2012 Tour of Utah Preview

Well the Tour of Utah is ever expanding with a record seventeen teams and a completely altered course, but no prologue time trial.  That is unfortunate because the prologue at the state capitol and the quick time trial course through city creek canyon was the best and most fan interactive part of the Tour of Utah.

In fact, Salt Lake City gets short shrift from the Tour of Utah this year.  There is no criterium around the city library, there is no loop through the city streets, there are two stages that end in Salt Lake City however.  We can all cheer on the sprinters, if there are any left, otherwise it might be a long drawn out affair and tedious as hell.  Stage two of the Tour of Utah has an innovative team time trial that should favor these hot dogs if they are not all testifying at the arbitration hearing of Lance Armstrong and if David Zabriskie can stay on two wheels.

But on the bright side, Big Mountain is back, time to test the old legs again.  A nice climb of about eight miles at about seven percent grade.  I have never tested my old 1987 Trek 1000 up that climb, but hey, I figure I am in reasonable shape so why not give it a go?  But forget climbing Little Cottonwood Canyon up to Snowbird Ski Resort, a nightmare traffic jam and a ozone concentration that will either kill you outright or lead to permanent mental or physical disability.  Only an insane person would attempt to climb Little Cottonwood canyon on race day and I'm not that crazy.

Right.  Some of the old contenders are back.  Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma Quick Step) the 2010 and 2011 defending Tour of Utah Champion.  Francisco "Paco" Mancebo Perez (Competitive Cyclist Racing Team) the 2009 Tour of Utah Champion.  Local favorite and Salt Lake City native Jeff Louder (United Healthcare) the 2008 Tour of Utah Champion.  Other notable and worthy riders, Fast Freddy Rodriguez (Team Exergy), Chris Horner, Joost Posthuma, Jens Voight (Radio Shack Nissan-Trek), and forever durable and tough Brent Bookwalter (BMC).

Every year the Tour of Utah peloton gets a little larger with an improved quality of teams and riders and the organizers are considering expanding the course to include the slick rock country around Moab.  Maybe they could add a stage around Arches National Park.  No matter what you think of Utah, some of the scenery in this state is breathtaking.

See you there.

All Hail USADA CEO Comrade Travis T. Tygart!

 Comrades! The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the soviet organ of a million false negative tests, has filed a "non-analytical positive" accusation against seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong based solely upon denunciations of former teammates and these denunciations cannot be supported by a shred of scientific evidence!  This concept, the unprovable denunciation, is certainly Orwellian, Kafkaesque. Comrade Joseph Stalin would certainly approve of the tactics of Comrade Travis T. Tygart!  After being anonymously denounced by former teammates, the athlete K. is mysteriously arrested by USADA agents then sent to the USADA interrogator. Confess!  If you refuse to confess you automatically waive your the statutes of limitations rights!  The current USADA action against Lance Armstrong  has an eerie resemblance to an episode in  Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.  Citizens during the Joseph Stalin regime were imprisoned based upon anonymous denunciations under Article 58, an amorphous collection of infractions that could be applied to any definition of political dissident, and sentenced to hard labor for twenty five years without trial or right of appeal.  The sentences given out under Article 58 were euphemistically parodied by the prisoners as twenty five rouble notes.  

Note the similarities between doping arbitration and the Stalin soviet model.  USADA is considered a private entity even though it receives federal funding and is allowed to participate in Federal probes of possible criminal misuse of federal money to traffic dope.  USADA is allowed to fully collaborate with agents of Interpol, and is allowed to share intelligence with French and Italian anti-doping officials in concert with "U.S. Special Prosecutor Jeff Novitzky, Federal Prosecutor Doug Miller, his co-counsel Mark Williams and FBI Special Agent Olivier Farable."  Nevertheless, even though USADA acted in the capacity of a state actor Travis T. Tygart insists that USADA is private entity and is therefore exempt from the protections afforded to defendants under the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  And since the action taken against athletes is considered a civil action and not a criminal action, arbitration is a perfectly suitable method for adjudication, a trial is unnecessary, comfortable satisfaction is suitable, beyond a reasonable doubt is unnecessary.  Also unnecessary, the requirement that the state present all of it's evidence in a preliminary hearing and that a judge make a determination whether to proceed to a trial.  Instead of a preliminary hearing where the state must present all of their evidence to an impartial judge USADA forces the defendant to present a blind response to a anti-doping review board that is controlled by USADA without any requirement by USADA to provide any evidence to the defendant.  Refusal by the defendant to supply a blind submission is construed as an agreement by the defendant to the charges outlined in a charging letter (note: at this stage of the process the athlete has not been charged with a "non analytical positive" that step comes after the anti-doping review board makes a determination to proceed with the case) within a specified number of days: this lack of response is considered a forfeit by the defendant, and an automatic lifetime suspension ensues at the discretion of USADA.

Other U.S. Constitutional Rights that do not apply under doping arbitration.

-The right to a speedy trial.
-The right to an attorney. If you can not afford an attorney one will be provided by the state.
-A right to examine witnesses.
-A right to be judged by a jury of your peers.
-A right not to be compelled to incriminate yourself.
-Discovery.  The state is compelled to release all incriminating evidence for examination to the defense.
-The state must prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt.
-A public trial.  No private Court of Arbitration of Sport Star Chamber Proceedings.
-A transcript of trial testimony must be available for public inspection.
-A statute of limitations.  The state does not have an indefinite amount of time to prosecute a case.
-Due process.  The rules of procedure are written in stone, established by precedent, and not subject to manipulation at the whim of the prosecution.

It is impossible to believe that these simple protections offered to the citizens of the United States of America are denied to athletes in doping arbitration.  Kangaroo courts, star chamber proceedings, lettres de cachet, are exactly the type of legal abuse that the great founders of America tried to prevent, not encourage!  If Thomas Jefferson witnessed a doping arbitration hearing presided over by a tribunal he would roll over in his grave, and he would certainly lament this insidious deterioration of American values and freedom we have been experiencing in this country lately. In America we used to be appalled and disgusted with Soviet style justice, we used to laugh and jeer at the "pinko commie fags."  Nowadays, we commend the fascist tribunals who destroy the lives of athletes, based on denunciations, without any scientific proofs.  Denunciations have replaced science!  This sets a bad precedent and it will result in an ever expanding abuse of justice.

 

Frank Schleck: Saboteur

Frank Schleck set off an atomic blast when he tested positive for the diuretic xipamide. Of course, as expected, Radio Shack proclaimed in a predictable tone of innocence that the team did not prescribe such prohibited substances to riders. Thus now that the "B" sample has confirmed the "A" sample, Frank Schleck will be fired by the team and then left to drift all alone in the wind.  Teams, as opposed to riders, teams are not held to a strict liability standard when it comes to doping offenses.  But it is a sensible supposition to conclude that a rider cannot succeed in doping without some kind of professional medical help.

Deja vu, all over again.  Frank Schleck claims to have been poisoned.  Alberto Contador claimed that he was poisoned with a clenbuterol tainted stake served during a rest day meal, a preposterous claim considering that residues consistent with blood transfusion equipment were also found in his blood.  But it is suggestive, Frank Schleck may have received a tainted blood transfusion that contained xipamide from earlier training rides, or worse he may have been using xipamide to mask other performance-enhancing drugs used in training or during the Tour de France.

Is The UCI Biological Passport Worth a Bucket of Warm Spit?

Bradley Wiggins was strongly advised by his doctors not to release his UCI biological passport data to the public. There are too many variables, human physiology is not constant, life and grand tour races are not laboratory settings where the variance of intervening variables can be measured and accounted for.  Therefore, Bradley Wiggins was advised not to release his UCI biological passport data because cynics could make a case out of random variations that might suggest performance-enhancing substance use.  As a matter of fact, a case of doping based upon random physiological variations in UCI biological passport data could be applied to every member of the peloton.  Conclusion: The UCI biological passport is not worth a bucket of warm spit: it is an expensive boondoggle, it could be erroneously applied as a substitute for a conclusive laboratory test, considered "overwhelming evidence" of performance-enhancing substance use, and considered more accurate than a failed laboratory test in determining the outcome of an arbitration award.

WADA, USADA, and Jeff Novitzky collusion against Lance Armstrong?

The Associated Press reported on February 7, 2012 that federal prosecutors requested information relevant to the then ongoing Lance Armstrong doping investigation from the World Anti Doing Agency (WADA).   It was reported that John Fahey and David Howman assured Jeff Novitzky full cooperation in providing all existing testing intelligence compiled on Lance Armstrong.  WADA also assured Jeff Novitzky that there were existing Lance Armstrong samples available for further testing upon request. In the article David Howman also mentions waiving the statutes of limitations for Lance Armstrong using the Eddy Hellebuyck precedent.  Of course, they were expecting the secret Federal Grand Jury to return a criminal indictment against Lance Armstrong.  But if a criminal complaint were not forthcoming WADA [working together with Federal Prosecutors and USADA?] developed a contingency plan; USADA could file a "non-analytical positive" civil complaint based upon the testimony of ex-U.S. Postal and Discovery channel teammates that could be arbitrated. Thus the argument presented by Lance Armstrong attorneys to U.S. District Judge Sam Spears that USADA may have acted as a "state actor" in concert with United States Federal Prosecutors may have merit.

If the Lance Armstrong submittal may be dismissed at the request of USADA and if U.S. District Judge Sam Spears agrees, then all arguments as to jurisdiction and complicity will be resolved once and for all.

Until then we wait with bated breath.

