Doubting Martin Dugard Part 1

Martin Dugard has appointed himself as all knowing in
the realm of cycling psychology and he has an opinion
as expressed in an article, DOUBTING FLOYD. Dugard
expresses his opinion that Floyd Landis doped to
recover from the Stage 16 "bonk" and he considers the
Stage 17 "recovery" as physiologically impossible
without dope. As a matter of fact Martin Dugard
opines a masterful piece of disinformation. Dugard
maintains that Landis has such a unique physiology
that a topical testosterone cream can speed recovery
from a bonk. The amount of additional recovery testosterone adds to a bonk that is based on glucose depletion is a constant source of debate, some experts claim testosterone provides insignificant improvement, others claim testosterone provides no improvement at all, and some even claim that testosterone would reduce performance after a bonk not improve it. I challenge Dugard to ride a course, bonk, replenish glucose, apply a topical testosterone solution, re-ride the course after "recovery" and measure his riding performance. The probability of a Landis like improvement based upon glucose + testosterone is zero. If your power output is 425 watts under normal training conditions acute applications of a topical testosterone is not going to make you into a 600 watt superman.


Where Were The Other Teams?

Dugard should re-view the Stage 17 Landis attack. The
chasing teams did nothing, merely rode tempo hoping
Landis would "bonk" again. There was no attempt to
chase until the gap to Floyd Landis was 9:00, far too
late to reel him in.

Why Did The AAA Majority Discard the Chatenay-Malabry
Testosterone/Epitestosterone Ratio?
Dugard maintains that Landis' testosterone level was
so high that Dick Pound decided that he could service
every virgin in a radius of fifty miles? Sorry Martin
but the AAA majority did not agree with you or Dick
Pound. Read the AAA decision next time and stop
misleading people. Fact is LNDD ran four Stage 17
testosterone/epitestosterone screen tests, 4.9:1,
5.1:1, 11.4:1, and one was discarded. Guess which one
Chatenay Malabry used as a basis for the Adverse
Analytical Finding? 11:1. The 11:1 result was not
accepted by the AAA majority and the two
and a half year suspension was based on a single
metabolite delta/delta score, remember Martin?
Another thing, if Landis was so full of testosterone
why did not all of the metabolites show similar
scores? Why were three metabolites below the 3 per
mil threshold? This indicates no use of synthetic
testosterone. Even Campbell in his dissent commented
on this fact. If Chatenay-Malabry would have taken
the published uncertainty of +/-.8 mil into account
and admitted that the laboratory measurement may have
been in error, then there is a high probability that
the IRMS measurements would have been declared
inconclusive. Then WADA TD 2004 EAAS would have
called for longitudinal studies by out-of-
competition tests to determine base line scores unique
to Landis' physiology. If an IRMS is deemed inconclusive,
WADA TD 2004 EAAS calls for a measurement of
Testosterone/Luteinizing hormone as supportive evidence.
As a matter of fact two blood tests of Landis were taken
during the 2006 Tour de France. The evidence was available.
And Floyd Landis did request longitudinal tests which
USADA, the UCI, and WADA refused to conduct.

Why Did the Blood Profile Data Not Find A Suppression
in Luteinizing Hormone?

Now I could accept the delta/delta score as accurate
if the gonadotrophin luteinizing hormone; measured by
blood sampling not urine would have been suppressed.
If Landis was using topical synthetic testosterone
luteinizing hormone would have been suppressed. Even
Don Catlin admitted that this did not happen. Why?
More of the Landis miracle physiology? I have yet had
a single person explain how a man can raise the level
of testosterone in his system by introduction of
synthetic testosterone and not suppress luteininzing
hormone from stimulating the Leydig cells to produce
endogenous testosterone. Even though this directly
contradicts the LNDD single metabolite theory of synthetic
testosterone use by Floyd Landis.

Why Did the Anti-Doping Review Board Ignore the
Testosterone/Luteinizing Hormone Evidence?

This medical impossibility was completely ignored by
the AAA majority because there was a single metabolite
above the 3 per mil threshold for exogenous
testosterone. The Carbon Isotope Ratio was accepted a
"bullet proof" and the people who ran the test were
considered to be "infallible." Chatenay-Malabry as a
WADA accredited lab could not back down and admit that
an error might have been made. Even if Paul Scott
stated in his testimony that proper testing with an
GC/C/IRMS could not be done without an operating
manual. The manual was missing when the Stage 17 tests
were done, of course.

COFRAC, AFLD, and the Landis French Suspension

The COFRAC auditors were supposed to check for these
things, under contract for AFLD, right? These audits
were required for accreditation of Chatenay-Malabry as
a WADA/IOC laboratory, correct? This is probably why COFRAC
certified the Chatenay-Malabry results as
correct in the AFLD decision. Please. The AFLD
Landis decision is very complex and would probably
require a very detailed legal analyses. For more
information concerning the Landis AFLD decision please
visit WADAwatch.

Where do I go to study all of the Landis Case
Scientific Issues?

Unfortunately the scientific issues are very complex
and long winded and it would take a very large book to
compile them all. Issues I mentioned in this article
have bothered me the most although they may be some of
the more trivial ones. For a more in depth look at
the scientific issues in the Landis case I would
suggest everyone visit the Landis case information blog
Trust but Verify.

Forget the Science Let's Attack Landis' Character

Once again Martin Dugard like so many other sport writers
who are experts in the Landis case ignore the scientific
issues of the case and instead dwell into the character issues.
First, Dugard mentions Landis' upbringing in the Mennonite
culture and how Floyd defied his father by escaping at night
to train on his mountain bike. Reading between the lines we
can almost discern a sinister suggestion that if the black sheep
of the family would resort to disobeying the biblical injunction
of "honor thy father and mother" and to revolt against the cannons of his faith to "renounce the material world" that it would be no small matter for Floyd to use a topical testosterone cream in order to cheat the competition and win the Tour de France. Dugard seems to delight in Floyd Landis' defiance of his father and later he makes a weird analogy to defiance of his cycling mentor "father figure" Lance Armstrong. Dugard is giving us all an implication that if Floyd Landis would abandon his mentor in the quest for money and glory then certainly he is falling into temptation of athletic greed and avarice. Floyd Landis suddenly is a man without a qualm who would resort to any tactic, even "lies" to become a "legend" of cycling.

Astana, Tailwind Sport, Discovery Channel, Rest in Peace

This time Pat McQuaid is right to stand up to the ASO.
Every time the UCI backs down Grand Tour organizers
fancy they can make new demands. McQuaid gave the
Grand Tours a waiver from the Pro Tour. Then the UCI
backed down when Unibet was excluded from 2007
Paris-Nice.

Then Astana was forced to abandon the 2007 Tour de
France at ASO insistence after Alexander Vinokurov
tested "positive" for homologous blood doping. As a
result of this doping "violation" and withdrawal
Unipublic denied Astana an invite for the 2007 Vuelta.
In every instance McQuaid and the UCI did nothing to
intervene even though Astana was an official UCI Pro
Tour Team. After all Astana deserved to be punished
for doping offenses and nobody was ready to rush to
the defense of dopers.

Even when Angelo Zomegnan of RCS excluded Astana from
the 2008 Giro d' Italia citing Astana's "disrespect"
did McQuaid and the UCI remain mute.

Nothing would have compelled the UCI to act if ASO
would have let Alberto Contador defend his Tour de
France and Paris-Nice titles. But Christian Pruhomme
and Patrice Clerc went too far when they announced
that Astana was to be excluded from the Tour de France
and other ASO organized events.

Finally Pat McQuaid realized the danger.

How Did We Get Here?

The original problem was the number of Pro Tour teams.
The UCI started the Pro Tour with twenty teams. The
Grand Tours objected saying the rider field of 200
riders was too large. Quick Step manager Patrick
Lefevere agreed as spokesman for the International
Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT) with this
concern. The Grand Tours also wanted room to invite
non Pro Tour wild card teams.

When the reduction of the number of the Pro Tour teams
was discussed cycling fans were skeptical of
Lefevere's motives. At the time the Tour de France
was dominated by Lance Armstrong and US Postal, soon
to be Lance Armstrong and Discovery Channel.

I had a suspicion that Lefevere was hoping that the
reduction in Pro Tour teams would be aimed straight at
Lance Armstrong and Tailwind Sport. It is common
knowledge that the Europeans hated Armstrong's
domination of the Tour. It is also common knowledge
that the Europeans hated an American team winning the
Tour year after year. When Alberto Contador won the
bizarre 2007 Tour de France for Discovery Channel by default;
under the tutelage of Johan Bruyneel and Levi
Leipheimer placed third on the podium; the European
cycling powers must have decided that a new course of
action was needed.

Much to the relief of European cycling Discovery
Channel changed management and decided to end their
cycling sponsorship. Unless Lance Armstrong could
secure a new sponsor Tailwind Sport was out as a
cycling competitor. It soon became apparent to
everyone that Tailwind Sport and Lance Armstrong were
not going to find a new sponsor. It was later
reported that Armstrong warned off potential
replacements for Discovery Channel probably sensing
another senseless onslaught by the European cycling
power structure.

