Ullrich and co. - can somebody explain this doping scandal to me?

[Claude]

Panel finds Landis guilty of doping

From the Associated Press

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-ex-landis...eadlines-sports

10:55 AM PDT, September 20, 2007

Floyd Landis lost his expensive and explosive doping case today when the arbitrators upheld the results of a test that showed the 2006 Tour de France champion used synthetic testosterone to fuel his spectacular comeback victory, The Associated Press has learned.

The decision means Landis, who repeatedly has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, must forfeit his Tour de France title and is subject to a two-year ban, retroactive to Jan. 30, 2007.

The ruling, handed down nearly four months after a bizarre and bitterly fought hearing, leaves the American with one final way to possibly salvage his title -- an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

If Landis doesn't appeal, he'll be the first person in the 105-year history of the race to lose the title because of a doping offense.

According to documents obtained by AP, and to be made public later today, the vote was 2-1 to uphold the results, with lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren in the majority and Christopher Campbell dissenting.

"Today's ruling is a victory for all clean athletes and everyone who values fair and honest competition," U.S. Anti-Doping Agency general counsel Travis Tygart said.

It's a devastating loss for Landis, who has steadfastly insisted that cheating went against everything he was all about and said he was merely a pawn in the anti-doping system's all-consuming effort to find cheaters and keep money flowing to its labs and agencies.

Landis didn't hide from the scrutiny -- invited it, in fact -- and now has been found guilty by the closest thing to a fair trial any accused athlete will get.

He had been planning a news conference in Los Angeles the day a decision was reached. Details were not immediately available.

In its 84-page decision, the majority found the initial screening test to measure Landis' testosterone levels -- the testosterone-to-epitestosterone test -- was not done according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

But the more precise and expensive carbon-isotope ration analysis (IRMS), performed after a positive T-E test is recorded, was accurate, the arbitrators said, meaning "an anti-doping rule violation is established."

"As has been held in several cases, even where the T-E ratio has been held to be unreliable ... the IRMS analysis may still be applied," the majority wrote. "It has also been held that the IRMS analysis may stand alone as the basis" of a positive test for steroids.

The decision comes more than a year after Landis' stunning comeback in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, one that many people said couldn't be done without some kind of outside help. Flying to the lead near the start of a grueling Alpine stage, Landis regained nearly eight minutes against the leader, and went on to win the three-week race.

"Well, all I can say is that justice has been done, and that this is what the UCI felt was correct all along," Pat McQuaid, leader of cycling's world governing body, told The Associated Press by telephone. "We now await and see if he does appeal to CAS.

"It's not a great surprise considering how events have evolved. He got a highly qualified legal team who tried to baffle everybody with science and public relations. And in the end the facts stood up."

Landis insisted on a public hearing not only to prove his innocence, but to shine a spotlight on USADA and the rules it enforces and also establish a pattern of incompetence at the French lab where his urine was tested.

Although the panel rejected Landis' argument of a "conspiracy" at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, it did find areas of concern. They dealt with chain of command in controlling the urine sample, the way the tests were run on the machine, the way the machine was prepared and the "forensic corrections" done on the lab paperwork.

"... the Panel finds that the practises of the Lab in training its employees appears to lack the vigor the Panel would expect in the circumstances given the enormous consequences to athletes" of an adverse analytical finding, the decision said.

The majority repeatedly wrote that any mistakes made at the lab were not enough to dismiss the positive test, but also sent a warning.

"If such practises continue, it may well be that in the future, an error like this could result in the dismissal" of a positive finding by the lab.

In Campbell's opinion, Landis' case should have been one of those cases.

"In many instances, Mr. Landis sustained his burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Campbell wrote. "The documents supplied by LNDD are so filled with errors that they do not support an Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Landis should be found innocent."

And in at least one respect, Landis, who spent an estimated $2 million on his defense, was exonerated because the panel dismissed the T-E test. But in the arbitration process, a procedural flaw in the first test doesn't negate a positive result in follow-up tests.

"An arbitration panel is entitled to rely entirely on the IRMS analysis as an independent and sufficient basis for finding that an anti-doping rule violation has occurred," the decision said.

In his dissent, Campbell latched onto the T-E ratio test, among other things, as proof that the French lab couldn't be trusted.

"Also, the T-E ratio test is acknowledged as a simple test to run. The IRMS test is universally acknowledged as a very complicated test to run, requiring much skill. If the LNDD couldn't get the T-E ratio test right, how can a person have any confidence that LNDD got the much more complicated IRMS test correct?"

It was confusion like this that led to the system receiving the harsh review Landis was hoping for during a nine-day hearing in Malibu, Calif., in May.