Lance Armstrong Doping: Comedy of Errors

Stupid race predictions based upon irrational thought processes result in lost wages and a boon for the casinos.  Cadel Evans, the iron horse, cracked on the col and had to be paced to the finish by his teammate Tejay van Garderen.  Meanwhile, Bradley Wiggins and his Team Sky teammate, Christopher Froome, are one two in the overall general classification.  Already, even before the finish of the race, the haters and doubters have emerged, accusing Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky of being the "British" U.S. Postal Service Professional Cycling Team.

Of course, Bradley Wiggins, in a profanity-laced tirade, blamed the press for inventing doping allegations, citing his numerous passed drug tests and his hard work.  Big deal.  Lance Armstrong used the same argument.  Lance Armstrong cited his perfect test results and his hard work ethic to explain his phenomenal seven-year reign, all to no avail, as the USADA has contrived an outrageous conspiracy theory based not upon science, but upon the testimony of convicted dope fiends and proven, liars.

Goes with the territory.  You win a Tour de France and immediately everyone questions your integrity.

3 Associates of Lance Armstrong Receive Bans.

Juliet Macur, the correspondent of the New York Times, is a very responsible journalist, but whatever happened to the one-dollar newspaper?  Luis Garcia del Moral, team doctor, USPS, and Michele Ferrari, also euphemistically known as doctor blood, banned.  Pepi Marti, USPS trainer, banned.  These people did not respond to the USADA charging letter and were subsequently banned for life from Olympic competition and cycling.
Without a hearing or a trial either, but who among USADA cares about due process?

As the deadline approached for Lance Armstrong to decide to accept the USADA charges or march to an arbitration hearing, Lance Armstrong filed a lawsuit against the USADA.  The filing contains an incredible amount of outrageous charges against the USADA, that is phrased as a lampoon, in the most hilarious style, which will elicit uncontrollable laughter and streams of tears from your eyes, dear reader.  But U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks failed to appreciate the humor.  In a stinging dismissal Judge Sparks accused Lance Armstrong not only of improper format, but even worse, of "vilification of Defendants."  Judge Sparks did not dismiss the case on the merits of the legal arguments and invited Lance Armstrong to re-submit his argument within twenty days minus the breach of etiquette.  Immediately, Lance Armstrong filed a version with a much more serious tone.  USADA then gave Lance Armstrong a thirty-day extension to respond to the charging letter in consideration of an expected ruling by Judge Sparks.

But this is certainly not the end of the affair.  Representative James Sensenbrenner is questioning why United States taxpayers are funding USADA.

Here are the blood values for Herr Armstrong.  Are they conclusive proof of blood doping and rEPO use as alleged by USADA?  You make the call.

Conclusion:

Here a tantalizing snippet to consider.   Travis Tygart claims he has "overwhelming evidence" to support his claims.  Lance Armstrong was flying under the radar.  The science was junk, the tests meaningless.  All due to the sophisticated masking techniques employed by Michele Ferrari.  Alas, these arguments do have some merit.  Let us examine the olive oil/testosterone concoction allegedly developed by Michele Ferrari.  This is a very basic and simple method of administering drugs to patients, a muscle depot injection.  With muscle depot injections the drug is absorbed into the muscle making the drug very long-lasting and slow to metabolize. If the bladder was flushed out with multiple water bottles during a very difficult or hot stage, this could prevent a testosterone "spike," and without a "spike" above 4:1 there is no need to conduct a carbon isotope ratio test.  Thus it is possible to fly below the radar.  But not for fourteen years of team doping with multiple performance-enhancing substances.  Not for fifty-six riders on seven Tour de France championship teams, none of whom ever tested positive.  No.  If based on the science and the test results there is overwhelming evidence of non-doping among the United States Postal Service and Discovery Channel professional cycling teams. Not the contrary as alleged by USADA.  Lack of scientific evidence of doping cannot be replaced by demented confabulations of convicted dopers who are also proven, liars.

Bradley Wiggins Will Not Win the Tour de France

Bradley Wiggins will not win the Tour de France.  Although Bradley Wiggins is an immensely gifted rider and  Britians greatest hope, he is accident prone and unstable on the mountain stages, prone to falter at critical moments.  Frank Schleck was caught behind in an unfortunate crash and lost two minutes.  Alejandro Valverde suffered the same fate.  Has Schleck and Valverde been eliminated from the race even before the mountain stages? Frank Schleck is an immensely gifted rider and he may make up time on Wiggins in the mountains, but there is still Samuel Sanchez and defending champion Cadel Evans to contend with.  There will be little if any making up of time on Sanchez or Evans on the mountain stages or in the time trials.  Andy Schleck suffered a spinal injury during a classic race, rode an extremely poor time trial, and is certainly out of contention.  Ivan Basso, the perpetual contender is still active, but he is aging and he does not have the same pizazz of yore, when he and Lance Armstrong used to contend stage wins on the cols.  Basso may make the podium, but the chances are remote, so don't bet the sport book.  Levi Leipheimer is also immensely gifted, good in all facets, but prone like Bradley Wiggins to fail at critical moments. At times Levi Leipheimer is prone to inexplicably bad cycling skills and crashes, which diminish his chances of success.  Always a contender Leipheimer will not make the podium this year.  Andreas Kloden, is another timeless competitor who has had varied success over the years. Andreas Kloden could possibly make the podium depending upon his team support, but like Ivan Basso the legs have a million miles and the VO2max has declined with age.  Expect Andreas Kloden to finish in the top ten.  The podium is difficult to predict and if it were not for Frank Schleck being caught behind a crash I would have predicted him to win the 2012 Tour de France, with Cadel Evans second, and perhaps Samuel Sanchez third.  But now?  Pick a card and hope for the best.  Bradley Wiggins, in spite of his natural gifts as a cyclist, will finish off the podium, probably forth or fifth.

Shifting Gears: Why are USADA's Stool Pigeons Allowed to Participate in the 2012 Tour de France?

During the early stages of the tour, the roads of France has been spattered with cyclist blood in an unusually large number of crashes.  But even worse than the crashes were the rumors circulated by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and the New York Times, from anonymous sources linked to USADA and the Jeff Novitzky secret grand jury investigation of Lance Armstrong, that former teammates of Lance Armstrong are scheduled to testify against Lance Armstrong on behalf of USADA concerning an alleged conspiracy of organized and systematic performance drug trafficking within the United States Postal Professional Cycling Team, Team Discovery Channel, Team Astana, and Team Radio Shack.  Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel are accused of drug trafficking and distribution of performance enhancing drugs among the aforementioned teams for a period of fourteen years.  These charges were formulated upon e-mail messages sent from Floyd Landis to USA Cycling and from excerpts gathered from Tyler Hamilton on the news program 60 Minutes along with alleged statements made by former U.S. Postal and Discovery Channel teammates: George Hincapie, Jonathan Vaughters, Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie, and Christian Vande Velde.

De Telegraff  and the New York Times claim that anonymous lawyers connected to USADA claim that during the grand jury testimony George Hincapie, Jonathan Vaughters, Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie, and Christian Vande Velde all admitted, under oath of using performance enhancing drugs and that USADA offered sweetheart deals of shortened suspensions of six months that are to commence in September, 2012 in exchange for favorable testimony against Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Dr. Michele Ferrari, and others listed in the USADA charging letter.

Of course, there was an immediate denial of any deal by George Hincapie and Garmin Slipstream sport director Jonathan Vaughters.  George Hincapie merely stated that he felt sorry for Lance Armstrong his old friend and allay.  Jonathan Vaughters claimed that these speculations did not have any thing to do with him, Garmin or Slipstream.

The denials of involvement with any sweetheart deal with USADA is understandable and these sorts of rumors should be staunched at the source to prevent what Travis T. Tygart calls "possible witness intimidation."  Unfortunately the source of the leaks of information comes directly from lawyers who have insider information that is not included in the "public domain."  USADA is directly responsible for the lawyers who leaked witness information to the press are legally culpable if legal action is to ensue because identities of witnesses who appear before secret grand juries are protected by law and testimonies derived from these witnesses are protected by law, and violators of this sacred trust will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Ahem, yes.  But in the meantime these Judas Iscariot types who are willing to sell their very souls for thirty pieces of silver, these USADA stool pigeons who are willing to present to Travis Tygart on a silver platter the head of Lance Armstrong, cretins who are allowed to participate in the 2012 Tour de France unmolested as if they admitted to nothing and testified to nothing. Why this reflects an overt mockery of the anti-doping agenda and this form of hypocrisy cannot be tolerated. After all Micheal Rassmussen was fired by Rabobank for failing to report his whereabouts to the UCI when it was obvious that he was about to win the Tour de France!  But, today, in 2012, we have men who are allowed to compete in the Tour de France, who are admitted dopers!  Men who have not been punished for their crimes, men who are not suspended or sanctioned.  Very well, if Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie, George Hincapie, and Christian Vande Velde have admitted to performance enhancing substance use let them do the only right and honorable thing: resign  from the 2012 Tour de France in disgrace the same way they resigned from participation in the Olympic games.

The the real nightmare will begin and we can all start feeling sorry for George Hincapie who will be relentlessly hounded with "non-analytical positives" for every year he assisted Lance Armstrong to a Tour de France title, shamed into bankruptcy by the relentless pursuit of USADA, and exempt from the statute of limitations...a fate I would not wish upon by worst enemy.  So much for the beloved all American apple pie kid we all used to admire.     

USADA: Abuse of Power

The USADA doping review panel has formally charged Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Dr. Luis Garcia Del Moral, Dr. Pedro Celaya, and Dr. Michele Ferrari, of the accusations contained in the USADA charging letter. The vote of the three panel anti-doping review board was unanimous.  Unfortunately, a very unsavory incident occurred.  Asked to respond to the anti-doping review board decision Clark Griffith stated in the most flippant, arrogant, and cavalier way, "I can't wait for an arbitrator to see this evidence."  This would have been bad enough, but to add gasoline to the flames, Lance Armstrong tweeted a link to a news article that alleges Clark Griffith plead no contest to a charge of exposing himself to a twenty four year old young lady.  Clark Griffith, declared Lance Armstrong in his tweet, is the sort of garbage that USADA employees to consider relevant evidence pertaining to my case and the arguments outlined in my mandatory response to the USADA charging letter.

