It is truly amazing that under the same circumstances of evidence, a mass murderer would have been released, yet in the sporting world there is a distinct agenda for guilty at all costs.

The USADA has made a clear statement that errors never occur in sports testing, and when they do it is irrelevant - all initially positive athletes are guilty 100% of the time. Imagine if the criminal justice system worked this efficiently. This is a warning shot to all athletes with a laboratory derived positive result. If Landis couldn't win with that mountain of evidence, then no athlete will EVER prove themselves innocent. The world of sport prefers even those with the slightest hint of something wrong to go away with their lives destroyed, rather than face the truth that mistakes can happen.

We will probably never know if Landis really used synthetic testosterone, but anyone with half a brain who actually paid attention to the evidence knows he couldn't have been found guilty.

Now, Landaluze was aquitted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport just for simply having the same tech work on both A and B samples. Landis has 10 times that amount of proven errors and protocol mistakes. It will be interesting since precedent and protocol doesn't seem to matter in cycling.

Just my two cents.

I'm confident that the testing was done accurately, especially the second and third times. I realize it is in the mentality of some that getting off on a technicality is the same as not guilty.



This decision was weighed for months by experts, lawyers and sportsmen at the USADA, with a lot more information and expertise than any typical internet forum user. I know these people are very sensitive to the fact that they are ending a career, and have to make a fair decision in the face of nationalistic hero worshipers.
The truth can be painful.


Frankly, regardless of the decision, the actions, lies and misrepresentation by Landis since 2006 was deplorable. He conned hundreds of thousands of dollars out of people with his book and his defense fund. He publicly degraded Greg Lemond. He gave excuses that insulted our intelligence.

The good news is that it's over, and the US Postal era of this sport is done with yet another ex-member caught. Pro cycling got 100X better today.

Come off it Doc Ray...

we know OJ's innocent. Stop tarnishing his reputation.

As for Landis, I'd like to ask teterider why he things the panel found Landis guilty. Did they just feel like having a joke together?

The guy I feel sorry for is Oscar Pereiro.

Sure Oscar didn't have his day in the sun but who's to say he didn't cheat also? With drugs so prevalent in the peloton it's just difficult to believe anymore that there are guys that finish consistantly at the top that aren't cheating in some way.

Just look at this year's TdF. Guys were getting caught all over the place and you'd have thought they had learned their lesson from last year's landis stupidity.

I'm chearing for the guys who come in at half pack that give it all they got on bread and water!

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This board and the world in general would be a much nicer place if everyone could just take themselves a little less seriously.

Dang, DocRay. Talk about nationalistic. I understand that it's quite fashionable to be anti-American right now, but the errors don't add up to a conviction. The findings stated all of that but said they were going to find him guilty anyway. Prior precedent in previous cases should have established a not guilty. The panel said ignore all of these things that even we acknowledge to cause T/E to be thrown out, but we'll pick this particular isotope test as being good. There should be NO confidence in ANY of these tests. I don't care if it's Floyd, Ullrich, or any other rider from any nationality. Justice was not served here. USADA kept their perfect "win" record though. By the way, we're not all oil drinking, fascist world imperialists here in the USA. Just in case you were wondering.

Exactly what the Landis disinformation campaign wants us to believe.



The following is a statement from CAS regarding Landazule:

CAS said its own panel found "that the non-compliance with this standard constituted a procedural flaw serious enough to cause the invalidation of the anti-doping test."

The court said the technician in France involved in analyzing the B sample was also involved in analysis of the A sample, in violation of the international standards for accredited laboratories.

"With respect to the issue related to the analysis procedure conducted by the laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry, the Panel has dismissed all arguments raised by the athlete, except one," the CAS panel concluded. "It has been indeed established that the person who conducted the analysis of the B sample was also involved in analysis of the A sample, thus in violation of the international standard applicable to the accredited laboratories. The Panel considered that the violation of this technical direction was likely to affect the results of the analyses. The Panel has considered that the non-compliance with this standard constituted a procedural flaw serious enough to cause the invalidation of the anti-doping test.

The three-member panel rejected other arguments invoked by Landaluze relating to the analysis procedure.

The CAS panel also unanimously concluded that although the Spanish cyclist owed his acquittal to the flaw, it did not consider the decision to be a complete exoneration.