But Landis also took his share of abuse, and ultimately, USADA still improved to 35-0 in cases it has brought before arbitration panels since it was founded in 2000.

This was a nasty contest waged on both sides, with USADA attorneys going after Landis' character and taking liberties in evidence discovery that wouldn't be permitted in a regular court of law. And Landis accused USADA of using a win-at-all-costs strategy and prosecuting him only to get him to turn on seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, who has long fought doping allegations that have never been proven.

Addressing "problematic behavior on the part of both parties," the panel wrote it would not revisit the conduct of either side.

"They are just part of the litigation war games the parties counsel engaged in between themselves," the decision said.

[Aggie87]

(moved this article from the Tour de France 2007 thread, since it's more appropriate here)

Landis loses doping appeal before sports' highest court

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Floyd Landis lost his final chance to retain his 2006 Tour de France title Monday, the last step of a long, multimillion-dollar process that poked holes in the anti-doping establishment but ultimately left the cyclist as just another convicted cheater.

A three-person panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a previous panel's decision, ruling his positive doping test during the Tour two years ago was, indeed, valid. Landis also must pay $100,000 toward the legal fees of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

"I am saddened by today's decision," Landis said in a statement. "I am looking into my legal options and deciding on the best way to proceed."

He has 30 days to appeal to the Swiss Federal Court.

In its 58-page decision, the panel at sports' highest court said the lab that analyzed Landis' positive test results used some "less than ideal laboratory practices, but not lies, fraud, forgery or cover-ups," the way the Landis camp had alleged.

In the end, the panel saved its harshest criticism for Landis, who it said essentially tried to muddle the evidence and embarrass the French lab, and continued on that course even after the evidence was shown not to exist.

"Appelant's experts crossed the line, acting for the most part as advocates for the Appelant's cause, and not as scientists objectively assisting the Panel in the search for truth," the decision read.

The decision comes just six days before the start of the 2008 Tour. Landis won the 2006 edition after a stunning comeback in Stage 17, a rally that turned out to be fueled by synthetic testosterone.

"We are pleased that justice was served and that Mr. Landis was not able to escape the consequences of his doping or his effort to attack those who protect the rights of clean athletes," said USADA chief executive officer Travis Tygart.

The ruling upholds Landis' two-year ban from cycling, which is due to end Jan. 29, 2009, though at this point, the ban wasn't the real issue.

Landis hoped to be exonerated and to get his title back. He also wanted to use the protracted case to shed light on procedures at USADA and the World Anti-Doping Agency, which he says are unfair and rigged against athletes who often don't have the resources to fund their defense.

"That's always been part of the system, that they've always had more resources than the athlete. This is the first time it's even been close," Landis' attorney, Maurice Suh, said in an interview last year.

Bankrolled through several private sources, including a fundraising campaign he launched on his own, Landis forced a case that cost more than $2 million -- a burden on him, but also a strain on the bottom lines of both USADA and WADA, which shared the cost of prosecuting the case.

After his unprecedented public hearing at his first arbitration case last May, the arbitrators upheld his doping ban but scolded USADA and the labs it uses for practices that were less than airtight.

That appeared to give Landis the opening he needed to justify an appeal to CAS. The hearing took place in March in New York, and was considered a "trial de novo" -- not technically an appeal, but a chance to have the case heard anew. Although the CAS panel agreed with the idea that the lab was less than perfect, the evidence presented over the five-day hearing didn't change the final outcome.

"The Landis case will set a precedent not only for the issues related to the application of the standard for laboratories but also for the management of CAS procedures," said CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb. "CAS appeals must be conducted promptly, efficiently, in a fair manner and with reasonable costs involved."

Thus ended the longest, most expensive and most bizarre case in modern anti-doping history.

It included some scandalous revelations during the public hearing, nothing more shocking than when former Tour de France winner Greg LeMond entered the hearing room.

LeMond told of being sexually abused as a child, confiding that to Landis, then receiving a call from Landis' manager the night before his testimony threatening to disclose LeMond's secret to the world if LeMond showed up.

Though it made for great theater, it was damaging for Landis. In the end, the only aspect of the LeMond testimony the panel considered was LeMond's claim that Landis had admitted to him that he doped -- and the panel disregarded that testimony, saying it couldn't be used as an admission.

The cyclist's future plans aren't yet known, though he was said to be hurting financially.

What's for sure is he will go down as the first cyclist in the history of the Tour to have his title stripped for a doping violation.

"Cycling has moved on already," said Pat McQuaid, president of cycling's world governing body. "It just puts this episode behind us now, we can forget it."