It is difficult to maintain that the USADA anti-doping review board took Lance Armstrong's response seriously.  But Robert Luskin outlined practices of USADA that could be construed as violations of Federal Law.  Improper use of secret Federal grand jury testimony. Bribery, threats, and cajolery of witnesses in an attempt to manipulate witness testimony to favor the prosecution.  Threats and coercion of arbitrators. Example: backroom assurances by USADA that if the neutral arbitrator does not agree with the USADA position; termination.  Do you recall Shyman Das?  A refusal on the part of USADA to reveal either UCI or WADA expert witness testimony that the recorded blood values given to Lance Armstrong as evidence reflect a consistent use of recombinant erythropoietin or blood manipulation and not normal blood variations that could be expected in an elite cyclist.  After all, Lance Armstrong posted all of his test results on his website Livestrong and it is almost a certainty that though these test results were scrutinized by millions of Lance haters, but there were no accusations of indications of doping, because if there was even a smidgen of evidence the haters would have declared something untoward, and there would have been an unending series of caricatures and bad Internet lampoons.  Robert Luskin also demanded to know the specific names of the specific witnesses with their contact information, that pertained to the individual charges outlined in the USADA charging letter.  Example: the name of the witnesses who claimed they saw Dr. Del Moral, Dr. Pedro Celaya, and Dr. Ferrari administer rEPO injections, dates, times, persons injected, and any other pertinent relevant information.  There are more issues in the Lance Armstrong response, but you can peruse the letter for yourselves and draw your own conclusions as to the potential legal implications.

Then there is the assertion by USADA that the eight year statute of limitations can be waved because Lance Armstrong, instead of confessing to use and abuse of performance enhancing drugs, lied under oath.  This claims USADA makes the Hellebuyck award applicable to Lance Armstrong.  But as Robert Luskin pointed out in his response, Hellebuyck admitted to perjury and it was understood by both Hellebuyck and USADA that he was an admitted perjurer and doper.  But Lance Armstrong has consistently maintained that he did not and has never doped ever in his career.  Lance Armstrong has never made an admission to doping nor has he confessed to using performance enhancing drugs.  So consequently the Hellebuyck waiver of the eight year statue of limitations does not apply to Lance Armstrong.

.Now that Lance Armstrong has been formally charged of a doping offense it would be expected that the identity of the witnesses who have written or spoken formal denunciations as to a systematic doping conspiracy at U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Channel, Astana, and Radio Shack will be released so that the Lance Armstrong defense will have an opportunity to interview these people, accumulate pertinent historical background information, etc.  The statement by USADA that the anti-doping review board expressed a concern that it was in the best interest of the witnesses to conceal their identities to those witnesses that were currently known to the public domain to prevent intimidation, is nonsensical and absurd.  It has been widely reported in the press that e-mails written by Floyd Landis to USA Cycling CEO Steve Johnson, and the 60 Minutes interview of Tyler Hamilton, are to be used as a bases of evidence to prove the conspiracy theory. There have been no reports of death threats against Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton.  There have been no reports of inappropriate contact or of witness intimidation against Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton.  So where is the justification of the concern for concealing their identities?

First there is the circus atmosphere then there is the theater of the absurd.  The anti-doping review board are the clowns who stick out their tongues at the defendants, who are so smug after so many of years of success; USADA never loses an arbitration case and when we are sued in Federal court we never lose, so come get us if you dare!  But there is a bridge too far gentlemen, a line one must not cross, USADA is dealing with a very high profile case, with a very popular athlete, and people are paying attention!  The absurd?  Having these mystery witnesses testify with from an distant room with their faces electronically scrambled and their voices electronically masked, to protect their identities!  Lance Armstrong and his defense team along with the spectators can play a game of guess the witness, with prizes for the first successful candidate!  Example: from the vitriolic statements of hate generated by this witness I will guess the bearded lady Betsy Andreu!  Correct!  Five points.  Next contestant.

Last point:  USADA wants to drag the old Tour de Suisse alleged rEPO positive from the grave as an example of a Lance Armstrong positive dope test, based upon the Tyler Hamilton 60 Minutes interview.  Tyler Hamilton claims that Lance Armstrong told him that he tested positive during the 2001 Tour de Suisse and that Lance Armstrong arranged to cover up the test result by offering a bribe in the form of a donation to the UCI and by contributing enough for WADA to buy some laboratory diagnostic equipment.  But the man in charge of the WADA accredited laboratory at Lausanne Dr. Saugy denied any positive test by Lance Armstrong during the 2001 Tour de Suisse, in fact Dr. Saugy insisted that he would never testify in court that the results he measured indicated a positive test.  Hein Verbruggen, former president of the UCI also denied any cover up or acceptance by the UCI of bribes in the form of donations by Lance Armstrong and he is suggesting possible legal action against Tyler Hamilton for making these outrageous statements.  It should be noted as an aside that Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid are suing Floyd Landis in a Swiss court for slander because Floyd Landis accused the UCI of falsifying test results to protect certain high profile cyclists.  Is USADA the next to be sued by the UCI because it accuses the UCI of cover up of a positive test and accepting bribes?  And if the UCI can sue Floyd Landis why not Lance Armstrong to sue USADA, Tyler Hamilton, and Floyd Landis after all of the dust clears?

I wanted to watch the Tour de France without all of these worthless doping distractions.  The timing of the official charges of doping against Lance Armstrong on the day of the Tour de France prologue seems no accident to me.  Now there will be endless discussions of dope, dope, dope!  Foo!  This stupid, idiotic, inquisitorial witch hunt just keeps on giving and stimulating the long dormant brain cells that I hoped would never be revived again.

USADA Demands Armstrong Answer to a Lettre de Cachet

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) a publicly funded entity domiciled in the United States of America, but apparently with extraterritorial rights, has written Lance Armstrong a lettre de cachet; and has demanded a written confession as to the charges contained therein by June 22, 2012.

Lettres de cachet were used during the ancien regime of France to arrest and detain people without trial. Lettres de cachet were signed by the King, countersigned by the Secretary of State, and stamped with the signet seal of the King.  Lettres de cachet soon became a weapon used by Peers of France in the King's favor to remove personal or political enemies without just cause.  The Marquise de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, not for overt crimes, but merely for objectionable moral turpitude.  Lettres de cachet became highly abused in an arbitrary fashion under the reign of Louis XVI.  Lettres de cachet did not contain the charges levied against a person, nor the persons responsible for the accusations of wrongdoing, nor the duration of the detention.  People of high esteem or notoriety were detained in the Bastille prison near Paris, France.

King Tygart I of USADA applied his signet ring to the lettre de cachet containing a large and varied number of amorphous charges: use of recombinant EPO, illegal blood doping methods, and masking agents during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.  These doping methods were allegedly discovered by the International Cycling Union (UCI) comparison of out-of-competition UCI Biological Passport baseline scores with values measured during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.  Allegedly certain values were detected in the biological values during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France that suggests EPO use or illegal blood doping techniques.  The lettre de cachet also lists a long running conspiracy that alleges use of prohibited substances by Lance Armstrong and his teammates in an systematic and organized fashion to gain an unfair competitive advantage in order to win titles and cash.  This conspiracy included  all of the cycling teams that Lance Armstrong competed with from 1998 to 2010, including U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Channel Team, Team Astana, and Team Radio Shack.

Lance Armstrong has complained that the lettre de cachet that USADA wrote does not contain the names of the riders who are to testify to the doping conspiracy charges.  USADA has refused to release the names even after repeated requests of the Armstrong defense team, and USADA claims that it is under no obligation to do so.  In this light it is impossible to understand how the Lance Armstrong defense team is to respond in a coherent and comprehensive fashion to the lettre de cachet.  But Lance Armstrong must respond or be charged by USADA with obstruction of justice.

There is more bad news that could give us a hint as to this witness list may be because George Hincapie, Christian Vande Velde, David Zabriskie, and Levi Leipheimer, all sent USA Cycling Corporate Executive Officer Steve Johnson e-mail requests to be taken out of the potential pool of participants for the 2012 London Olympic games.  Hincapie, Zabriskie, Leipheimer, and Vande Velde were also former U.S. Postal Lance Armstrong lieutenants and may be called to testify if the anti-doping review board decides to press formal charges.  According to Juliet Macur of the New York Times Hincapie has already admitted to using performance enhancing drugs and involvement in the alleged conspiracy.