Enter Astana As A Replacement Sponsor For Discovery

When Discovery Channel left the fold a void was
created. The defending Tour de France champion
Alberto Contador and third place finisher Levi
Leipheimer were left without a team to race for.
Director Sportif Johan Bruyneel was also left without
a team to direct.

Team Astana saved the situation by signing Contador,
Leipheimer, and Bruyneel to racing and managing
contracts for 2008. In addition, Astana signed
Andreas Kloden after T-Mobile ended their sponsorship
in 2007.

Oh No Here We Go Again.

Just when everybody was savoring the demise of Lance
Armstrong and Discovery Channel, Astana comes along
and assembles an even stronger team with many of the
same cast that has dominated the Tour de France for
eight of the past nine years.

Panic! Get Out The Cannons!

The non-invite by Angelo Zomegnan and RCS to the 2008
Giro d' Italia was no accident. What Patrick Lefevere
and the IPCT could not do by design (probably to
protect the economic interests of Quick Step in
forcing out Tailwind and Armstrong) Zomegnan did by
ruse to punish Astana for the Alexander
Vinokurov/Andrey Kashekin homologous blood doping
"positives." Ignored was the re-organization of the
Astana team and the implementation of a new internal
team anti-doping program run by Dr. Damsgaard.
Ignored was the 400,000 euro team commitment to the
UCI biological passport by Astana. Zomegnan also based
his exclusion of Astana on a flimsy excuse that
Leipheimer only wanted to race the Giro as a
conditioning exercise. Andreas Kloden's racing goals
were completely ignored, of course.

ASO Goes Too Far

Christian Prudhomme announces that Astana, including
defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador,
and past podium finishers Levi Leipheimer and Andreas
Kloden are to be excluded from the Tour de France.
ASO also announces that team Astana and defending
Paris-Nice champion Alberto Contador will be excluded
from Paris-Nice.

McQuaid Awakens

Suddenly, the UCI awakens. McQuaid declares that ASO
is trying to undermine the UCI's authority. McQuaid
declares that ASO is trying to dominate the racing
structure in Europe. McQuaid demands a rider and team
boycott of Paris-Nice. McQuaid threatens sanctions of
riders and expulsions of teams from the UCI Pro Tour
who participate in Paris-Nice.

Fall Out

It is almost laughable that when this planned and
approved destruction of Astana as a Pro Tour team came
to fruition the fatalities may be the entire UCI Pro
Tour organization. And the UCI as a regulatory body.

Don't Think Twice -Bob Dylan

Please don't consider loss of sponsorship, loss of fans,
loss of respectability, loss of revenue, and general
disdain for the Grand Tour organizers and their races.
Please don't think of the riders careers which are in
jeopardy. Think only of yourselves, ASO, UCI, RCS,
Unipublic, IPCT, as the selfish power hungry
narcissists you truly are. Go on with your power wars
and see how many causalities you have next year in
team sponsorships and revenues. See how long you can
offend us the fans before we turn our televisions and
radios off!

ASO and France might finally get racing parity and
even a French Tour de France winner some day if the
UCI Pro Tour goes with the wind. Even if people laugh
at the poor quality of the riders and teams in the
"new" Tour de France.

A warning to cycling teams everywhere: don't dominate
the Tour. People will think of any reason to be rid of
you. Your team and riders will be victimized next.
Your sport might not survive next time.

To Astana. If ASO takes over you are done. All that
will be left is to stick in the fork. You will never
get an invite to the Tour de France again. The
destruction of U.S. Postal, Discovery Channel,
Tailwind Sport, and Lance Armstrong will be complete.

Congratulations!

Paris-Nice: Cyclists Strike!

Enough! It is time the riders took matters into their own hands. All of the invited team riders should show up for Paris-Nice, ride one kilometer, stop, lay down their bikes and refuse to ride another inch. Strike! Just like they did in the 1998 Tour de France. If the ASO and the UCI can not immediately resolve their issues and write a joint communique of agreement, the teams should pack up and go home.

I have no sympathy for either side in this fight. As far as I am concerned both the ASO and the UCI can drop dead. The riders are being shoved around the board like chess pieces. Blackmailed and threatened by the UCI with sanctions if they ride Paris-Nice, threatened and blackmailed by ASO if they refuse to race. No Olympics or World Championship. No UCI sanctioned track events. If riders don't ride Paris-Nice ASO will refuse to invite their teams to the Tour de France. Other ASO organized classics are out too. Clerc, Prudhomme, McQuaid, they all are thugs.

Micheal Ball is right. It is time for the riders to organize a union with teeth. They should pay union dues so if a rider should encounter problems he/she will have people who will represent their interests!

The team sponsors need to organize and grind out multiple year non-negotiable contracts with these insane people. RCS, Unipublic, ASO, and the UCI. Astana, never again. If the sponsors are willing to make multiple-million dollar commitments to cycling they should be assured that the team will be invited to race no matter what an individual rider may be accused of doing. The only exception to this rule would be systematic doping by a team like Festina. These theater like exclusions of riders and teams that have been going on since the 2000 Tour de France must end, now.

If there is not a resolution of the Paris-Nice conflict soon I am considering a boycott of the Tour. I want Levi Leipheimer. I want Andreas Kloden. I want Alberto Contador. I want Cadel Evans to prove he can win the Tour de France against the best riders in the world. No gifts. Otherwise, I may spend July looking over old films of past Tours and do some historical research.

Back in the day the Tour was a race, not a circus.

Amaury Sport Organisation: Delusions of Grandeur

Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) has forced Alberto Contador into an impossible situation. Renege on your contract with Astana, find another cycling team or be excluded from defending your Tour de France title. An absurd proposition, demeaning, disgusting, revolting. Prudhomme should say simply this: Astana quit as a UCI Pro Tour cycling team sponsor and release your riders to more deserving teams. Betray your riders, your affiliates, your director sportif, your honor.

Astana has more integrity as an organization than ASO will ever have. Prudhomme must understand that Astana is not in a position to simply abandon people. Trek bicycles and Bontranger parts have invested millions of dollars in building specialty frames and in providing parts for Astana. Trek has invested money into research and development based upon new bicycle designs that need to be tested in Grand Tour races, refined, and then sold to the general public. Trek also needs exposure of its products to a large European and United States television market during the Tour de France. These commitments can not be abandoned at a whim because ASO insists that Astana surrender as a sponsor. ASO has finally descended into ego maniacal madness.

ASO Goal: Emerge As A Monopolistic Cycling Super Power

ASO has a goal to emerge as pre-eminent, supreme, qualified to include or preclude professional cycling teams from Grand Tours based upon "arbitrary and capricious" reasoning. After ASO has bought out Unipublic and destroyed the UCI Pro Tour, Prudhomme and Clerc fantasize that they will be adorned in papal regal purple. Like tyrants with absolute power and no oversight ASO will arrogantly treat cycling teams as supplicant petitioners. Teams will be required to vociferate absolute allegiance to the Tour de France. Applicants will be forced to sign pledges not to embarrass ASO. Team director sportifs will be required to kneel and kiss Prudhomme's signet ring. All professional cyclists will have to be issued special ASO racing licenses to compete. Team sponsorships will be issued or denied at the whim of ASO at any time regardless of rider or team commitments. ASO will develop a biological passport, AFLD will study test results for irregularities ensuring "independence" and "transparency." Politically incorrect riders will be disqualified for "positive" tests for performance enhancers, blood manipulations, or irregularities in ASO profile data. Confirmation testing will be done at WADA accredited lab Chatenay-Malabry. Forced confessions of intent to commit fraud on ASO and the Tour de France will immediately follow the leaked l'Equipe "scoop." Also, the riders' name will be removed from Tour de France history. It will be ugly.

Astana Should Not Be Excluded From The Tour de France

Astana has had problems. In 2006 Astana could not field a Tour team because several riders were involved in Operation Puerto. In 2007 Astana team leader Alexander Vinokurov tested positive for homologous blood doping and Astana withdrew from the Tour. Astana's history for the past two years has been a stellar example of how not to run a UCI Pro Tour cycling team. But Astana has changed personnel and has made a commitment to clean cycling that should be emulated by other cycling teams. Astana has hired Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard, a man who pioneered internal team anti-doping measures for CSC. Dr. Damsgaard seems to evoke the "no tolerance" principal in cycling and his commitment to "clean cycling" seems genuine. If I were Astana, I would love to have Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard run the anti-doping program on my cycling team.

The inclusion of Dr. Damsgaard signals a very serious anti-doping reform of Astana. Even better is the monetary commitment. Johan Bruyneel says, "we are spending 460,000 euros on internal anti-doping efforts for 2008. What more can we do?" May I make a suggestion Mr. Bruyneel? The Amgen Tour of California will do a great deal of blood and urine testing at great expense to establish baseline values for the UCI biological passport. Make sure your defending champion Levi Leipheimer passes these tests. Same goes for your other riders.

