Triple Crankset » Floyd Landis

Last Call

Lenny B — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:45:00 +0000

Floyd Landis' appeal to the Court of Arbitration on Sport (CAS) literally fell on deaf ears. The court summarily dismissed his case by a 3-0 ruling.

From the Huffington Post:

In its 58-page decision, the panel at sports' highest court said the French lab that analyzed Landis' positive test results followed international standards, disagreeing with one of Landis' key accusations.

Much like the arbitration panel that ruled on this case before, CAS conceded the lab 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 the 32-year-old cyclist from Murrieta, Calif. CAS said his lawyers tried to muddle the evidence and embarrass the French lab, and continued on that course even after the evidence was shown not to exist.

The strategy continued all the way through the closing briefs.

"The Panel has found no evidence at all to sustain any of these serious allegations," the decision read. "Moreover, the Panel is surprised that such serious allegations should be pursued in the closing brief when it must have been clear at the end of the hearing that there was no evidential basis from expert testimony or otherwise to support them."

Though a saddened Landis has signaled that he may still pursue some other legal avenues, this ruling was effectively his "last call."

The sport of cycling has rung the bell, turned off the light, and asked Landis to leave.

Although his 2-year suspension ends in January of 2009, Landis' future in cycling will most likely resemble that of Oscar Sevilla, Tyler Hamilton, or Santiago Botero, which is to say that he won't be given the opportunity to race in the most prestigious races ever again.

There will be no story of vindication at the Tour de France.

The 32-year old will still be able to race, but after this soul-sucking ordeal will he want to.

Bonnie D. Ford (ESPN.com) - Landis May Not Race Again, But He's Not Done Fighting
Cyclingnews - Suh Disappointed With Landis Outcome; CAS delivers final blow to Landis legal challenge
Velonews - Landis Loses CAS Appeal

Triple Crankset Coverage/Reaction During The Landis Ordeal

Rock ‘n Roll into 2008!

Steve — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:11:00 +0000

There's an intriguing story on VeloNews by Neal Rogers about the growing relationship of Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball and Bad Boy Floyd Landis.
According to the story, Rock Racing (a new team I'm not terribly aware of) director sportif Frankie Andreu resigned over "differences in philosophy," Ball is talking with Landis about an unspecified roll with the team, and the team has signed doping-tainted rider Oscar Sevilla and has retained Santiago Botero.

So, welcome to pro cycling 2008!

The French Return from Vacation

Steve — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Just in case you were wondering whether Bad Boy Floyd really is screwed, the short-time winner of the 2006 Tour de France was banned from all competitions in France by the country's anti-doping agency AFLD today.

Why today?
Maybe the French have been on vacation (see the following item).

You may vaguely remember that Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping. Well, the French haven't forgotten. They've just been on vacation.

Landis tested positive for steroid testosterone on July 20 last year and was handed a two-year ban by the American Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) last September. The suspension runs until Jan. 29, 2009, just in case you're counting the days.

The French should be back from vacation by then.

Bad Boy Floyd Must Know the Feeling

Steve — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:43:00 +0000

We certainly know there are many ways to lose the Tour de France.
But how many ways are there to kill yourself over being tossed out of the race?

Let Michael Rasmussen, the disgraced leader whose Rabobank team finally gave him the boot for lying about his whereabouts before the 2007 Tour when he should have been available for drug tests, recount the ways:

"On the other side of the road, trucks kept passing us. It would have been easy to grab the steering wheel," he said of his mood while being driven away at the time. "Then this terrible nightmare would have been over."

Had that not worked, he remembers, "Five hours after I stood on the podium, I was sitting alone. My whole world had collapsed. Luckily I couldn't find a rope in the room, otherwise I would not be here now."

An independent report commissioned by the Rabobank team concluded that Rasmussen "deliberately provided incorrect whereabouts information on multiple occasions" to avoid doping checks.