King Tygart I has a good incentive for the prosecution witnesses to testify on behalf of USADA, a sweetheart deal of shortened duration of suspensions for cooperation with the government, but  cavaeat emptor. Why? What possibly could go wrong with the deal?  Well for one thing USADA has the habit of expanding power and lowering the bar of proof that the prosecution has to abide by.  First, an athlete had to fail a drug test.  Then, there emerged the "non analytical positive" or evidence derived from testimony of teammates, coaches, or others who witnessed the defendant using performance enhancing substances, methods or markers, etc, next emerged the UCI Biological Passport, and deviations in biological parameters that could be construed as consistent with doping.  The deviations from the baseline scores are suspicious and only require and up or down vote by a committee of experts to constitute threshold for doping.  The Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) has concluded that the judgment of the committee can be used as a bases for an adverse analytical finding (AAF) even in the absence of a conclusive positive test for a prohibited performance enhancing drug.  Thus even though Lance Armstrong did not test positive for a performance enhancing drug during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France he could still possibly be charged with an adverse analytical finding.  USADA can claim that Lance Armstrong and his doctors employed masking agents or other medical methods that defeated the testing, but that the residual trends and tendencies of his biological profile indicate doping, in spite of the success in defeating the laboratory test.  There is no defense an athlete could formulate that would prevail against a methods to defeat the testing logic.  But there is worse news, King Tygart I wants to suspend the time limit for the statute of limitations of eight years because of the infamous nature of the Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel alleged conspiracy to traffic dope to innocent teammates at the point of a gun, but beware all of you prosecution witnesses who admit to doping in the past, the waiver of the time limit may also apply to you. You may find yourselves deluded by the USADA sweetheart deal of partial immunity against prosecution and suspension and then suddenly find yourselves served with a lettre de cachet that deals with other years and other episodes that are not contained in your immunity agreement.  Remember, King Tygart I is trying to eliminate the statute of limitations altogether to remove another prosecution obstacle, and if he succeeds, he may still ban you from cycling forever in spite of your protests of USADA reneging.  Remember, USADA changes the rules at half time to ensure a USADA victory and a defeat for the defendant, and the goal of USADA is an ever expanding foundation of prosecutorial power, and a ever expanding horizon of arbitrary unfairness and injustice of the arbitration process.  So you better be careful willing prosecution witnesses that King Tygart I does not depose you too.  Geroge Hincapie announced that this is his last year and he will retire, but the rest of you should think about your future in cycling, because you may be missing more that merely the 2012 Olympic Games!

Last thought.  If there was a organized doping ring going on at Astana when Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel were with Astana, where are the biological deviations in the 2009 Tour de France biological tests from the out-of-competition UCI Biological Passport baseline scores for Alberto Contador, the man who won the 2009 Tour de France?  Does it not reason that Alberto Contador would have similar biological deviations if both riders were using the same drugs?  Is it logical to conclude that a clean Alberto Contador beat a doped Lance Armstrong who finished the race in third place on the podium?  USADA can't order an examination of Alberto Contador but the UCI or WADA can.  It is impossible to understand that with Alberto Contador's links to Operation Puerto , after the clenbuterol positive test, after the suspension and revocation of his 2010 Tour de France title, that the UCI and WADA still insist on protecting Alberto Contador.  Let's see his baseline and 2009 Tour de France test scores and compare them side by side with Lance Armstrong.  Then King Tygart I could be regarded as the indefatigable, untouchable, doping anti-crusader who deposed two doper cycling kings with a single dagger thrust!

Oh and by the way did not Alberto Contador get caught using performance enhancing drugs after Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel had left Astana and were working for Team Radio Shack?  Curious coincidence don't you think, but consistent with the Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras syndrome:  a man is promoted to team leader and starts to earn the big money, the positive drug tests, suspensions, and revocation of titles are soon to follow.  There may be organized, systematic doping going on here, but you can't blame Armstrong and Bryneel for that.

USADA: An Open Letter to Lance Armstrong

Lance!  If you are guilty of using performance enhancing drugs during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France as alleged by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) confess now and spare us all the trouble!  We fans should be entitled not to have to endure another endless bout of litigation and pointless denials which end only in tearful confessions and accusations of doping by cycling teams and riders!

But!  If you are innocent you must convey this message to the Anti-Doping Review Board (ADRB) with the simplest message.  "I am innocent."  Or "no data."  You do not need to get expansive with complaints that USADA has not been forthcoming with the evidence compiled against you.   The ADRB has had experience and first hand knowledge of the delaying tactics and subterfuge of Travis T. Tygart and USADA when it comes to releasing their evidence of doping to the accused.  When a formal complaint is filed against you then you will be provided the evidence USADA thinks is appropriate and nothing more.  If you insist upon further documents relevant to your case you will be expected to argue your request before an arbitration panel and the panel will have to rule in your favor before you can expect USADA to surrender any further documents for your perusal.

Lance!  I will bet you a plug nickel to a bucket of warm spit that the doping USADA alleges in their letter that you used during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France, EPO,  human growth hormone, testosterone, transfused blood, and the plasma and saline injections used to mask drug use, are based upon physiological fluctuations that they found in your Tour de France tests that deviated from baseline data gathered from your UCI Biological Passport profile.  You should have expected this to happen with the fifty volumes of out-of-competition data they collected.  You should have known that they were compiling enough data to make a case against you.  Any fluctuation in a biological parameter that deviates from the norm of your profile could be conceivable considered as an indicator of doping activity, a slight increase in hematocrit levels when the levels are expected to decline at the end of a grueling two week stage race, for example.  The determination of whether these suspect hematocrit values indicate doping in the absence of a clear cut positive test result for rEPO or some other blood boosting prohibited drug is determined by a panel of experts who make a decision based upon trends and tendencies, hypothetical bunk and speculation, and general consensus of opinion.  The Court of Arbitration of Sport has accepted this "non-analytical positive" opinion as a basis to suspend riders in the past and this form of "non-analytical positive" finding is indefensible!  A negative test result for rEPO taken during the Tour de France will not exonerate you!  You will be accused of using micro doses of rEPO to defeat the tests!  If you used rEPO or any of the other performance enhancing substance during the 2009 or 2010 Tours de France, you have no excuse and you cannot be forgiven on the grounds of stupidity!  In any event, you should have known that they were collecting all of that UCI Biological Passport data and at the proper moment they were going to strike.  The Tour de France was that moment.  You were warned never to return to cycling, and you ignored the warnings. They have a vendetta against you according to your own statement, right?  They are suggesting a lifetime ban.  You will die and no one will weep over your corpse.  And you are to blame.  What could be more a more fitting punishment for a man who passed five hundred and fifty doping tests than to be tarred, feathered, and rode out of town on a rail?  People who hate your guts and who have accused you of doping for all of these years will be delighted with your demise.  You will be the new villain, non plus ultra,  and you will forever be enshrined forever in the cycling hall of shame.  

Lance!  Your attorney Robert D. Luskin is complaining about a lack of fairness of the process and a rush to judgment by USADA!  You and your attorney sound like beaten fighters waiting for the knock out blow.  There is no fairness in this process gentlemen.  Don't be deceived.  You have only two options.  The Ivan Basso option includes doing nothing and allowing USADA to prevail unchallenged.  You will lose the case but save all of your money.  The Floyd Landis option means spending millions of dollars in legal fees, paying for expert witnesses, etc.  You will lose the case and lose millions of dollars, but you might lay a foundation for a legal challenge.  In any event, if you are innocent, if you are wrongfully convicted of doping, you must file a legal challenge against USADA, WADA, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in open court on behalf of all athletes worldwide, you must serve as an international ambassador, you must strive to end this horrible ordeal of arbitrary, legally incontestable, "non analytical positive," comfortable satisfaction style of arbitration through lawfully legal means.

Lance!  If you are guilty of trafficking dope to your teammates on the U.S. Postal Professional Cycling Team, Discovery Channel Professional Cycling Team, Astana, or the Radio Shack Professional Cycling Team, confess right now!  Spare me the grief.  Indulge me.  Please.

But!  If you are innocent of these accusations you must stand your ground. The absurd nature of the USADA conspiracy charges sound like something out of a bad X-Files episode.  You should respond to the USADA charges thus: "We do not consider the testimony of drug addled, convicted dopers as 'evidence'."  Nothing more is needed because you do not want to give USADA a pretext to label you as a wealthy athlete who is willing to engage in obstructionist tactics to defeat a "clear non-analytical positive result."  Very non chic, this Travis T. Tygart with his descriptions of your egregious, infamous crimes.  Tygart is even willing to suspend the statute of limitations, USADA wants all seven of your titles Lance.  Do you understand?  USADA wants to parade your ex-teammates before an arbitration panel and claim that you forced them to do drugs and then threatened to murder them mafia style if they broke the sacred code of omerta.  Did you intimidate people?  Were you a bully?  Did you threaten to destroy the careers of people who wanted to expose your doping?  Are people like Greg and Kathy LeMond, Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton telling lies?  Did people really see you injecting EPO and taking blood transfusions?  Did you really give Floyd and Tyler performance enhancing drugs when they rode for you as trusty lieutenants?  Or did people like Floyd and Tyler and Betsy and Frankie make up the whole thing because they loathed you and envied your success and talent?

Because, for all of those years that you were supposedly running some sort of shooting gallery in the team bus, not once in all of those years did a single teammate of yours test positive for performance enhancing drugs, and that includes Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton.  With all of the doping and distribution of performance enhancing drugs going on for all of those years as USADA alleges this fact seems incredible!  After all, when Tyler Hamilton joined Team Phonak as team leader he tested positive twice for having a double red cell population in his blood, first at the Olympic time trial race and later at the Tour of Spain 911 time trial race! Tyler Hamilton was suspended for two years, and was later forced to surrender his Olympic gold medal. And Floyd Landis who was riding for Team Phonak as team leader won the 2006 Tour de France and tested positive for synthetic testosterone and was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title and suspended for two years.  Obviously there was something contagious in the water at Phonak, but nothing that suggested organized, systematic team doping.  But USADA does not have time to investigate Phonak, they are too obsessed with Lance to care about Team Phonak.

Roberto Heras is another strange example.  Clean as a whistle, as was his U.S. Postal teammates, Heras won the Tour of Spain.  It was only after Roberto Heras left U.S. Postal and joined another cycling team that he tested positive for rEPO and was stripped of his title and suspended for two years.  Bizarre wouldn't you agree?