Mr.Prudhomme: Ponder This

Mr. Prudhomme should rush to the nearest microphone and apologize to the cycling community for suggesting that Alberto Contador renege on his contract, abandon his teammates, and cut and run to satisfy a fool who thinks he is Julius Caeser. This is not the sort of behavioral lesson that children who regard Contador as a hero and who want to emulate him should be taught. Next children will think it is okay to use performance enhancing substances. Anything goes, right? And where would Contador run to? Rabobank, Team High Road, Cofidis? Mr. Prudhomme if you exclude Rabobank, Team High Road, and Cofidis from the 2008 Tour for damage they have done to your race by past doping offenses, then what? Do you want to subject Mr. Contador to more humiliation? If you, Mr. Prudhomme, use the same criteria you used to exclude Astana for other team selections will you demonstrate to everyone that you are consistently stupid, or sadistic, or what? Will you, Mr. Prudhomme, staunch the rumor that you are nothing more than a prevaricating hypocrite? By the way Mr. Prudhomme, Andreas Kloden will stay with Astana and ignore your advice. Kloden would rather be a man with balls than ride in the Tour under your conditions. Levi Leipheimer will do the same. Tough.

A UCI Pro Tour Team Should Not Be Punished For The Sins Of Others

Prudhomme says if there are no anti-doping violations on team Astana this year ASO might consider an invite for 2009. That is not good enough. I would suggest that ASO abandon its delusional ideas of a European cycling monopoly which employs "arbitrary and capricious" rules and follow the sensible advice of UCI president Pat McQuaid. Invite all eighteen UCI Pro Tour teams to participate in the 2008 Tour de France. No need to punish innocent riders for the sins of others.

Giro d' Italia Dumps Astana, High Road, Credit Agricole

RCS have excluded UCI Pro Teams Astana, High Road and Credit Agricole to the 2008 Giro d' Italia. Out are American riders Levi Leipheimer, Chris Horner, and George Hincapie. Out is 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador. RCS one day classics such as Milan-San Remo and Tirreno-Adriatico are out too.

Astana must have had a rude awakening after RCS, organizers of the Giro D' Italia, poured ice water on the mariachi party dancers in New Mexico where Levi Leipheimer and Johan Bruyneel toasted champagne glasses to a new Amgen Tour of California program of anti-doping measures. Public proclamations of enthusiasm for total blood testing of riders and urinary screens to be entered into the new UCI biological passport profile did not seem to impress Giro d' Italia director Amgelo Zomegnan. Zomegnan cited Astana as lacking "ethics, quality, internationality, and long term relationships with race oganizing company RCS."

Zomegnan also made some questionable speculative statements. Leipheimer, claimed Zomegnan, only wants to race the Giro d' Italia as a conditioning exercise for the Tour de France. An interesting notion since Astana has three possible Giro d' Italia/Tour de France double winners, Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden, and Alberto Contador. Maybe Zomegnan has unknown psychic powers that allows him to know in advance what racing goals Astana has for this year.

Zomegnan also questions Astana as a team who has learned not to dope, probably recalling former Astana riders Alexandre Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin who both tested positive for blood manipulations in 2007. Vinokourov's positive forced Astana to withdraw during the 2007 Tour de France. La Vuelta a Espana also excluded Astana in 2007 probably fearing a second doping incident and besmirchment of a Grand Tour.

I could also add in a sarcastic tone to Astana woes: Former Discovery Channel director sportif and current director sportif of Astana, Johan Bruyneel, signed former Giro d' Italia winner Ivan Basso to Discovery Channel even though Basso was under suspicion in the Operation Puerto case at the time. Basso later admitted that his blood had been manipulated by Dr. Fuentes. Basso was banned for two years.

If you add former Tour de France winner and partial Tailwind Sport owner Lance Armstrong into the mix, conspiracy buffs will brew an explosive cauldron of sinister motives as to why Basso was signed by Bruyneel.

People might also question as to why Alberto Contador, who won the 2007 Tour de France while riding for Discovery Channel under director sportif Bruyneel is currently under suspicion by the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI). People may wonder why Contador has been invited to testify about documents allegedly linking him to Operation Puerto. If the Operation Puerto investigation persists Contador may be prevented from defending his 2007 Tour de France title.

Astana is not a good example of how to run a UCI Pro Tour cycling team.

UCI Pro Tour Versus Grand Tours: Tour de France, Giro d' Italia, and La Vuelta a Espana.

Hein Verbuggen, former President of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) originated a Pro Tour concept. The Pro Tour would have elite teams, points would be awarded in selected races, and a Pro Tour Champion would be crowned. The idea ran into almost immediate resistance from Grand Tour organizers. The issue was over control. Grand Tours have always had an option to invite or exclude cycling teams.

To be fair, Pat McQuaid inherited the UCI Pro Tour team concept from Verbuggen. McQuaid has tried to maintain the UCI Pro Tour. But opposition to the UCI Pro Tour has been as vociferous as ever with the Grand Tours demanding autonomy. The end of the UCI Pro Tour era will commence this year if an agreement is not reached on which cycling teams will be invited to the Tour de France. McQuaid is insisting that all eighteen UCI Pro Tour teams be invited, while Patrice Clerc and Christian Prudhomme of Amaury Sport Organisation have refused. Prudhomme and Clerc have objected to McQuaid's inclusion of all eighteen UCI Pro Tour teams because they do not want to face another Michael Rasmussen fiasco. Although the objection has some merit, it would be simpler to employ the Amgen Tour of California formula and merely exclude riders currently under anti-doping investigations before the start of the race. Unfortunately, if the UCI announced that Contador or other riders were to be excluded from the Tour de France because of an open doping investigation all hell would break loose. Perhaps even legal action might ensue. Draw backs of this approach should be considered, but they are slightly better than this drastic alternative.

If Prudhomme and Clerc were to announce today that Astana, High Road, and Credit Agricole were to be excluded from the Tour de France and classics such as Paris-Roubaix or Liege-Bastogne-Liege, as RCS has done, then the UCI Pro Tour would most likely end this year. Certainly, Astana, Credit Agricole, and High Road would disappear. Other Pro Tour teams would likely follow.

If ASO follows in the path of RCS and excludes Astana, High Road, and Credit Agricole from ASO organized events this year the following problems would instantly emerge. The career of classics rider George Hincapie would be adversely impacted. American rider Levi Leipheimer would be deprived from an opportunity to win the Tour de France. American riders George Hincapie and Chris Horner would be deprived from winning Tour stages. American cycling fanatics would be enraged. People in America want to root for their home boys they don't want to watch French Continental teams going off the back. It would be a very dangerous move.

Prudhomme and Clerc, think before you act. You may lose millions of dollars in revenue from the American Tour de France fanatics, whom you despise.

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

Baseball Should Heed Lessons From Cycling

In the Congressional Hearings on the Mitchell Report of doping in baseball the inevitable conflict between Major League Baseball (MLB), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) was bound to take center stage. One problem that has surfaced is the need for independent testing of prohibited substances outside of the influence of Major League Baseball (MLB) where possible conflicts of interest may be manifest. The only question is were and by whom? WADA has suggested that MLB become a WADA signatory, accept the WADA prohibited substances list, accept WADA Code and WADA accredited laboratory testing. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, and Baseball Union representative Donald Fehr has been resistant to such an idea, for good reason.

WADA has elected a new president, John Fahey, a man who replaced Dick Pound. Mr. Fahey has been of unknown philosophy but it was a popular hope among anti-doping fanatics that Mr. Fahey would profess more fairness in public statements than his predecessor Dick Pound. Pound succeeded in infuriating athletes, Anti-Doping Organizations, (ADO) and International Federations, (IF). For example, Pound accused the Union Cycliste International (UCI) and UCI President Hein Verbuggen of not taking enough initiative to combat doping in cycling. A bitter war ensued between the UCI and WADA as a result of these statements over control and enforcement of anti-doping efforts in cycling. The apex of the battle was reached when frozen urine samples of 1998-99 Tour de France were unfrozen and retroactively tested for scientific research purposes by Laboratorie National de Depistage (LNDD) in 2004. The research by LNDD was focused on the stability of EPO in urine over time and to determine the presence of EPO in rider samples before a urine test for EPO had been developed. Unfortunately, codes from aliquots were leaked to l'Equipe, a French newspaper owned by Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO). The aliquot codes supposedly matched samples provided by Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. In response to the leaked information and subsequent headlines by l'Equipe of EPO use by Armstrong during the 1999 Tour, Hein Verbuggen, President of the UCI, commissioned an investigation into the lab practices of LNDD by independent Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman. Vrijman wrote a scathing report of LNDD, pointing out errors in data collection, sample storage, lack of chain-of-custody, lack of security, and possible sabotage of samples by disgruntled laboratory personnel or others who had a manifest interest in harming Lance Armstrong or other riders. Vrijman recommended that the UCI take no action against any rider who was declared EPO positive by retroactive testing by LNDD of urine samples provided during the 1998-99 Tour de France. The reaction by Dick Pound and WADA to the Vrijman report was swift and clear. "The Vrijman Report is so lacking in professionalism and objectivity that it borders on farcical," declared an outraged Pound. Contrary to Pound, Lance Armstrong released the following statement: "The [Vrijman] report confirms my innocence, but it also finds that Mr. Pound along with the French lab [LNDD] and the French Ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law. They have also refused to cooperate with the investigation in an effort to conceal the full scope of their wrongdoing. I am now retired, but for the sake of all athletes still competing who deserve a level playing field and a fair system of drug testing, the time has come to take action against these kinds of attacks before they destroy the credibility of WADA and in turn, the international anti-doping system."

