What Happens Next?
by Mike on Oct.23, 2007, under Cycling
Floyd Landis has lost his arbitration hearing and been found guilty of doping. I would, in particular, direct you to the very interesting analysis done at Trust but Verify. Check out the “Our Appeal Brief” and Hue’s Review. Excellent reading!!
A read of the arbitrators opinion and dissenting opinion is very instructive. Significant mental and chemical gymnastics were exercised to find for the prosecution. In particular, the comment that “in the future an error like this could result in the dismissal of an AAF finding by the Lab” is unbelieveable. If this is so, why not in the Floyd Landis case NOW??
Therein lies the rub.
This case is no longer about Floyd Landis, but rather the future of anti-doping (in cycling in particular) in sport. If you can’t trust the labs, who can you trust? If there is no standard (and LNDD apparently can’t meet the standard because they don’t have the manual), how do you know if a positive is a positive? Ask Iban Mayo. (On a side note, who compensates him for the 62 days he was on unpaid absence after the LNDD screwed up his A sample??)
I am glad that Floyd is appealing. I think I will make another contribution to the Floyd Fairness Fund. Floyd’s effort is what is required to clean up the anti-dopers tactics.
Please don’t misread my point here. I am very firmly against doping in sports. If I caught my kids doping, they would be out of sports for a very long time. However, the “catch the dopers at all costs, and if we have a few false positives, that is the price of cleaning up the sport” mentality is just wrong – particularly if you are one of the false positives. The anti-doping agencies must be held to the same standard as the athletes themselves. Only then can the sport truly be cleaned up.