And star witness for the prosecution Frankie Andreu, the wife of Betsy Andreu the woman who loathes your soul more than any other person in the world, a woman who claims you corrupted her man with your nefarious persuasions, went to a pharmacy and purchased rEPO from a druggist on his own initiative and probably without the knowledge and permission of the director sportive, and competed in the 1999 Tour de France as your trusted lieutenant.  It is strange that Frankie Andreu needed to buy rEPO when, according to USADA, it was on tap at the team shooting gallery, is it not?  Even stranger is the reaction of queen Betsy who preferred to blame Lance for corrupting her man rather than her man taking responsibility for his own stupid behavior.  And old queen Betsy would have been better off saying nothing about you using performance enhancing drugs during the Motorola days because we could have always said that your incredible increase in performance post cancer was all due to performance enhancing drugs.  But that stupid dame Betsy made that assertion forever impossible when she claimed she overheard you giving a doctor a summary of your medical history that included past use of performance enhancing drugs.  rEPO before cancer rEPO after cancer, that cancels out and cannot be calculated as a factor in your incredible increase in endurance and performance post cancer, or the fact that Motorola you could not even complete a Tour de France let alone win seven in a row.
You will have a field day with that woman on the witness stand, no joke.

Your case may drag on indefinitely, but it of some interest to understand the psychology of  probable USADA star prosecution witness Tyler Hamilton.  Tyler Hamilton,  the depressed, destructive man who has the strangest cognitive reasoning imaginable.  Tyler Hamilton the chief accuser, the man who claimed on sixty minutes that "I doped because everyone was doing it."  First, this assertion that "everyone was doing it" is preposterous.  Everyone was not doing it!  Tyler Hamilton's statement can be verified by the number of Olympic time trial riders who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs during the time trial that Tyler Hamilton won.  One Olympic time trial rider tested positive for performance enhancing drug use, Tyler Hamilton.  The rest of the Olympic time trial riders tested clean.  Tyler Hamilton used dope because he was convinced that he had to use dope to keep pace with the pack or he would be left behind.  Hamilton also used dope because like all type A personalities he loved the money, he loved the accolades, he loved the laurels, he was avaricious, greedy, he wanted to be the man.  Tyler Hamilton, thought that Lance Armstrong was using performance enhancing drugs to win races, that Lance Armstrong had the best drugs and the best drug doctors.  But nonetheless, even after being repeatedly warned by the UCI that certain irregularities existed in his blood samples Tyler Hamilton continued to receive blood transfusions probably under the delusional thinking that masking agents would ensure deception of detection.  He was caught at the Tour of Spain, he was suspended, he denied ever doping, he enlisted his groupies to corner people and shout in their ears to "Believe Tyler."  And would you believe it?  USADA expects us to believe Tyler again.  The Jeff Novitzky Federal investigation into doping by Lance Armstrong and his nefarious associates could not generate enough evidence of wrongdoing to convince a secret Federal grand jury to return an indictment, apparently they did not  "Believe Tyler."  Let us hope that an arbitration panel comes to the same conclusion.

Last comment.  Good old Greg LeMond, the man of endless accusations of Lance Armstong, the man who insisted that Lance Armstrong confess, to admit that he cheated, and to reform his doping ways.  Greg LeMond is another man of bizarre cognition, he thinks still to this day that he lost the 1991 Tour de France to Miguel Indurain, not because Indurain was a great five time Tour de France champion and the strongest rider of the 1991 Tour de France, but because Miguel Indurain was using rEPO.  Not only was Miguel Indurain using rEPO but the entire pack was using rEPO, and the reason that Greg LeMond finished in forth place instead of first place, is because "everyone was doing it."  Dope.  Therefore, Greg LeMond, the great champion could not keep pace, not because the LeMond era ended and the Indurain era begin, but because everyone was doing drugs but him.  Without the drugs I think LeMond thought he would reign as kingpin forever.  When old age proved him wrong he must have been seriously disillusioned.  Greg LeMond has always felt cheated by the world, first he was accidentally shot which deprived him of competing for several years in the Tour de France, then he felt he was cheated out of his rightful legacy by a bunch of no good dopers, and he has harbored a bitter resentment against the cycling community ever since.  Greg LeMond and his wife Kathy loath Lance Armstrong because Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times and they have done everything in their power to expose Lance Armstrong as a no good doping cheat, to remove his name from the pantheon of Tour de France winners and replace his name with "title vacant."  Rejoice, Greg, USADA, may fulfill your fondest wish, but you will never gain my respect.

The Ryan Braun Rule

It is wonderful to note that Major League Baseball, WADA, signatories and affiliates, through wanton negligence and disregard of due process, destroyed all credibility of the anti-doping process and invited an avalanche of disdain and speculation.  This incredible blunder was based upon an incredible lack of interest in ensuring athlete rights to fair process by ensuring that the urine and blood samples they contributed through contractual attrition be assured unequivocal sample integrity from sample collection to final laboratory testing.

This abuse of process is indicative of the "sloppy" practice so often engaged in by the anti-doping crusade.  The samples were collected from the athlete under a rigorous process, witnessed, signed, sealed.  At this point there seems to be nothing that is legally contestable.  But once the sample passes from the direct supervision of the athlete into the maw of the transportation process, then a whole gamut of legally contestable problems emerge based directly upon the lack of foresight of the policy makers.  In the Ryan Braun case the issues centered upon a whole cascade of problems, delay in shipping the samples, lack of security of the sample to prevent possible sabotage, malfeasance, urine substitution; a lack of a controlled environment for the sample to prevent degradation, and a wanton disregard for accountability, responsibility, and liability.

Not surprisingly under appeal of these clear breaches of a convincing chain-of-custody, and because Major League Baseball could not convincingly prove the lack of an opportunistic malfeasance or a premeditated criminal intent to tamper with the sample, in spite of witness assurances to the contrary, Shyman Das was forced to overturn a fifty game suspension that was based upon the conclusion that Ryan Braun was above threshold for a carbon 13 synthetic based testosterone; which indicated an illegal use of a prohibited  performance enhancing substance.  It is important to note that the laboratory results generated by the WADA accredited laboratory at Montreal, Canada was never contested by the Ryan Braun defense team.  Indeed, if done correctly the carbon isotope ratio test may be incontestable.  Thus, in the popular press, the overturn of the Ryan Braun fifty game suspension became known as a legal "loophole" tactic.

He who does not agree with the Albanian Party of Labor on any given issue will get, a spit in the face, a sock on the jaw, and if necessary, a bullet in the head.

Mehmet Shehu

A loud and resounding peal of disapproval of Shyman Das emerged from Major League Baseball.  Without exception, anti-doping experts and sport pundits condemned Shyman Das, the arbitrator who cast the deciding vote to overturn the Braun suspension as a villain, a man who allowed a clearly guilty criminal athlete to escape rightful punishment; and a man who set a bad precedent that would prompt other criminal athletes use the same chain-of-custody "loophole" defense. According to New York Times unnamed sources Shyman Das was terminated from his arbitrator position for overturning the Ryan Braun suspension and for "other reasons." [See Velo Vortmax: Ryan Braun Terminated for a short summary of this fiasco.]  Shyman Das was essentially terminated from his position for merely pointing out to Major League Baseball that their chain-of-custody policy was legally indefensible because it was laced with ambiguity and could not prove conclusively sample integrity.

The Ryan Braun Rule

Reports have emerged [Fox Sports Radio] that Major League Baseball has instituted a new chain-of-custody policy to ensure that a Ryan Braun loophole never happens again.  There seems to have been an effort to eliminate the "ambiguity" that caused the problem in the first place; the storage of the sample unattended and unprotected on a courier's desk, for a weekend if necessary, if the shipping office was closed for business, or for concerns of inconvenience, traffic, or ancillary reasons of equal dubious quality.  These incoherent reasons have been clarified to include specific instances where normal chain-of-custody procedures may be circumvented through other incoherent excuses, which cannot be contested in future by the athlete. It would appear that the Ryan Braun rule is merely a faint to create loopholes for chaperons and couriers rather than to protect athletes rights to due process.  Rather than clarifying the process Major League Baseball seems to have added more confusion to the policy than ever and they may have opened the door for future legal actions; not in arbitration, but in a Federal court, where their idiotic policy can be contested by legal arguments.

The Floyd Landis Rule

When a cyclist gives a sample, from that point until testing, the sample becomes property of the UCI, according to a ruling by the Floyd Landis arbitration panel.  Floyd Landis claimed that since his samples had been sent to the WADA accredited laboratory at UCLA, and since he was under the jurisdiction of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, who managed doping arbitration for USA cycling who issued Floyd Landis his cycling license, that any further testing of his samples that corresponded to the 2006 Tour de France other than the Stage 17 sample, the alternate "B" tests, should be done at UCLA and not at Paris.  The arbitration panel ruled that the samples were the property of the UCI and that the UCI could therefore do anything they wanted with regard to their own property, including sending the samples from UCLA to Paris for additional testing.  Thus, the UCI can do anything it desires with the sample including transporting the sample back and forth between WADA accredited laboratories, over thousands of kilometers, until they get the desired result.  Iban Mayo can testify to that fact, his "A" sample was tested by the Paris, France WADA accredited laboratory, who curiously had no time to do the "B" sample confirmation test.  Although Iban Mayo tested positive for rEPO in Paris, the WADA accredited laboratory in Australia where the sample was farmed out to determined the "B" sample "inconclusive."  Nevertheless, the UCI insisted that the Mayo "B" sample be tested again at Paris to confirm the original "A" sample conclusion that rEPO existed in Iban Mayo's urine sample.  The desired result suited the UCI, and the arbitrators confirmed that all was appropriate, above board and incontestable, even though the samples had passed through dozens of hands and had traveled thousands of kilometers...

If it worked for cyclists, why not for baseball too?

Shyman Das Terminated

Shyman Das the arbitrator who overturned Ryan Braun's fifty game suspension imposed by Major League Baseball due to a technicality has been terminated according to the New York Times.  But Das was not terminated as punishment for overturning the fifty game suspension, but for other reasons as well... according to an unnamed source.