To quote MLB Executive Vice President Rob Manfred. "Perhaps Mr. Fahey should become more familiar with the operation of the WADA laboratories before attempting to criticize MLB."

Baseball take note: frozen stored samples and retroactive testing may have a deterrent effect on current human growth hormone (hGH) abuse, since at present a blood serum test for hGH is still in the developmental phase. But retroactive testing also has a potential for abuse by renegade WADA accredited labs. Ask Lance Armstrong.

WADA Criticizes MLB and Union For Continued Evasion of Anti-Doping Reform

WADA released a statement expressing disappointment that MLB wants to keep testing of prohibited substances "in house." WADA did suggest that a more fair and impartial system would be evident if hGH and other drug testing were outsourced to "independent" agencies such as WADA to avoid potential conflicts of interest. WADA also accused MLB of not taking a strong enough stand in the war against doping because MLB does not agree with a WADA assertion that stored blood serum research has progressed enough to ensure reliability and safety in future retroactive testing. MLB obviously does not want or need another Vrijman fiasco, or another ongoing conflict as an IF that is also a WADA signatory, such as the battle that ensued between WADA and the UCI.

WADA seems eager to wage a new war with baseball with a new round of misleading statements about the anti-doping commitment of MLB. To quote Rob Manfred: "These continuing, unprovoked inaccurate publicity stunts by WADA have created an unwillingness to become more involved with WADA and it's affiliates. We were hopeful that false public statements by WADA would end with it's recent change in leadership and we are deeply disappointed that Mr. Fahey is showing the same counterproductive tendencies as his predecessor."

MLB also does not need bogus results reported on players due to degraded samples as has happened in the Floyd Landis testosterone/epitestosterone ratio.

The exact nature of freezing and thawing of samples is still unknown and the effect on processing of samples may result in a large quantity of post-facto false positives due to unknown variables caused by sample degradation. Dr. Gary I. Wadler, professor of medicine at New York University, and WADA committee member comments concerning the state of possible degradation of plasma and serum in hGH when the samples are frozen and thawed for testing purposes. "They are working to determine if the samples will hold up." MLB expert in prohibited substance testing, Dr. Gary Green, was even more pessimistic: "Although some have proposed the storing of serum samples, there are several practical and technological hurdles that would have to be overcome before this approach could be widely implemented."

There is ample concern of MLB to avoid any interaction with WADA. WADA is an organization sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). WADA was started in response to the BALCO scandal with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, WADA has morphed into an arrogant beast that results shop confirmation tests to satisfy the interests of WADA accredited labs. Ask Iban Mayo. WADA accredited labs lack qualified, trained personnel. WADA accredited labs destroy evidence. Ask Floyd Landis. WADA accredited labs should be avoided at all costs if you want to protect your players reputations now and in the future.

John Fahey summed up the problem quite well: "If you are not prepared to put forth testing that gives credibility to your sport, with time, the fans will start to disappear. I believe that baseball will see this." Yes, ask cycling fans. Our riders are tested by WADA accredited labs and we can't believe what we are seeing. WADA lab results are increasingly contested in the Court of Arbitration of Sport by cyclists and other athletes. Certainly all of the fault does not rest with the athlete? Some cycling fans have defected, disgusted. Baseball don't let WADA accredited labs destroy your fan base.

To Commssioner Bud Selig and the Congressional Oversight Committee, find an alternative to WADA.

Jon

Are Cyclists Dupes?

Rock Racing owner Michael Ball is creating shock waves in the cycling world, he is signing former cyclists with alleged doping pasts. His latest idea is to possibly hire former Tour de France winner Floyd Landis as a technical advisor for Rock Racing after former director sportif Frankie Andreu resigned. Andreu is complaining that he had no control over personnel decisions of Rock Racing. Andreu complained that Ball is hiring former dopers and misfits, tarnishing cycling's respectable image. Outlaws are not wanted here.

Funny all this outrage over a man who designs and sells clothing that appeal to people who have a counter culture view of the world and who probably appreciate tattooed riders who kick ass. After all Rock Racing is all about style man, you know it is cool to wear outrageous apparel that shocks the establishment squares.

Right on! The establishment is US Cycling and USADA, the evil empire. US Cycling wants to rid the world of people who languish under a cloud of suspicion, especially Floyd Landis. Landis unlike Frankie Andreu is persona non grata in cycling. Floyd Landis had his name removed from the history books of the Tour de France by Christian Prudhomme and Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) after an extremely bizarre ceremony of breaking mirrors. This all happened before the commencement of the AAA arbitration hearing. The revisionists were racing to punish the poster boy of doping Floyd Landis in classic Stalinist style. Those of us who were convinced that Amaury Sport Organisation's rush to judgement was not justified by the evidence supporting the Adverse Analytical Finding were called suckers and dupes by the blood lusting sport pundits. Those of us with finer sensibilities and a sense of decency were assured that the circus we were witnessing was necessary to deter further use of PED's by drawing attention to devious cheaters who refuse to publicly acknowledge their crimes. When the AAA Panel ruled against Landis in a 2-1 decision the pundits came alive again demanding an immediate confession of doping by Landis to clear the air; not a hopeless appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. Meantime Michael Ball owner of Rock Racing creates a seismic shock wave by allegedly offering Floyd Landis a contract as technical advisor while the CAS case is still pending. This news was met with strenuous objections by US Cycling who insists that Landis will never be granted a license and will be refused permission to participate in any capacity in any US Cycling sanctioned race. US Cycling is acting like a petty tyrant. After all US Cycling should consider the Floyd Landis Court of Arbitration of Sport appeal before making extreme statements. The outcome of the March 2008 CAS appeal will be final. US Cycling may rue the day. After all, the CAS arbitrators may agree that LNDD is incapable of measuring anything with precision, and there are violations of WADA International Standards of Laboratories to consider.

Unfortunately, I did depart on a tangent. I was more interested in comparison and contrast of attitudes towards known dopers and suspected dopers, say Frankie Andreu who admitted doping with EPO to build endurance before the 1999 Tour de France, and Floyd Landis who allegedly used synthetic testosterone before Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour. Frankie Andreu is supposed to be some sort of inspiring ethical man. Andreu merely doped with EPO; a prohibited substance which increases red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen and increase volume oxygen maximum (VO2 MAX) which increases aerobic capacity of the mitochondria to provide energy to the muscle cell. Andreu has maintained that he doped in order to protect his General Classification rider Lance Armstrong and he has stated that at the time he felt the doping was justified. Later, of course, Andreu insists that he had a sudden change of heart and that he recognized that what he did was wrong and that he felt bad about cheating his competition. To make peace with his soul, Andreu, after remorseful reflection did confess his crimes. Andreu was immediately forgiven and accepted as an exemplary director sportif by United States Postal Service, Toyota-United, and Rock Racing. In contrast, Floyd Landis is accused of synthetic testosterone use for one stage; a prohibited substance with debatable acute performance enhancing benefits. As a consequence of this alleged violation Landis must now be banned for life from professional cycling. Andreu sets a good example to follow while Landis is a pariah.

Still confused? The issue once again is centered around making amends for crimes committed against your fellow cyclists and your attitude toward resolving the issue by confession and making remorseful apologies to the establishment. A case study is Marion Jones and the reaction of the sporting media and how this should apply to Floyd Landis and his persistent denials. Sports pundits will insist that any accused athlete is guilty and cyclists who doubt are fools. Pundits will also insist that accusers are correct, without ulterior motive, and should be believed. However, in the Marion Jones case perhaps confession is not enough, perhaps we have raised the bar, perhaps confession in the Frankie Andreu vein is not enough to wash away sins of the past, the steroid era requires scorn heaped upon scorn, not forgiveness. There does seem to be a limit of how far the deceived sport fanatic will go before a remorseful confession is not enough to absolve sin. Send these people to prison. The pundits are in agreement, Floyd Landis will confess in time and not be forgiven and we cyclists will have our eyes opened as to the truth.

These pundits are assuring we cyclist doubters that we are naive to suppose that Floyd Landis is not a liar in the vein of Marion Jones who after years of denial tearfully recanted her lies with truthful admissions. Jones admitted her litany of crimes, she doped using the clear, she competed in the Olympics juiced, she accepted medals under false pretenses, she lied to Federal investigators, she committed perjury, she insisted her accusers were the liars with self-righteous indignation. Jones even sued Victor Conte of BALCO fame for slander and libel. A beautifully orchestrated hoax to be sure.

