The UCI Must Abandon LNDD and WADA

Current Red Flag: The "Whistle Blower" Documents

The latest news of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) head Pierre Bordry seeking an international arrest warrant of Arnie Baker and Floyd Landis to testify to issues related to alleged hacking of LNDD computer networks by Kargus Consultants should be the last straw for the International Cycling Union (UCI). If the "whistle blower" documents are validated in a French court as authentic and not forgeries, then this would end a long trail of misdeeds by LNDD. The "whistle blower" documents are provided by Arnie Baker in the Floyd Landis wiki defense "What's Fair is Clear Slide Show." The "whistle blower" documents provide a history of mis-identification of athletes and an organized attempt by LNDD to destroy evidence to obstruct judicial inquiries. If the content of "whistle blower" documents prove to be valid and correct; not some deranged fabrication by a demented author, then this should be the last straw even for the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA). The WADA laboratory located at Chatenay-Malabry, France should immediately lose it's accreditation and be subjected to a judicial inquiry by anti-corruption Judge Tom Cassuto.

WADAwatch has written a brilliant argument of the Kargus Consultants LNDD hacking incident. WADAwatch insists that Pierre Bordry must prove that the contents of the "whistle blower" documents are authentic in court; a mere belief or assertion of the factual basis of these arguments by the AFLD is not enough to establish a crime. Therefore, Pierre Bordry would have to provide to the court not only the author of the documents but other witnesses who were responsible for the original mis-identification of athletes and the people who requested that the lab document packages of these mis-identified athletes be destroyed by LNDD. Until the AFLD fulfills these requirements WADAwatch insists that neither Floyd Landis or Arnie Baker need comply with the AFLD request to appear for interrogation since the basis of a crime of hacking has not been established.

Pierre Bordry and the AFLD should heed the parable of "give them enough rope." The AFLD is doing more to discredit LNDD than Arnie Baker could ever do by highlighting alleged mis-deeds of LNDD in the "What's Fair is Clear Slide Show." If Judge Cassuto requires the AFLD to meet the requirements outlined by WADAwatch then the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will have no other choice but to revoke LNDD's accreditation and the International Cycling Union (UCI) will have no other choice but to find another laboratory to do testing for the 2009 Tour de France.

Historical Precedent: Red Flag. The Vrijman Report.

The UCI has had plenty of warnings about LNDD and has ignored them to the peril of athletes world wide. In the Vrijman Report Emile Vrijman made the following statement in reference to the assertion that Lance Armstrong and six other athletes had tested positive for traces of r-EPO during the 1999 Tour de France.

1.15 "The results reported by the LNDD that found their way into the L'Equipe article are not what they have been represented to be. They did not involve proper testing of urine samples, as explained in this report. While the testing conducted may have been useful for research purposes-which remains to be determined-the failure of the underlying research to comply with any applicable standard and the deficiencies in the report render it completely irresponsible for anyone involved in doping control testing to even suggest that the analyses results that were reported constitute evidence of anything. To suggest in any way that any of the analyses results could properly be associated with a particular rider or riders, is misleading and constitutes as least gross negligence, given the complete absence of an internal or external chain of custody, proper record keeping and security with respect to the urine samples from the 1998 and the 1999 Tours de France that were tested, and the absence of any protection against samples having been spiked with r-EPO or contamination by other samples.

The investigation recommends the UCI to refrain from initiating any disciplinary actions whatsoever regarding those riders alleged to have been responsible for causing one or more alleged 'positive' findings, on the basis of the confidential reports of the LNDD 'Recherche EPO Tour de France 1998' and 'Recherche EPO Tour de France 1999' and to inform all the riders involved that no action will be taken based on research testing by the LNDD."

Emile Vrijman's concerns about the validity of the 1998-1999 Tour de France rEPO results were amplified by statements made by Montreal WADA accredited laboratory director Dr. Christiane Ayotte in a August 23, 2005 VeloNews article. "Ayotte was extremely surprised at her laboratory 'that urine samples could have been tested in 2004 and have revealed the presence of EPO. EPO in its natural state on the synthesized version- is not stable in urine, even if stored at -20 degrees Celsius. EPO is a protein hormone and it is not stable in urine, even when kept frozen.'" Given this caveat by Christiane Ayotte it is impossible to understand how synthetic r-EPO isoforms could measure 100% from the 1999 Tour de France prologue test even if the Lance Armstrong sample was spiked in 1999. A far better explanation would be that the 1999 prologue sample was tampered with in 2004 by someone who had knowledge of the anti-doping report form number assigned to the sample and displayed on the bottle. Emile Vrijman reported that the anti-doping report form numbers were coded on the bottles at the time the tests were conducted; at the insistence of WADA president Dick Pound.

More to come.