-Malabry. As we saw from the Floyd Landis fiasco the computers at Chatenay-Malabry are not secure and prone to access by hackers. The criminal who hacked the Chatenay-Malabry lab was never identified by the French police. The documents leaked to the press although never authenticated suggested a cover-up of persistent incompetence. A vicious rumor as to the source of the leak as Floyd Landis or one of his entourage spread by l'Equipe was never verified. The story disappeared from the radar shortly afterwards.

A warning to WADA and Pro Tour cycling teams. Biological passport information of riders, including DNA profiles would be an inviting target for hackers to manipulate the results of a Grand Tour such as the Giro d' Italia or the Tour de France by some malcontent who is not satisfied by the results of the race. Your security encryption should be subjected on a regular basis to simulated attacks to prevent tampering with biological passport blood or urine profile data, or to copy allele sequences of rider DNA.

To WADA accredited labs and Pro Tour cycling teams, keep flawless records free of sloppy forensic erasures and maintain a clear and convincing chain-of-custody of these records. Keep these biological passport records under lock and key and away from unauthorized personnel. Your creditability and some future rider's professional career may depend upon it. Points of contention between biological passports and forensic tests during Grand Tours may have to be resolved by paper records, not imputed electronic data storage. Your credibility and the future of cycling as a sport is in your hands. Be responsible. Considering the history of Chatenay-Malabry, Levi Leipheimer's possible 2008 Tour de France victory may have to be fairly contested using paper records.

A word of advice to Pro Tour teams: Refrain from submitting profile records with illegal erasures, "white out" of rider identification numbers, or lab document packages that contain numerous coding errors. WADA accredited labs may submit this sort of nonsense to arbitration hearings and win cases against athletes. But an athlete can not submit supportive evidence full of mistakes or without a rock solid chain-of-custody. WADA, USADA, other Anti-Doping Organizations or International Federations would argue that the data would be inadmissible as evidence. An Arbitration Panel would absolutely agree. In the case of an athlete, no presumption of innocence exists in arbitration, unlike WADA accredited labs that can do no wrong. You have been warned.

I must assert that no amount of longitudinal data, at the cost of millions of dollars, can actually refute incompetent lab work. One false positive will sink you as sure as the Titanic. This is a fact of life for which there is no defense.

Jon