Well people have told me for over a year that I am a fool because I believe in honesty and integrity in deposed Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. Some have insisted that in time Floyd Landis will pull a Marion Jones and tearfully admit his doping past in full detail. Maybe so, maybe not. In the current sports culture any person accused of using PED's and who denies the accusations are automatically considered liars. Accusers are only exposing truth. Well in some people I do not feel that accusers have honesty and integrity and they do display an awful double standard of dubious personal motivations.

I mention one case: Betsy Andreu and the alleged bedside confession of Lance Armstrong. One wonders if Betsy Andreu will ever tearfully confess that she lied under oath and falsely accused Lance Armstrong of doping. My bet is that the "iron lady" of cycling will never feel any remorse for her wrong doing. Of course, Betsy Andreu may have done nothing wrong, she may have been mistaken in her recollections. This may be possible, however the sporting pundits may be right, there is no honesty in anyone connected with doping cases; accused or accuser. All things considered maybe we can all do without the Andreu couple in cycling. We can certainly do without dopers. But in all cases it is never to late to make amends.

Jon

WADA Is Reality Challenged

When WADA was in Madrid they could not refrain from drafting a new WADA code that was certain to straighten out deficiencies in the present code. Article 10.6 of the 2007 Draft World Anti-Doping Code With the Fundamental Rights of Athletes written by Professor Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler and Dr. Antonii Rigozzi considers aggravating factors and considerably larger penalties for athletes who are engaged in conspiracy or trafficking of prohibited substances and for attempts to subvert the anti-doping process. A noble aim, indeed.

Reading the new WADA code draft revealed this astounding gem, however. Under 2.3Plea Bargain 110(115) Page 38. "Minutes of the WADA Executive Committee Meeting of 19 Nov 2006. Page 29 referring to the notorious fact that some athletes, particularly wealthy athletes, consider that they have nothing to lose by putting forward all imaginable defenses in the hope that one or the other may work with the result that anti-doping organizations spend significant amounts of money defending the validity of clear laboratory results."

It would be an absurd presumption to include cycling and cyclists as the wealthy athletes with nothing to lose who would resort to any tactic to subvert clear laboratory results! I have a difficult time recalling a cyclist who resorted to obstructionist tactics to defeat a clear laboratory test result. But then again I have a hard time recalling a clear laboratory test result.

The WADA Executive Committee could not possibly be referring to Floyd Landis as the ultra rich athlete who has nothing to lose by contesting a flawless lab performance? Floyd Landis has spent over two million dollars and will spend eighteen months of his life fighting the United States Anti-Doping Agency over a case be-fret of sound scientific evidence. Much of the money was raised through donations and auctions. The sight of Floyd Landis begging for alms like a pauper to defend himself was appalling. At present, with no resolution of his case in sight, Mr. Landis is destitute. USADA is doing quite well, thank you, with an operating budget of twenty million dollars funded by American tax payers.

Travis T. Tygart who currently runs USADA must agree with WADA over the huge amounts of money spent by Anti-Doping Organizations over appeals to the CAS. Tygart would certainly agree with the WADA Executive Committee that a conspiracy is afoot among wealthy athletes to drain precious resources from Anti-Doping Organizations in fruitless appeals to the CAS. Alan Abrahamson of NBC Sports.com would agree. Abrahamson's logic concerning doubters of the AAA Majority conclusion reads "There are those, even in the face of compelling scientific evidence, who want to believe Floyd Landis didn't dope." Abrahamson might also add, since the evidence is so compelling why support a man who is obviously guilty. Why would a guilty man want to appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport and cost USADA so much more money?

I would agree with Alan Abrahamson if he would provide me with a convincing summary of this scientific evidence that was not derived from sloppy lab practices, errors, omissions, or deletions of evidence.

More realistic and contrary to the WADA Executive Committee meeting remarks concerning the clear laboratory results is the conclusion of the Floyd Landis AAA arbitrators.

First the Majority.

Errors in Preparation of Laboratory Documents Page 76 Paragraph 290.

"The Panel does, however note the forensic corrections of the Lab (LNDD) reflect sloppy practice on its part. If such practices continue it may well be that in the future an error like this could result in the dismissal of an Adverse Analytical Finding by the lab (LNDD)."

And the Dissent.

Paragraph 1 and 2.

"From the beginning LNDD has not been trustworthy. In this case, at every stage of testing it failed to comply with the procedures and methods for testing required by the International Standards for Laboratories, version 4.0 August 2004 (ISL) under the World Anti-Doping Code, 2003 (WADA Code). It also failed to abide by its legal and ethical obligations under the WADA Code. On the facts of this case, LNDD should not be entrusted with Mr. Landis career."

"Mr. Landis is only required to prove the facts he alleges in this case by a mere balance of the probabilities. In many instances, Mr. Landis sustained his burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The documents supplied by LNDD are so filled with errors that they do not support an Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Landis should be found innocent."

I fail to discern the clear scientific evidence referred to by Abrahamson or the WADA Executive Committee in these conclusions. I also fail to see the systematic attack of trivial points in an attempt to circumvent the anti-doping process by a hate driven wealthy athlete who has employed an army of lawyers to bore holes into a rock solid base of evidence. Fact, the only real conclusion from the Landis fiasco is that LNDD is incapable of measuring prohibited substances in a competent manner. If an Anti-Doping Authority is spending an inordinate amount of money defending questionable Majority decisions in the Court of Arbitration of Sport the fault lies with WADA and WADA accredited labs, notably LNDD. Not the athlete!

A word of advice to Travis T. Tygart, USADA and other Anti-Doping Authorities, if you want to save money on needless challenges to arbitration awards insist that WADA improve the accreditation criteria for laboratories. Otherwise you will continue to face an escalation in appeals to the Court of Arbitration of Sport.

A word of advise to WADA, stop blaming innocent athletes for challenging your lousy lab work, initiate corrective action immediately, educate your personnel, train people to perform testing correctly. That way you can avoid the faux threat of case dismissal by arbitration Panels and also save Anti-Doping Organizations unnecessary spending to defend your bad lab work. A win-win proposition all around.

I would like to thank Drew Schafer, JD author of WADAWATCH for his assistance by converting the proposed WADA Article 10.6 from a .pdf format to .doc format so my computer could access the file. I am very grateful for his help.
Jon

Landis CAS Appeal Ennui

Lately it is difficult not to feel ennui with the Landis case. Landis did appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. The Arbitrators have been selected. The briefs have been filed. A date has been set. Sometime in March the CAS case will be heard. The mainstream press has continued to vilify Floyd as a bad example. Yawn.

The UCI wants biological passports with longitudinal blood and urine values for athletes. It is supposed that if some minor variation occurs this may be a possible parameter of doping. I sometimes wonder about the simplicity of these people. How many untested variables will occur throughout a Grand Tour. How many will be accounted for by this biological passport?

What happens if a single metabolite shows some variation? With the crazy WADA lab methodology the simplest answer will be a long argument. Natural variation due to unspecified variables or doping? Go over to Trust but Verify and examine the current argument of LNDD IRMS lab practices. Take a look at IRMS columns some of which are polarized, some unpolarized. You have to hand it to Arnie Baker who found that mass-spectra changes in substances do occur depending upon which column is used. So why did LNDD erase parts of the mass-spectra from the laboratory hard drive? Is this a violation of WADA code? Of course, LNDD forgot to record which IRMS columns were used in the alternate "B" tests. They also forgot to record possible temperature variations in IRMS ramps within and between tests. LNDD also forgot that IRMS pressure differences can cause a departure and cause an AAF! Are WADA accredited labs required by WADA code to record these variables? Also, notice the missing metabolites in the calibration mix. Is this a violation of WADA code? Be amazed by the anchor metabolite argument. Does the position of one metabolite account for all metabolites in the absence of a complete mass-spectra? Why flog an old horse to death? The beat goes on! No possible resolution of the issues is in sight. No argument either pro or con, no matter how eloquently presented, is convincing. We are stalling waiting in vain for something to happen. The ennui, like a ground stratus cloud, is starting to creep in again.

Which takes me off to the next point. Hey, WADA, how come the main stream press refrains from vilifying your "sloppy lab practices"? Clearly, except for a select few who have followed the Landis case from the start and understand the issues, most people are out to sea. They find it impossible to believe that LNDD violated WADA code and escaped unpunished. They refuse to believe that the numerous departures from the WADA code caused the Landis Adverse Analytical Finding. But WADA is at fault. Why? Because even when a WADA accredited lab made repeated errors which were documented by the UCI commissioned Vrijman Report, no action was taken. WADA should accept responsibility for this inaction. This refusal of WADA to strip accreditation from labs who violate WADA code must be considered negligence and should be a legal basis for liability judgements by international tribunals such as the Court of Arbitration of Sport. I sincerely hope that the CAS agrees to dismiss the Floyd Landis case on appeal. I also hope that the CAS will agree to allow Floyd Landis to sue WADA for refusal to dis-accredit LNDD in light of the UCI commissioned Vrijman report. WADA is responsible for negligence because if LNDD would have been closed and a competent lab had been awarded the task of doping testing by ASO, Floyd Landis' reputation and earning power would have never been in question. Never forget, departures in LNDD lab practices in violation of WADA code caused the Adverse Analytical Finding. I also hope that the CAS orders WADA to pay Floyd Landis a substantial monetary award.