 A chain of custody process that is incoherent and detrimental to the interests of the athlete is a valid reason to overturn any suspension for all athletes, in all arbitration cases, and arbitrators like Shyman Das should be lauded for their clear common sense, not cast into the sewer for daring to disagree with an arrogant anti-doping crusade run amok.

But the damage has been done to the anti-doping testing process, and the blame rests solely with those who authored the chain of custody rules; the athlete, chaperon, and arbitrator are all innocent victims who have no legal accountability.  The athlete merely submitted his urine in front of a witness who is there to ensure the integrity of the sample collection process (no substitute urine contributed through a rubber bladder), that the collection vessel is sealed, the appropriate documentation is signed, annotated, dated, etc.  From this point until the sample is signed for and tested at an WADA accredited laboratory, the sample should be accompanied at all times by a chaperon or guard, and any transfer of the sample from one individual to another in a chain should be fully documented.

However, in the Ryan Braun case, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association formulated a chain of custody process that allowed for ambiguity: if the samples were collected and the local shipping office was closed, the samples could be allowed to set on the desk of the chaperon and then shipped when the office opened for business.  Therefore, the chaperon can not be held criminally liable for his behavior because he was not in violation of any constituted chain of custody rule.

The arbitrator had to invalidate the fifty game suspension because Major League Baseball could not prove, even to the weak level of comfortable satisfaction, that the urine contributed by Ryan Braun was the same urine that was tested by Christiane Ayotte at the WADA accredited laboratory in Montreal.  There was so much time where the urine sample was unaccounted for that it was impossible to discount the possibility of opportunistic malfeasance.  The arbitrator therefore cannot and should not be held accountable because of  mistaken, indefensible inferences written in policy.

It is impossible to understand why a chain of custody policy cannot be vetted before legal consul to examine the legal implications of said policy before being implemented.  But before Ryan Braun and Shyman Das there was no problem and no reason to contest the policy; because up to that point no defensive argument of an athlete had ever prevailed in a doping arbitration case; so there may existed a callous indifference to a policy that could have been better phrased as abuse of process.

Nevertheless, testing for performance enhancing drug abuse has fallen on hard times.  The National Football League will perhaps never allow human growth hormone testing, and unless the ambiguity in the Major League Baseball chain of custody rules are modified to conform to legal standards, this may end testing for performance enhancing drugs in baseball as well.

Mountain Bikers to Subsidize All Terrain Vehicles?

Deviating from the common path of prohibited substance abuse among the professional pack, a contagious plague that seems to have infected other sports with an unusual degree of virulence and which seems to have no vaccine to eradicate the plight (not that the anti-doping agencies are doing much to facilitate the cure) I will diverge from the path and talk a little about my other passion, mountain biking.

Now I like to mountain bike on the single track trails that exist in abundance around the Salt Lake City area, not only for the exercise, but to enjoy the clean air and the beauty that mother nature offers in abundance in the Wasatch mountain range.  Imagine my anger and disgust when listening by chance to an "outdoor radio program" that some Equal Access all terrain vehicle advocate was insisting that mountain bikers and cross country skiers pay fees to subsidize the upkeep and repair damage done to back country trails by all terrain vehicles and snowmobiles.

First of all, let it be stated that all terrain vehicle and snowmobile users have access to back country trails as a  privilege and not as an constitutionally declared right.  Let it also be known that mountain bike rides cause as much damage to single track trails, "ATV trails," and "snowmobile trails" as hikers, an insignificant amount, and that cross country skiers cause even less damage than mountain bikes.  It should also be understood that if all terrain vehicles and snowmobiles cause all of the environmental damage in the forms of erosion, foul air with noxious exhaust, foul pristine streams with oil leaking from crankcases, destroy wildlife habitat, vegetation, ignite wildfires with hot exhaust manifolds and exhaust pipes, cause an infernal amount of noise pollution; that they should be responsible to pay fees to the government to repair all of the damage they have have caused, and they alone!

Indeed.  The purpose of mountain biking on single track trails, includes, enjoying nature!  Song birds calling their mates, the babble of  brooks and streams, the pleasure of enjoying breathing clean air, silence of the forests, viewing wildlife!  If one wished to experience the racket of an infernal internal combustion engine, breath disgusting foul polluted air, drink foul brackish water, or evade idiotic distracted or drunken drivers, then, of course, your choice would be to cruise the city streets, not the great outdoors!  But to the Equal Access group of "outdoor enthusiasts" all terrain and existing trails are fair game, environmental calamities notwithstanding.  Equal Access wants to control trail access like the gestapo, installing trail check points, demanding mountain bikers and cross country skiers pay fees and attach stickers to their bikes or skis, because ostensibly, if bikers and skiers want access they should  pay for the environmental damage that they are not responsible for!  A stupid, fantastic notion, absurd, but expected from a bunch of drunken raucous buffoons who think it is extremely entertaining to high track in mountain bowls with  pronounced cornices and unstable snow packs, who trigger fantastic avalanches, and get buried under nine feet of concrete hard snow.  Of course, search and rescue teams with their cadaver dogs have to be called in to remove the corpses of these infernal idiots, which costs even more money!  Foo! When the snow melts in the springtime there is also the added insult of the eyesore these infernal machines create, an ugly crisscross scar zigzag all the way to the summit!

 My mountain bike is a human powered machine that gets twenty eight thousand miles to the gallon, causes no environmental damage to streams and trails, does nothing to destroy wildlife habitat and vegetation, and does not create noise pollution! So there is no justifiable reason why I should pay any fees to access any trail.  And I will refuse to do so under penalty of death.  If others who mountain bike or ski think that it is reasonable to pay fees to access "snowmobile" or "ATV" trails, then in my opinion, you are delusional misguided people who have no justifiable excuse for your stupidity!

Finis!

Fyodor Dostoevsky: All is Lawful

Investigation of the anti-doping crusade does periodically produce some bizarre stories that seem absolutely incredible, beyond belief, astounding.  The newest trickery attributed to the athlete?  Animal urine in the samples.

How the animal urine was substituted for the athlete's urine is an astounding question, using the distorted logic of the sport pundit that asserts that when the sample is collected a foolproof container is used, there is a chaperon witness, that the container is sealed with a seal that changes color when tampered with, that the container is initialed by the athlete, consequently there should be no opportunity for urine substitution at the collection point.  So how do you logically suggest with all of the above security precautions that the athlete is responsible for animal urine being introduced into the sample at the collection point?

Of course, with the meltdown of the Ryan Braun doping case where the integrity chain-of-custody procedures were questioned, where for forty-four hours the sample disappeared into a proverbial black hole, unguarded and unsecured, prone to possible manipulation by criminals who have an agenda, or interests in the welfare of their teams, including possibly financial interests, or career vindictiveness against certain individuals, serve as motives for crimes of opportunity.  What better conditions could possibly exist than an unsecured sample where the identity of the athlete is known, where it would be a very simple matter to insert a pipette or a syringe in the bottom of the container and add a little tainted urine that contains an anabolic steroid, and presto! the forces of evil prevail once again.  The dolts at the laboratory would never be vigilant enough to inspect the container for sabotage because the damage would be so small as to not be noticed under a cursory inspection; a small hole filled with epoxy!  The seal is intact!  The athlete is blamed!

Fyodor Dostoevsky:  "All is Lawful."

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Russian man of letters, developed a concept of "all is lawful" in two of his most notorious characters, Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov) and Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin (The Possessed), although hints of the same concept is expressed by Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment.) Raskolnikov thinks that all great men of genius may overstep all moral bounds, including murder and robbery, when the proceeds of the crime is useful in a quest of a career, without pangs of consciousness, much like the modern psychopath who feels no compunction for his victims in the pursuit of greed.  This thinking by Fyodor Dostoevsky is an embryo stage for the more complicated reasoning used by Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov and Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin, who insist that since there is no God, there is no moral sanction for crimes committed, thus through a degenerate evolutionary process, the Geological Cataclysm, all things become lawful.  However, much like Raskolnikov who could not maintain his position in the face of scrutiny from the prosecutor, Ivan Karamazov and  Nikolay Stavrogin could not maintain a stance of indifference to Christ and the Russian Orthodoxy.  Thus Stravrogin's confession to Father Tihon, the omitted printed sheet in the confession, and the conclusion from Father Tihon that Stavrogin had committed an unforgivable crime against the maiden Liza which lead to her suicide.  Although Nikolay Stvrogin maintained the strictest facade of atheism, blaspheme, and heresy among his drunken companions in the St. Petersburg corners, his admissions to Father Tihon convey a man bent on repentance, a man who in spite of his hideous crime against the maiden wishes to shun his cheap cynicism to end the hallucinations of a taunting insignificant devil who has been jeering his sudden need to accept Christian values and to reform his behavior to Christian standards.  Tihon understands Stavrogin's remorse, pointing out to Stavrogin that his undertaking would be of considerable value only if his motives were pure, not merely a need for aberration, or a need of punishment from a jaded public, or the desire of Stavrogin to stick out his tongue to mock the onslaught of public censure.  Father Tihon suggests to Stavrogin a solution to his inward struggle, become a novice in secret under a man of unusual Christian perceptiveness, and with hard work, study, and diligence, he could reach the highest Christian plateau, self forgiveness.  When Stavrogin scoffs at this suggestion as absurd, Father Tihon in a moment of supreme psychological insight declares to Stavrogin, "the second before you publish your terrible confession you will perpetrate another horrible crime."  Stavrogin commits suicide unable to muster the courage to reconcile his internal conflict, or perhaps to end the torment of the maiden Liza appearing in hallucinations, wringing her hands and sorrowfully shaking her head: visions that inspired fear and terror in Stavrogin's soul.   