"The arbitrators have emphasized that the staff of the laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry had acted in good faith and that the overlap of the different analysis operations performed by the staff was due to a heavy workload in the laboratory," the decision noted. "The arbitrators have also specified that even though Iñigo Landaluze benefited from this flawed procedure to be acquitted, the CAS decision does not constitute a declaration of his innocence."

Per USADA, the details regarding the T/E test are irrelevant. He failed multiple IMRS tests that apparently where correctly performed.

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John979

From a personal standpoint, I'm not at all surprised, but very disappointed. A 2-1 decision going against Floyd Landis was widely predicted. Once the arbitrators were declared, but before the hearing began, it was also widely predicted that Richard McLaren and Patrice Brunet would form the eventual majority ruling against Floyd Landis and Christopher Campbell would be the minority dissenter.

I followed the hearing via webcast on the internet and have read the entire transcript to fill in any gaps from missing small portions of the webcasts. I've downloaded and read volumes of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), and Union Cyclist International (UCI) regulations. WADA regulations presume the accused athlete is guilty and presume the lab makes no errors that could alter the result of the lab's finding. The athlete, Floyd Landis in this case, was essentially required to prove his innocence. Had this hearing been scheduled for a "real courtroom" nearly anywhere in North America or Europe, the flaws identified by all three (3) of the arbitrators would have resulted in the charges being dismissed.

USADA is the "WADA arm in the United States" that acted as prosecutor at the hearing (and employed expensive outside counsel for the task in lieu of their own qualified "in house" counsel. It is ironic that Travis Tygart of USADA is critical of Landis for hiring espensive attorneys when Tygart did the very same thing for USADA by hiring the firm of Holme Roberts & Owen LLP as outside counsel). Approximately 80% of USADA's budget comes from taxpayers in the United States. Given that USADA receives the vast majority of its funding from United States taxpayers, it is objectionable to me that an athlete from the United States can be prosecuted by USADA using a system of rules that is counter to the sensibilities of the legal system in the United States which values the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", "due process", and equal access to evidence in the "discovery" process.

In short, my opinion is that the testing was inaccurate and in no way supportive of a positive finding for the use of synthetic testosterone. Further, WADA, USADA, UCI, IOC and the organizers of the Tour de France have a vested interest in today's announced outcome of the hearing. Any finding vindicating Floyd Landis would have been seen by them to be a gigantic setback to the anti-doping movement, whether Floyd Landis actually doped, or not.

Finally, I'll leave you with links to the Majority Award and the Dissent Award, in case you are interested in reading them.

Majority Opinion:
http://ia341243.us.archive.org/0/items/ ... -09-07.pdf

Dissenting Opinion:
http://ia341243.us.archive.org/0/items/ ... -09-07.pdf

This is a proud day for all asthmatics and their dope covering inhalers, just like the one Oscar uses, thankfully we now have a clear honest winner.

OMG that was funny.

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This board and the world in general would be a much nicer place if everyone could just take themselves a little less seriously.

I said long ago in another one of these interminable debates that the carbon isotope test (which is different from and has nothing to do with the T/E ratios) showing exogenous testosterone was the smoking gun that Landis could never escape.

With that evidence he would have lost in an American court of law, even with the burden of proof on USADA/WADA. (But I'm just a humble professor of constitutional law with nearly 30 years of lawyering experience, so I do have to defer to those with greater expertise.)

End of an ugly story. (And, given the way he and his close advisors treated Lemond, it was in my view an exceedingly ugly story.)

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"I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones." -- John Cage

http://weightweenies.starbike.com/phpBB ... 928#126928

So, what is the current considered opinion on what Landis was doing?

For instance, was he just taking synthetic testosterone to help him recover durring the race, (surely a bit daft given the likelihood of being tested). Alternatively, was he blood doping and there was synthetic testosterone left over in the stored blood originally removed during a training period. (The chances of being tested whilst training being less).
Or what?

The carbon isotope test was upheld by the majority dispite all that led up to the test, including CoC and possible/probable contamination of the sample(s). There was no explanation for the peaks acting in a way not known to science with regard to explaining why, if Landis used synthetic testosterone, were other hormones not registering as being surpressed?
In short, it doesn't add up.

Come on! Everyone knows that every cyclist is on drugs except the Aussies!