If you want to straighten out the methodology arguments once and for all how about writing the code to harmonize and standardize your labs. We can call it a methodological passport. Like the biological passport your labs will be proficiency tested with true double blind samples and the results will be published. Conformity with the new code will be the factor that determines your WADA accreditation. It will also give athletes a chance to contest your false positive results when they occur.

Because as things stand right now your presumption is assured. Due process is denied to athletes. Labs like LNDD are exempt from following WADA code. When Vrijman wrote his report red flags should have alerted you to the fact that LNDD is a bad lab. What did you do WADA? Did you strip LNDD of WADA/IOC accreditation? Or did you live in denial? When Floyd Landis was reamed in the press because of that 11:1 T/E ratio "cherry picked" by LNDD and Dick Pound was shouting "Roid Floyd" to anyone who would listen, did you people ever stop to think that the T/E tests would be discarded by the AAA Panel Majority? Why was Jacques de Ceaurriz never called to testify about the "B" test result leak to L' Equipe?

You know what WADA? Let us track your lab performance, all of them, and look for trends, shop and compare, and dump the bad ones.

Yes indeed, just when you want to die from Floyd Landis case ennui someone comes along and injects enough venom to wake you up again. Doping athletes are intolerable and should be punished for sure. People caught up in a web due to an error by a WADA accredited laboratory and denied due process rights should continue to fight and be exonerated. There is a difference! So fight on Floyd, you will continue to be my hero.

Anti-Doping Crusade Out Of Control

The Mayo case. How many more times? Laboratorie National de Depistage du Dopage (LNDD) located in Chatenay-Malabry, France, a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited lab used for Tour de France doping testing declares Mr. Iban Mayo EPO "positive" then rushes off to holiday without bothering to follow up with a mandatory "B" confirmation test. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) sends the sample off to a lab at the University of Ghent in Belge. The Ghent lab finds a "non-negative" EPO result. To be quite sure of their findings Ghent asks EPO doping experts in Australia to provide a second opinion. The Australian lab cannot be certain of the presence of EPO in the Mayo sample. The UCI decides to return the sample to the Laboratorie National de Depistage du Dopage (LNDD) for a second "B" re-test. Anne Gripper, UCI drug czarina is so confident that the "non-negative" finding is in error she declares LNDD to be the single WADA accredited lab in the world where "a positive can be found." Right on Anne! You have charted new territory in anti-doping detection by ordering a second "B" confirmation test, one done at the University of Ghent and a second done at LNDD. Why? Because two accredited WADA labs cannot replicate LNDD's findings, but LNDD will!

Well alright, we have an old pattern developing here. Floyd Landis had a similar problem. LNDD was in a hurry to finish the Landis "B" sample Carbon Isotope Ratio (IRMS) so they could go on holiday. Perhaps LNDD lab workers were in such a hurry to leave town that nobody noticed that people who worked on the "A" sample also worked on the "B" sample. Interesting because LNDD had run into problems with lab personnel working on "A" and "B" samples before. The issue was contested in a Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) hearing known as the Landaluce case. The Landaluce CAS decision expressly forbade the same people working on both "A" and "B" samples because of the obvious incentive of these people to replicate their own work. The case against Landaluce was dismissed. The CAS cited a blatant disregard for WADA International Standards for Laboratories (ISL) which prohibits lab personnel from working on both samples. Perhaps LNDD lab administration did not understand implications of Landaluce and possible ramifications involved in the Floyd Landis case. Or more likely due to the cloaked nature of doping arbitration hearings, presumption, and lack of scrutiny of laboratory procedures Jacques de Ceaurriz simply did not care. After all, if a Adverse Analytical Finding resulted there would probably never be any discussion of who worked on what. This fanciful notion was almost realised. Floyd Landis and his legal team had to fight tooth and nail in discovery hearings and only because of intense public pressure did USADA and Travis T. Tygart admit to the truth. Nevertheless, LNDD has now acquired a well deserved reputation of being unable to learn from their own mistakes. It is ironic that the issue of lab personnel working on both samples will be at issue in the Landis CAS appeal. Does anyone at LNDD read technical documents or CAS rulings? Do they care?

Travis T. Tygart, UCI, and WADA hated the Landaluce decision. But Tygart had too much at stake. The AAA Majority could be counted on to ignore the CAS ruling in the Landis case because in the strange world of arbitration, rules can be made up at random and precedent need not be followed. But Tygart feared that his perfect record in doping arbitration hearings was in jeopardy because of a stupid blunder by LNDD. So the simplest remedy was to end run Landaluce by convincing the North American Court of Arbitration of Sport (AAA) to allow additional "B" IRMS of Floyd Landis. The Panel agreed to the additional tests with the stipulation that no new Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) could be filed on the results because WADA International Standards for Laboratories (ISL) prohibited them without a "A" IRMS. However, as Chris Campbell argued in his dissent, the Panel Majority could "cherry pick" evidence that would support the Stage 17 Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Landis wanted the testing done at UCLA, the finest WADA accredited lab in the world. The UCLA lab was run by Don Catlin an internationally respected researcher into doping detection. But Travis T. Tygart refused to allow the IRMS tests to be done at UCLA. The fear? LNDD results would not be verified by UCLA. Therefore, his argument that doping had occurred during other stages of the race would have no merit. Landaluce would be upheld, LNDD would be exposed as a lab that does not learn from mistakes, a lab that has a disregard for WADA code, a lab that produces results that cannot be replicated by any other lab. In a panic Catlin disabled the UCLA IRMS to satisfy the concerns of Tygart. The samples were shipped thousands of miles under unknown conditions to Paris. When the additional IRMS "B" tests were being conducted, LNDD and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) prevented Mr. Landis' representative Mr. Scott Davis from witnessing some IRMS lab procedures. Of course, exclusion of a rider or his representative from any sample testing is a violation of WADA code and could be construed as interfering in the anti-doping process. In fact, many observers of the Landis case still insist that Mr. Davis was excluded in order for LNDD to "dry lab" testing. This consists of reporting findings without doing any lab work. A carefully prepared LDP done in advance to confirm "doping."

Campbell could be considered a very perceptive man. In a secret behind-closed-door-hearing the Panel and Franceso Botre examined a critical volume of evidence. This secret volume apparently contained Lab Document Packages (LDP) of IRMS and testosterone/epitestosterone ratios (T/E), all stages, of urine samples provided by Mr. Landis. This testing was allowed because after urine samples are provided for testing technically they are considered property of the UCI. Botre, head of the WADA Rome Lab, essentially acted as a de-facto fourth Panel member clearly supportive of LNDD and WADA interests. The results of this examination led to a dismissal of all of Mr. Landis' scientific points of contention in a weirdly written Majority decision of "cherry picked" evidence hidden from public view.

How does all of this apply to Iban Mayo? Anne Gripper the UCI anti-doping czarina was not satisfied with the University of Ghent "non-negative" Iban Mayo "B" sample. No indeed. This would convince people that LNDD is incapable of doing competent lab work; an obvious point demonstrated in Landis' WIKI defense. Also a "non-negative" would invalidate the LNDD "A" EPO positive result. Therefore, no further action could be taken against Mayo, because both "A" and "B" tests must be positive in order to file an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF). The Spanish Cycling Federation declared the Mayo case closed. The UCI decided to attempt to over ride Spanish Cycling with an additional "B" test at LNDD hoping that LNDD would confirm the "A" sample positive result. The UCI obviously wants to present this positive "B" LNDD sample to CAS in order to force Spanish Cycling to conform to a CAS ruling and ban Mayo.

Not enough? Gripper also stated the "B" sample would go on at LNDD with or without Mayo or his representative. The UCI seems to have adopted USADA fever. Is a lab permitted to do any type of lab work without scrutiny, even if the result is interfering in the anti-doping process?

The CAS needs to stop this confusion. "A" samples by one lab may be refuted by "B" tests from other labs. Does the UCI have a right to conduct additional "B" tests at WADA accredited lab "A" to refute conclusions reached at WADA accredited lab "B"? What set of "B" results are considered a valid measure? How many "B" tests may be run to reach a desired outcome? Also, since the Landis case is headed for a CAS showdown it is imperative to set guidelines as to what sort and how many "B" tests a anti-doping authority should be able to run. Should USADA be allowed to order additional "B" IRMS when no "A" IRMS were run? Should USADA be allowed to order IRMS tests when the original "A" T/E tests were in a normal range? Should IRMS be run only when the "A" test indicates a possible testosterone spike? Or should IRMS be done at random throughout Grand Tour stages? The Court of Arbitration of Sport needs to resolve these issues once and for all, and then enforce the rules without exception.