Ivan Karamazov on the other hand is a much simpler matter.  Simply put Ivan wanted his brother Dmitri to murder his sick, licentious father Fyodor, in order to end uncertainty over the money Ivan and Alyosha would inherit if Dmitri committed patricide.  Ivan's reason erodes after it is determined that his father Fyodor was murdered not by Dmitri, but by his probable step brother Pavel ( Smerdyakov, "the stinker.")  From this moment Ivan begins a decent into madness suffering the same hallucinations that plagued Nikolay Stravrogin, visits from a paltry devil who taunts Ivan's theories formulated in his dissipated youth and discarded as useless rubbish as an adult; notions such as "the Geological Cataclysm," or the viewpoint that man has an inherent selfish baseness and callous disregard for social conventions that reaches a crescendo when through a degenerate evolution the concept of God is eliminated and replaced with the concept of the "man God," who through selfish self interest may engage in any behavior without compunction, for if there is no God, "all is lawful."  Compare this ideology to Alexey Nilitch (nihilist) Kirillov who had a similar concept of the "man God," (The Possessed) although Alexey Nilitch Kirillov had a confused rational for his belief: defeating fear.  But Ivan cannot resolve the issue within his own mind as to the existence of God, and this inability to resolve the issue that is so contrary to his inherent nature leads Ivan to madness.  Ivan's decision to testify as a witness in Dmitri's upcoming trial to prove that the murderer was the suicide Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") and not Dmitri as was alleged by the Russian state, personifies for Dostoyevsky the highest Christian value of self sacrifice to rectify a wrong committed upon an innocent person.  Ivan's new resolution to testify in court prompts the devil to accuse Ivan of pulling a cheap publicity stunt in order to garner public favor, a fact Ivan vehemently denies.  Ivan was endlessly tortured by the fact that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") would never have murdered his parent without Ivans' influence.  Ivan also failed to realize that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") had an endless desire to seek revenge for his mother Stinking Lizaveta, a poor crazy homeless lady whom Fyodor Karamazov raped and impregnated on a return of a drinking bout with some worthless compatriots.  Ivan failed to discern the true motive for the patricide: the endless subjugation, humiliation, and neglect Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") was subjected to by Fyodor Karamazov.  Ivan also made a serious error in his reasoning based upon a drunken letter Dmitri had written in a tavern where he declared to Katernia Ivanovna that he would kill his father Fyodor to reclaim the missing three thousand roubles that Katerina Ivanovna had entrusted to Dmitri to send to her maternal aunts. Ivan reasoned that the letter constituted "mathematical proof" that Dmitri had killed his father and stolen the three thousand roubles Fyodor Karamazov had hidden in an envelope under the pillows for his "little chicken" Grushenka: a woman whom both Fyodor and Dmitri were both desperately in love with.  This contest between father and son for the hand of Grushenka would prompt a jealous rage and would serve as a motive for murder in the mind of the examining magistrate.  Ivan reached the same conclusion based upon the inherent tendencies of the Karamazov family to engage in extreme licentious behavior and violence.  Ivan declared to Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") at one point that "one reptile will devour another," as a psychological statement of fact as to the abhorrent Karamazov family nature, and Ivan's statement indicates a crass indifference to the outcome of the dispute between Fyodor and Dmirti, an outcome Ivan calculated could only end in blood shed.  When Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") confessed to Ivan that he murdered Fyodor Karamazov instead of Dmitri, Ivan reached the conclusion that without his prompting Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") would have never formulated a conclusion that murder could be committed without a moral qualm under the pretext that since there is no God, there is no moral sanction, therefore, "all is lawful."  Consequently, Ivan reached the conclusion that he was partly responsible for the murder of his father Fyodor, a murder Ivan could have prevented had he intervened.  Thus the notion by Ivan that his philosophical viewpoint prompted Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") to commit murder prompted Ivan to question his atheism.  The impossibility to reconcile Ivan's internal acceptance of the possibility of God lead Ivan down a path of madness that intensified over time.  Ivan was seen in the street having conversations with dead people, and, of course, there were the persistent visits from the devil where the endless philosophical arguments ensued.  When Alyosha arrived at Ivan's abode with news that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") had committed suicide, Ivan experienced a serious nervous breakdown, exclaiming that the devil that had been persistently taunting him was not himself in various forms, but an independent entity.  Alyosha recognized that Ivan was experiencing a spiritual crisis, a crisis that he realized that Ivan could only resolve within himself.  After a routine examination in court as a witness, Ivan had another bout of madness. Suddenly Ivan demanded that the court release the monster, Dmitri,  "he is singing a hymn," and to arrest Ivan who was the true murderer.  When the judge asked Ivan if he was in his right mind, Ivan snarled that he was the murderer because he desired the death of his licentious father whom he ardently desired to be rid of.  Ivan accused the gallery of court spectators of being guilty of the same desire of wanting the death of a parent under various pretexts, and he accused the gallery of appearing at the trial to satisfy a cheap desire for sensationalism: "bread and circuses."  Ivan was lead away from the courtroom after a brief struggle with the bailiff shouting incoherent phrases, thus he vanishes from literature forever, a tormented man.  The reader is left wondering if Ivan will ever resolve his philosophical dilemma and accept Christ as his personal savior.

WADA and the concept of "all is lawful."

WADA as an organization has adopted a similar concept of all is lawful, or permitted, when dealing with athlete samples because in their monopoly of the process from sample collection to control of the Court of  Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel adjudication, there is no higher power who could challenge or contest their arrogance and abuse of the anti-doping process.  But unlike the tortured souls of Dostoevsky, WADA has no compunction, there is no internal conflict of spirit, there is no spirit among these people, only an absolute need for financing, power, control, submission, dissimulation, spin control, and cover up of criminal mistakes and disinformation.  The athletes wrongly accused of committing "crimes" are merely collateral damage of this degenerate process, which regards athletes with a collective consciousness of the most hardened psychopath. Chain-of-custody is not required, needful, or helpful to the demented fools who will accept any sample for testing not matter how compromised it may be, under the guise that the ends justify the means.  Samples of undetermined origin are being accepted at WADA accredited laboratories as valid representations of athlete urine, samples that in most cases would have been refused by any other diagnostic laboratory in the world, and even if the sample was determined acceptable a "red flag" would be attached with an explanatory note that would question the authenticity of the results.  It appears that WADA has degenerated into a state that no athlete would dare allow WADA or any other alphabet soup organization affiliated with them to handle a sample under any conditions without a legal escort from a private attorney hired for the occasion.  There is no other way unless the athlete is determined to fight an endless litigation.  There must be a reform from the prevailing WADA culture of "all is lawful" into a metamorphosis of athlete safety and a right to a fair and lawful process, where the interests of the athlete is paramount and the selfish interests of WADA and it's affiliates are secondary.  But don't expect WADA to adopt this position soon, for a degraded sample reduces the quantitative amount of a prohibited substance in the sample, which would make no difference in the outcome of a doping case.  Excepting the T/E ratio and synthetic EPO tests where degradation in the samples generate false positive results, a fact that WADA denies.

Velovortmax poetry appropriate to the occasion:

But piously relies on lies?

Contorted gifts of malice scorned.

And in love with duty! Oh! Death be warned.

I had intended to write a little missive "Stavrogin the Sybil" but this post has run much too long as it is, so the analyses will have to wait until another time.  But to conclude:  WADA you have opened the door to endless chain-of-custody lawsuits and you should be embarrassed enough to reform your position from pure shame, you dolts!

Major Leauge Baseball Dropps the Ball

Zounds!  An arbitrator has finally sided with an athlete by determining that the sample collection process used by Major League Baseball (MLB) amounts to an abuse of process, and that the sample collection of Ryan Braun  is a direct violation of a irreproachable chain-of-custody, and that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Major League Baseball (MLB)  must adhere to standards that assure sample integrity, to protect the athlete against abuse in the sample collection process, and to ensure that the sample is, to quote a WADA Technical Document, " irretrievably linked to the athlete."

It appears that Major League Baseball was disenchanted by the exoneration of Ryan Braun's fifty game suspension rendered moot by the arbitration decision and now intends to file a lawsuit against the arbitrator to reinstate the suspension.  This folly should be reconsidered in light of the fact that the sample was stored in household of a chaperon employed by Comprehensive Drug Testing Incorporated for forty-four hours, unprotected and unaccounted for.  [Hint: MLB, no judge or jury in the United States will accept your argument, you will waste your time and money, generate an unnecessary amount of bad publicity, and leave yourselves open to retaliatory civil lawsuits, costs, and penalties.]  An unattended, unaccounted for urine sample constitutes a deplorable breach of the chain-of-custody, which demands that samples be accounted for and secured at all times.  Chain-of-custody is necessary to ensure that the urine that is provided by the athlete at the time of the sample collection, is the same urine that is tested by the laboratory, i.e., the athlete's.  Chain-of-custody also guarantees to the athlete that the sample provided will arrive at the laboratory in a pristine state, free from tampering, substitution, or adulteration with performance enhancing drugs by miscreants who have financial or other interests in defaming or suspending of an athlete.  The onus of proof for the integrity of the sample falls on Major League Baseball (MLB), Comprehensive Drug Testing Incorporated, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), not on the athlete.  In the Ryan Braun case, because of the forty-four hour lapse from the time the sample was collected until the sample was shipped, there was an opportunity for tampering, substitution, or adulteration of the sample. Therefore, Major League Baseball cannot conclusively prove that the sample has enough integrity to "irretrievably link the sample to the athlete."

