Tour de Floyd
For those who haven't been following the Floyd Landis doping scandal, allow me to start by informing you that it's a debacle of the highest order.
The latest news comes as Floyd presents his defense case to the Anti-Doping Review Board (ADRB). In an unprecedented move, Floyd has made the details of his case, and its presentation, available on his personal website.
As it's a huge file to download, it's still on the way to me and I've only read summaries so far. Still, I can comment (both as a cycling fan, and someone that wants to see justice served) that I'm very happy Landis has done this. The World-Anti Doping Agency, and the Tour de France organizers have both weakened thier cases by failing to live up to their own protocols for how a positive result is handled, and have on multiple occasions given us all reason to question their testing procedures.
Landis, infuriated no doubt by the lack of honesty and transparency from his accusers, is using their weakness to strengthen his defense by making the press and public privy to the same information that he is.
One factor that contributes to this scandal (and has contributed to nearly every TdF scandal over the past 10 years) is that the Tour is run by French sports magazine L'Equipe. Without fail, the first source of scandalous accusations regarding the tour, comes from L'Equipe. The magazine's their anti-American slant is painfully obvious, and they have accused every successful American rider since 1990 of doping. Many see the domination of the Americans, and the perpetual failure of French riders to win their own race as a source of frustration and bitterness from French cycling beaurocrats.
In the particular case, scandal began when an employee at the testing lab leaked confidential information to L'Equipe. Two samples are taken from each rider during drug testing. If the first one (A sample) returns a positive result, then the second (B sample) is tested to see if it returns positive as well. One positive is an erroneous result, two positives is an indication of doping. For this reason, the lab isn't allowed to report anything until both samples have been tested, both to protect the rider's career, and to protect the lab's credibility. Still, L'Equipe reported that Floyd's A sample was positive before the B had even been started. In fact, L'Equipe likely knew about the A sample result before Floyd did. Landis had been widely judged as guilty in the court of public opinion before the results of the test were even in.
I'm not so sure it will affect the decision reached in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion Landis has presented a public defense to the very public way he was accused. I'll admit my bias: I'm a big fan of Floyd's and would like only one thing more than to find his innocence proven; I'd like to see the correct verdict reached after all the bungling I've seen thus far. I hope this example of transparency will be followed from here on.
The latest news comes as Floyd presents his defense case to the Anti-Doping Review Board (ADRB). In an unprecedented move, Floyd has made the details of his case, and its presentation, available on his personal website.
As it's a huge file to download, it's still on the way to me and I've only read summaries so far. Still, I can comment (both as a cycling fan, and someone that wants to see justice served) that I'm very happy Landis has done this. The World-Anti Doping Agency, and the Tour de France organizers have both weakened thier cases by failing to live up to their own protocols for how a positive result is handled, and have on multiple occasions given us all reason to question their testing procedures.
Landis, infuriated no doubt by the lack of honesty and transparency from his accusers, is using their weakness to strengthen his defense by making the press and public privy to the same information that he is.
One factor that contributes to this scandal (and has contributed to nearly every TdF scandal over the past 10 years) is that the Tour is run by French sports magazine L'Equipe. Without fail, the first source of scandalous accusations regarding the tour, comes from L'Equipe. The magazine's their anti-American slant is painfully obvious, and they have accused every successful American rider since 1990 of doping. Many see the domination of the Americans, and the perpetual failure of French riders to win their own race as a source of frustration and bitterness from French cycling beaurocrats.
In the particular case, scandal began when an employee at the testing lab leaked confidential information to L'Equipe. Two samples are taken from each rider during drug testing. If the first one (A sample) returns a positive result, then the second (B sample) is tested to see if it returns positive as well. One positive is an erroneous result, two positives is an indication of doping. For this reason, the lab isn't allowed to report anything until both samples have been tested, both to protect the rider's career, and to protect the lab's credibility. Still, L'Equipe reported that Floyd's A sample was positive before the B had even been started. In fact, L'Equipe likely knew about the A sample result before Floyd did. Landis had been widely judged as guilty in the court of public opinion before the results of the test were even in.
I'm not so sure it will affect the decision reached in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion Landis has presented a public defense to the very public way he was accused. I'll admit my bias: I'm a big fan of Floyd's and would like only one thing more than to find his innocence proven; I'd like to see the correct verdict reached after all the bungling I've seen thus far. I hope this example of transparency will be followed from here on.