The issue of the rider and his representative attending testing as provided for in WADA code should be written in stone and followed religiously.

In the Mayo case the Spanish Cycling Federation has ruled the Mayo case closed. The UCI should agree to this decision and stop trying to undermine national sovereignty in cycling licensing decisions.

Otherwise a very long and costly legal process will ensue.

Proficiency Tests for WADA Labs?

One intervention proposed at the WADA Madrid Conference was a rating system of WADA accredited labs based upon proficiency tests. A very good idea if the tests are to be administered at random and by an outside testing agency independent of WADA/IOC and member governments. For example, there are allegations that the French anti-doping authority AFLD paid an "independent" firm COFRAC to perform yearly accreditation audits on LNDD. Investigations into these audits have produced no paper trail. Records of COFRAC audits are not available upon request. Perhaps the Floyd Landis AFLD hearing will shed some light on whether LNDD audits were performed or not by COFRAC. Nevertheless, "conflict of interest" should be avoided at all costs by political interests in doping affairs, no matter what nationality.

The proper method would be proficiency tests without warning, much like out-of-competition tests WADA uses to try to catch athletes who are tempted to use performance enhancing drugs covertly between events. A carefully prepared calibration mix with known carbon isotope values and background markers would be presented to a lab with known "sloppy practices." Hint: LNDD. A score sheet could be devised, can the lab replicate the control Lab Document Package? Is the lab capable of making corrections that adhere to WADA code; for example, mistakes with a line through them, signed, dated, and a corrected value substituted? Summary pages without whiteout? Based upon good performance a lab would receive positive points. Of course, for every violation of WADA code, points would be subtracted.

Much like revisions of WADA code that call for suspensions of athletes who fail "A" and "B" tests, WADA labs would be placed under probation if they fail to meet a criteria of minimum test points. Inability to pass an proficiency examination would be considered failure of an "A" test, and an immediate suspension would be enforced. At this point a mandatory plan would be written by the lab focusing on "benchmarks for improvement." After several surprise inspections observing behavior of lab personnel and testing methods to ascertain overall adherence to WADA ISL and IST, the independent testing agency would recommend a further course of action. A failure by a WADA accredited lab to meet the goals of the benchmarks would be considered a "B" test failure and would result in an immediate two year suspension. Three failed proficiency tests would result in immediate revocation of accreditation as a WADA/IOC laboratory for life.

To the person who coined the intervention, thank you. Sanity in WADA labs will not be achieved under the current monopolistic regime. WADA is incapable of policing these labs and the IOC shows an inability to invest in equipment or talent needed to bring all WADA accredited labs to the same level of quality. An outside agency independent of WADA, the IOC, or any signatories is the only way to ensure a measure of control that reflects an honest assessment of WADA accredited laboratories. Oversight by a competent organization would convince more people that presumption of WADA lab results are viable. It would also enforce the notion that one WADA lab has the same ability to produce reliable and valid results as any other. Currently, as the Iban Mayo EPO results show one lab finds a positive finding (LNDD) while the same sample tested elsewhere (Ghent) found a "non-negative." WADA cannot justify a presumption when it is obvious that standards and methods among WADA accredited labs produce such contradictory results.

If WADA is serious about attracting additional funding for doping detection, they need to show the world that they are serious about reform of WADA accredited laboratory standards and performance. All is not lost or hopeless on the WADA front however. Revisions of the code are currently being considered, Dick Pound will soon be replaced. I think the era of "deny, deny, deny," by Pound of problems within his laboratories is over. John Fahey is the new president of WADA, so there is new hope for a sensible reform.

WADA World in Madrid

Off goes the WADA world to Madrid to revise the anti-doping code. The good old boy network wants to make sure that the pesky old "B" confirmation tests vanish from planet Earth. The "B" tests sure have made life rough, what with Tyler Hamilton keeping his cycling time trial Olympic gold medal when the lab froze his "B" blood sample. Hamilton was accused of blood doping and he tested positive on the "A" sample, but the "B" blood was useless for testing purposes. A stupid, foolish error made by a simple minded lab tech.

But WADA accredited labs make many foolish errors especially on "B" tests. Back in the day when the arbitration hearings were secret and formulaic, WADA could hide mistakes and the athlete had neither the legal expertise or monetary resources to expose or contest these errors. However, Floyd Landis changed the climate by showing the world his lab results, and he shocked the world. LNDD's lab practices would not have been accepted by a high school lab much less a lab that dealt with forensic evidence of a doping offense.

WADA has a clear goal. Return to the good old days of hiding lab mistakes, make an effort to argue with WADA hopeless, give athletes no option but to surrender, win all cases.

USADA will never be in jeporady of losing another case, the record will forever be perfect.

The WADA code will be revised not to improve WADA testing methods or to clarify WADA ISL, IST, or Technical Document requirements in order to protect athlete due process rights, or to standardize WADA labs to ensure "fair play." No the object will be to convict all athletes who test positive for a banned substance, without the evidence being contested. False positives, lab errors, sabotage, or incompetence by WADA accredited labs be damned.

Was the Testosterone/Epitestosterone Ratio Contrived?

It simply boggles the mind that the AAA Majority could invalidate the Landis T/E ratios. I have a good idea what the lab was doing and I have a good idea of what the political motivation was behind contriving a "high testosterone level" or "testosterone spike" that was repeated relentlessly by the press during the year long ordeal that Floyd Landis endured in waiting for the AAA arbitrators and USADA to commence with his hearing. Fact: Floyd Landis never had a high testosterone level and he never had a testosterone spike. These facts were contrived by LNDD in order to justify IRMS testing, in the hopes of turning up a result that would initiate an Adverse Analytical Finding by USADA and the UCI. The strategy of the imaginary testosterone spike was clear, to expose Mr. Landis as a "cheat," a man who used performance enhancing substances in order to gain advantage over his competition. A second aim was to persuade a gullible public. The T/E ratio needed to be high enough as to be regarded by experts as certainly suspect 11:1. Next LNDD would "leak" the story to l'Equipe which would in turn would shock the world with a sensational scoop and headline, Tour de France winner tests positive for a high testosterone to epitestosterone ratio. Shortly after the l'Equipe story broke Pat McQuaid did confirm that a rider had tested positive during the 2006 Tour de France in an interview with a New York Times reporter. McQuaid was quoted as saying that the situation was "the worst possible scenario." Needless to say, McQuaid violated UCI disclosure policy that prohibits comments on pending doping cases until the rider has a chance to review accusatory evidence. Immediately after McQuaid's interview press wires waged a vicious attack on the credibility of Floyd Landis essentially calling him a doper and a liar. Taken by surprise by the double sucker punch of the l'Equipe article and the McQuaid interview, bewildered by the charges levied against him, without access to the evidence against him, Floyd Landis gave televised interviews where his confusion was evident. Landis noted that after the Stage 16 bonk he had drank beer and whiskey, possible contributing causes of a failed T/E ratio. News articles savaged Mr. Landis with titles like "Cycling the Excuses." Phase one of the campaign had succeeded.

Query: What possible motivation could LNDD have to resort to such unsavory practices against a honest athlete who rode such a sensational stage to salvage his Tour de France victory? The answer is probably rooted in a vendetta against another Tour champion who survived repeated assaults against his character, Lance Armstrong. Landis was to be a pawn, first of a testosterone spike manufactured by a discreditable lab and then nailed to the cross by a equally questionable carbon isotope ratio test. A deal was probably made in advance, if Landis should show determination and win the Tour, USADA and LNDD would work together to fail Mr. Landis on a dope test and then USADA would offer Mr. Landis a deal. Travis T. Tygart general counsel of USADA would make Floyd Landis an offer, if Landis would "confess" Tygart could prove that (1) Armstrong and his entourage had the method, means and opportunity to defeat doping detection methods, (2) to expose US Postal as an organization that would resort to systematic doping during the Tour de France when Armstrong reigned as Tour champion, (3) strip Armstrong as Tour champion, (4) discredit the Vrijman report.

The Vrijman investigation was a UCI response to questionable LNDD testing protocol which found positive findings of EPO present in urine samples of Lance Armstrong. Vrijman wrote a scathing report which cited intolerable problems with LNDD. (1) lack of security by LNDD which invited tampering of the samples by LNDD personnel. (2) Lack of chain-of-custody by LNDD. (3) Leaks of sample results by LNDD personnel to a tabloid paper owned by Amaury Sport Organisation, l'Equipe, in violation of WADA protocol. In conclusion Vrijman said that LNDD positive EPO samples "constituted nothing" and recommended that the UCI take no action against any rider who tested positive for EPO during the 1998 and 1999 Tour de France. Dick Pound, president of WADA called the Vrijman report "delusional." The UCI agreed with Vrijman, disregarded Pound's deranged ranting, thus no riders were punished.