"To shitten tail, turds never fail."
Francois Rabelais

Wow, the exoneration of Ryan Braun by the arbitration decision has generated some of the most incredible myths, and reflects some of the most ludicrous comments ever generated in relation to performance enhancing drug use and testing. The national syndicated sport talk show circuit is ablaze with nonsensical nitwits, both pundits and guests.  For ignorance of a topic it is like the blind leading the blind.  For example, Colin Cowherd of ESPN Radio wants to know how Ryan Braun could possibly generate a world shattering 20:1 testosterone/epitestosterone ratio without using a synthetic testosterone supplement?  Well, there are two other possibilities that cannot be ignored, a medical condition, or letting the sample heat up in a warm environment for forty-four hours!  Letting a urine sample sit in a warm environment is verboten, and heat has a tendency to create a false positive test result by elevating a  testosterone/epitestosterone ratio!  Duh! go fish!  Warm urine samples also may shift the isoform (structural) bands of EPO from endogenous to synthetic, according to Michael Ashenden.   The implication by Cowherd and other misguided pundits that the only source of an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratio of 20:1 is a synthetic testosterone supplement is misleading and based upon ignorance and lack of understanding of the science.  These screaming sport pundits on sport talk radio, and their stupid callers, who aim to vilify and defame the characters of athletes by expressing deranged opinions based upon ignorance of the topic they are discussing, and who are too lazy to do even the most basic research into the topic they are ranting upon, rely instead upon intellectual dishonesty in a need to generate sensationalistic headlines, and hate.  Do your homework before you spout off, idiots.  You sound like complete imbeciles and you should be ashamed of yourselves!

Myths and Truths

The most important thing is the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio test.  False.  The most important thing is the Carbon Isotope Ratio Test.  The t/e test does not indicate doping with a prohibited substance.  Since unchanged testosterone in the urine cannot be typed as containing either Carbon 12 or Carbon 13 atoms, the distinction must be resolved by measuring Carbon 12 or Carbon 13 based metabolites of testosterone and establishing a Carbon 12 to Carbon 13 ratio by a method called the Carbon Isotope Ratio Test (CIR).  According to Christiane Ayotte head of the WADA accredited Montreal Laboratory, Ryan Braun tested above the mandatory two metabolite threshold of three delta units needed to establish the bases for a synthetic Carbon 13 based testosterone. Thus Ryan Braun tested positive for the presence of a prohibited substance, the substance was inside of his body at the time, and was the direct result of using a prohibited substance, method, or precursor (marker).

Ryan Braun claims that a prohibited substance was never introduced into his body.  Well Ms. Ayotte would certainly disagree with you on that point!  Indeed, if the tested urine did belong to Ryan Braun and not some drug addled weight lifter down the block, and if the WADA accredited Montreal Laboratory did not engage in some egregious violation of WADA Code, or WADA Technical Documents, or International Standards of Testing (IST) or Laboratories (ISL), then yes, Ryan Braun did have synthetic testosterone in his body at the time he contributed the sample!  That is why there is an arbitration hearing, to determine whether or not the laboratory complied with the necessary standards of sample collection and testing.  That is why athletes are compelled to hire attorneys and experts in gas chromatic measurements and analyses, testosterone metabolism, spending millions of dollars and wasting years of their lives.  But, nevertheless, in spite of all of the above pitfalls, and without seeing the confidential Laboratory Document Package (LDP) there is no way to determine exactly the truth of the matter, and believing Ms. Ayotte, WADA, or Ryan Braun, will never conclusively establish the truth.

Major League Baseball needs to reform the sample collection process.  True.  I am in agreement with Rob Dibble who insists that all further testing in baseball should cease until the sample collection issues are resolved.  It is a matter of protecting the character of innocent athletes from a media onslaught especially in cases like Ryan Braun, where the athlete is exonerated do to the stupidity of MLB.  It is galling that WADA leaked the Ryan Brauns' positive test results to ESPN  in direct violation of WADA code, but jeez, if you are going to start a riot, you could have had at least the common decency to tell us that the urine sample was stored at the chaperon's home unattended and unsecured for forty-four stinking hours in a warm room!  But no, the chain-of-custody process that was so egregiously violated, to David Howman, reflected nothing more than a glitch in the system.  That is because WADA tends to push the envelope of what is acceptable laboratory practice with the re-assurance that the arbitration panels never holds WADA accountable for their behavior.  In the Floyd Landis synthetic testosterone case, we have examples too numerous to mention of the cavalier attitude maintained by WADA: whiteout of athlete identification numbers, uncrossed through as mandated by the code with a time stamp and initials, numerous coding errors contained within the lab document package uncrossed and unannotated, the CG/C/IRMS had incorrect jet pressures, incorrect heat ramp temperatures, a vacuum leak sucked laboratory environment into the machine, the software used to analysis the data was out of compliance, the personnel were untrained an unqualified to operate the machine, and it is suspected that two different CG/C/IRMS machines were used with different calibrations and with one machine containing a polarized column.  Enough for you yet?  Illogical for the arbitration panels to allow WADA to get away with murder, but the more rope you give these people the more rope they take with impunity, until they end up with a Ryan Braun disaster, because the Court of Arbitration panel never holds WADA accountable for their behavior.  Bottom line, establish a clear chain-of-custody and avoid the sample collection issue altogether, and another disaster.

Major League Baseball needs to establish an independent Anti-Doping Review Board (ADRB).  True.  An independent anti-doping review board could have determined that the chain-of-custody was invalid and have ended the arbitration process at that point without ever presenting the case orally in front of an arbitration panel.  One of the greatest problems with the anti-doping process, as it is presently constituted, is the control WADA has over the process from sample collection to the final arbitration award.  Total power corrupts totally.  Abuse of process that is never punished by an arbitration panel encourages further abuses of power, and a cynical, cavalier disregard of the need to ensure fairness for the athlete or to ensure due process.  An independent panel of objective people who do not have a "dog in the fight," or a conflict of interest, or an incentive for a specified outcome, would do much to ensure fairness and harmony in a system that sadly, at present, is devoid of both.

Awake! arbitrators.  If you would enforce the Orwellian concept of strict liability among the laboratories, as you cruelly do to the athletes, by insisting that any deviation from International Standards would constitute an immediate ground for dismissal of a WADA complaint, then WADA would, for the first time in history, attempt quality control that adheres to established international standards!  As a bonus, there would be no need for athletes to expend millions of dollars for expert witnesses, there would be no need for legal arguments, discovery processes, wasted time, or threats to future opportunities.  There would be justice for all, is this not the ultimate desire of all this nonsense?

Alberto Contador is Toast

Seventeen months wasted by the anti-doping crusade and it's nefarious associates to arrive at a decision in the Alberto Contador clenbuterol doping case, which originated on the second rest day of the 2010 Tour de France.  Thousands of dollars were needlessly expended for expert lawyers and witnesses after the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) inexplicably attempted to exonerate Mr. Contador, citing his lack of intent, culpability and responsibility for the existence of a non-threshold steroid detected in his urine.  This incredible exoneration by the RFEC occurred after Mr. Contador rejected a one-year suspension and forfeiture of 2010 Tour de France championship and award money offer made by the RFEC earlier in compliance with WADA code. Well it is certainly difficult to understand how an athlete who refuses a reasonable deal from an organization that holds his professional license, without admitting any guilt, can cajole an exoneration after the fact.  But this miracle occurred and could only occur in Spain, where there seems to be an incredibly tolerant attitude for sport doping offenses and a need to protect national sport heroes.

Well, the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the World Anti-Doping Organization (WADA) did appeal the RFEC exoneration as unreasonable.  The contention by Mr. Contador that his positive A and B urine sample tests for clenbuterol, a known non-threshold steroid and substance that is included on the WADA prohibited list, was the result of dining on a imported cut of imported Spanish veal, brought to the Astana team dinner table to appease the palate of Mr. Contador.  WADA and the UCI argued that the most likely source of the clenbuterol positive result was not contaminated meat, but, more likely a blood transfusion or a contaminated supplement. WADA and the UCI presented evidence of blood irregularities inconsistent with past parameters measured from UCI biological passport data, and an unexplainable "spike" in phathalates,  plastics found in blood transfusion equipment.  The Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) heard the UCI and WADA appeal and determined that Mr. Contador did not meet the standard of probability that his positive test was more probable as an innocent ingestion of contaminated beef, than a blood transfusion or a contaminated supplement.  The CAS award overturned  the Spanish Cycling Federation exoneration, suspended Alberto Contador for two years, rescinded all of his titles and purses from the date of the offense, including the 2010 Tour de France, and the 2011 Giro d' Italia.  The suspension is retroactive and Alberto Contador will be allowed to race again in seven months, but, we fanatics will not have to deal with doping Alberto for the 2012 Tour de France.

Andy Schleck will be declared the "winner." There is justice in all of this, of course.  On the col when Andy Schleck suffered "chain suck," a nasty problem that happens usually when shifting on the chain wheel from the large chain wheel to the small chain wheel when the chain is under stress and goes bang off your chain stay.  A nasty problem especially when you are hammering up a steep incline, imagine pedaling under stress, then frictionless!  Almost broke me legs a couple of times doing that stunt.  Of course, the problem happens on the freewheel too, when the chain jumps off the small gear up against the wheel and gets stuck between freewheel and spokes or "spoke protector."  Anyway, it is an unwritten rule among professional cyclists, when a malliot jaune has a mechanical problem such as chain suck, the pack is expected to wait, under an unwritten standard of etiquette. But Alberto Contador in an excess of avarice, attacked Andy Schleck who was the victim of chain suck on a very difficult mountain climb, in direct violation of etiquette and gained critical time which indirectly accounted for Contador's Tour victory. The moral of this story, don't dope during a Grand Tour and don't cheat by using bad tactics.  Then you can live with a clear consciousness.