The Vrijman episode sowed the seeds of bitterness between WADA and the UCI and began a turf war over who should be responsible for doping enforcement in professional cycling. The stalemate continued until the 2006 Tour de France when for inexplicable reasons Floyd Landis "bonked" on Stage 16, to be followed the next day with a media orchestrated "miracle" recovery on Stage 17. The Stage 17 recovery was no miracle, Landis rode well within his own published SRM power training limits and distanced the peloton in what most cycling experts would agree was one of the best single stage comebacks ever. However, Stage 17 would give WADA, USADA, LNDD, and the UCI an unexpected opportunity, discredit the monumental achievement with a bogus testosterone spike manufactured by LNDD to be followed up by a bogus IRMS test that would confirm the presence of synthetic testosterone in Landis' "A" and "B" samples.

After LNDD had confirmed a testosterone spike in Landis' "A" sample Tygart immediately offered Landis a deal. Help USADA to discredit Lance Armstrong, and in turn USADA would ensure that Landis would receive "the shortest suspension in history." Of course, Tygart had an ulterior motive, to become head of USADA with a stellar resume as the investigator who would succeed where all others had failed, the public destruction of Lance Armstrong as confirmed doper. Confession of past doping by newly deposed Tour "winner" Floyd Landis would be a sensational coup.

Unfortunately, much to the consternation of Tygart, WADA, USADA, and the UCI Mr. Floyd Landis declined to accept Tygart's terms and he stated that he would rather fight publicly against doping accusations made by LNDD using a WIKI defense.

In response, LNDD, WADA, and USADA launched an immediate plan of attack to counteract Mr. Landis' intention to post the Lab Document Package on the Internet for examination by GC/MS and GC/C/ IRMS experts. WADA and USADA were also worried that the public would learn of the doping enforcement code of "omerta," and of the fundamental unfairness of the doping adjudication process. An immediate vendetta by WADA and USADA was set into motion to defame Floyd Landis. The news media was treated to interviews by Dick Pound who characterized Floyd Landis as a steroid driven mad man who serviced maids along the Stage 17 course, and other defamatory statements. Tygart complained that skilled lawyers were trying to elicit sympathy for Landis by town hall meeting manipulations, commonly known as the Floyd Fairness Fund, where Floyd Landis solicited funds and pointed out flaws in LNDD's Lab Document Package to a sympathetic public. Floyd Landis at this point was winning the public relations war, people were examining LNDD's Lab Document Package, people were viewing Arnie Baker's Power Point Presentation and at one look doubters and fence sitters were convinced of Floyd Landis' innocence. Experts began to notice similarities to warnings of the Vrijman report! LNDD lab errors documented in the AAA hearing included (1) Lack of chain-of-custody.(2) The Stage 17 "B" calibration mix that Frelat injected into the IRMS was left unattended for five hours, an appalling lack of security and a invitation for sabotage.(3) Sloppy lab work. (4)Leaking of test results within minutes to the tabloid l'Equipe.(5) Destruction of hard drive mass-spectra evidence. (6)A calibration mix that lacked two metabolites including 5alphaAdiol.(7) The Stage 17 "B" calibration mix that re-processed with Masslynx tested an astonishing -3.65mils a result that would suggest that the blank contained synthetic testosterone.(8) Sample contamination, and degradation. See appendix.*(9)Numerous and persistent coding errors.(10) Untrained lab personnel,(11) Outdated software. (12)Violations of WADA International Standards for Laboratories.(13) Violations of WADA International Standards for Testing.(14) Violations of WADA technical documents. (15)Non-existant WADA required accreditation audits. (16) Mis-identification of metabolite peaks.

It is no wonder that in light of the above irregular laboratory work LNDD IRMS testing found one out of four testosterone metabolites above threshold for synthetic testosterone, 5alphaAdiol-pdiol. A very odd finding indeed when you consider that three other metabolites tested by IRMS were below the three mil threshold and this indicates no synthetic testosterone use whatsoever. Two of three metabolites that tested normal were calibrated with a calibration mix while 5alphaAdiol had no calibration what-so-ever and the -6.14mil result must be considered suspect. It is astounding that if a person wanted to commit a crime by sabotage of a lab sample and leave no trail for investigators to follow they could have not done a better job than LNDD. Missing metabolites in the calibration mix, deleted mass-spectra hard drive evidence, "overwriting" IRMS blank lab files, destruction of urine by IRMS combustion, and cover-up by LNDD administration, perfect.

Odder still was LNDD results which contrasted with the blood workups of Landis done during the Tour that showed a normal level of leuitinizing hormone, a hormone that triggers the Leydig cells to produce testosterone. Testosterone is hormone that is "bottom up" or receptor driven. The hypothalamus has a "set point" for testosterone and if exogenous testosterone is applied the receptors signal the hypothalamus to order the pituitary gland to suppress the production of leuitinizing hormone in order to maintain homeostasis. After the excess exogenous testosterone has been metabolized, the feedback loop will produce leuitinizing hormone and the Leydig cells will commence to manufacture endogenous testosterone. If Floyd Landis had been doping throughout the Tour, leutinizing hormone would have been suppressed and this would have been detected by blood screening. However, Don Catlin concluded that T/LH levels were normal. There was no exogenous testosterone present in Floyd Landis' blood samples.

Most experts at this point viewed LNDD's "single metabolite" theory with suspicion. In an attempt to salvage the situation and to prevent future legal complications Tygart did some public relations work of his own. He knew that LNDD had violated another WADA standard when personnel who worked on the "A" sample also worked on the "B" sample in an attempt to duplicate their findings. He also knew that the CAS had ruled against LNDD in the Landaluze case. So in an attempt to do an end run on Landaluze he argued before the AAA panel to allow additional IRMS tests on the "B" samples Landis gave previous and after the Stage 17 samples, all of which tested normal on the T/E screen. The Panel agreed to the additional testing although they stated that no additional AAF could be filed based on the results of the IRMS results because no IRMS tests had been performed on the "A" samples. However, at the discretion of the Panel IRMS results could be used as supportive evidence of a doping violation. It was a risky gamble by USADA derided in the press as a fishing expedition. Floyd Landis had even stronger words, USADA he said was ordering additional tests in order to destroy evidence and to render the samples useless for further testing purposes. Landis also requested from USADA that the testing be done at the WADA certified laboratory UCLA, the laboratory used by USADA for doping testing purposes. Not only did Tygart refuse the UCLA request but Dick Catlin head of the UCLA lab pulled the IRMS for maintenance, so the samples had to be shipped all the way back to Paris for testing, although Landis argued that if LNDD could not do the original testing correctly how could they be trusted to perform additional tests?

The new testing became even more bizarre, Dr. Scott Davis, Mr. Landis' representative was denied access to several tests by USADA and LNDD even though this is a clear violation of WADA protocol. In spite of the lockout by USADA and LNDD of Mr. Davis, the results of the additional testing exposed several errors made by LNDD. To summarize quickly, LNDD's additional tests reached a conclusion that violates metabolite behavior and biological logic, a fact that should have rendered the illegal "B" IRMS tests invalid by the AAA Majority. A fact that was ignored by the Majority decision. Campbell in his dissent cited the lack of scientific support of LNDD's test results and argued that Floyd Landis had proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, even though most rational scientific minded people considered LNDD's results as impossible, the lay public who were force fed a steady diet of WADA and USADA mis-information, including most of the main stream press, continue to insist that Floyd Landis tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone. Get a clue people, the T/E ratio was dismissed by the AAA Majority! I sincerely hope that the CAS panel will not be duped by the inarticulate, poorly reasoned and scientific hoax of a Majority decision that most experts in GC/MS and GC/C/IRMS have deplored as unsound.

Yes, in spite of such obvious errors by LNDD and the inescapable conclusion that the results are of the WADA world not the real world the Majority had to save face and bury Mr. Landis. It was a matter of revenge against a man who defended himself against unfair accusations. A man who exposed WADA, LNDD, and USADA for the corrupt power crazed monopoly they are. A man who exposed the garbage in garbage out testing methods of WADA accredited labs. A man who raised doubts as to the nature of the process that acts as prosecutor, judge, and jury against helpless athletes who can NEVER WIN. So, what have we learned from this charade? Never fight against the machine, if you are accused save whatever reputation (and money) you have left and surrender. Do not fight, you lose. But never agree to betray your friends. -Jon< id="SPELLING_ERROR_226" class="blsp-spelling-error">contamination was dealt with twice in the Floyd Landis case. First, it was ignored by the Anti-Doping Review Board when Howard Jacobs made a submission for dismissal of the case, even though the ADRB violated WADA TD2004 EAAS, which states that degraded samples cannot result in an AAF. Second, degradation of the sample was dismissed by the AAA Majority when Dr. Ayotte argued that although the LNDD Lab Document Package showed epitestosterone in the free portion of the sample, the free portion was "steroid free." (See AAA Majority decision paragraph 108.)