The Appeal

Lenny B — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:15:00 +0000

Last Thursday, Floyd Landis and his advisers filed for a state of execution of his cycling career to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). Make no mistake about it, this appeal is more than an attempt to re-claim the yellow jersey that was officially handed over to Oscar Pereiro (Caisse d'Epargne) earlier this week, it is an attempt to save his livelihood. In the end, that's all that may be salvaged from this seemingly never ending saga.

The Appeal.

It sounds like a title befitting Franz Kafka. Since that memorable and now infamous Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour de France, Landis' story has some parallels to that of the character Josef K in Kafka's novel The Trial.

In The Trial, Josef K, or simply K, awakens one morning and for reasons never revealed, is arrested and subjected to the judicial process for an unspecified crime.

As Landis awoke the Monday after winning the 2006 Tour, he was informed of a possible non-negative result. Through a winding unspecified judicial process, arbitrators decided that those initial condemning results were obtained by shoddy and unethical means. Yet, like K, Landis is now faced with an existential crisis [Landis’ related to his cycling mortality].

Although a set of backup tests revealed the presence of exogenous testosterone, I cannot shake the feeling of injustice. [Landis’ verdict and K's plight in The Trial having been sadistically fashioned by the same hand [of fate].

Should Landis, or K, have ever been brought to the point of choosing how their respective existence concludes?

That answer is perhaps central to the upcoming Landis appeal. But unfortunately for Landis and his backers, this judicial process is not about who is right or wrong, or what is logical. This process is about authority and winning. And in that arena, Landis cannot win.

When I first heard of his decision to appeal to the CAS, I struggled to find a reason why Landis would subject himself and his family to what amounts to a quest for something unattainable [the Holy Grail of reversing a doping charge]. By undergoing the appeal process, Landis has essentially positioned himself to receive that "definitive" NO that a child who pushes an agenda too far often receives from their parents.

Why didn't Floyd merely accept his fate and move on with life, as his mother suggested?

If you were faced with a complete loss of your livelihood, a death of sorts, to what extremes would you go to prevent it?

Again, in Landis’ case he may only be in search of a reprieve and not a complete over-turning of his verdict. His two-year band from cycling will be complete as of January 2009. The appeal to CAS may just get him back to racing next year.

Baffled

Lenny B — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:59:00 +0000

The news of the Floyd Landis decision began to filter out sometime Wednesday night, but I didn't hear about it until Thursday evening.

My initial reaction, baffled.

Although the results for the recent Crankset poll are in line with the actual verdict, I'm still quite baffled. In response to T-o-03's post, I actually did expect otherwise. Consider me naive.

The scientific process, or lack thereof, in this case was in Landis' favor. What turned the tide for the majority? The analysis of Landis' remaining samples in the Spring [by the same incompetent lab]. Huh?

Yes, that is the crux of the majority decision. The original analysis, which was done sloppily and against protocol, but turned up a positive analysis was buttressed by a secondary set of analyses of Landis' remaining samples; ones which were originally analysed as "clean," but were [6-8 months] later shown to have remnants of exogenous testosterone.

I just don't get that? Did I miss something?

It may be a case where the scientific analysis finally made up the lag to catch previously untestable performance enhancments [the sad case of all sports, as new ways to cheat are light years ahead of the ability to test for it], but this decision reeks more of politics rather than of logic.

Landis options from here on out are as they say, slim to none [and slim just left]. He is suspended until January 2009 [another political move, as previous sentences have at least given the athlete time already spent]. He has the opportunity to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but that doesn't seem likely.

USADA has NEVER lost a case on an appeal. The pendulum of the court of public opinion has now swun indefinitely against him. And, given the mental state of Landis portrayed in the New York Times piece The Outcast, it may be better [wiser] for Floyd to be Falstaffian in his next move [discretion being the better part of valor].

As has been the case of the entirety of the Landis ordeal, all the recent news has remarkably been captured by Trust But Verify.

ALSO: Triple Crankset Coverage/Reaction during the Landis Case
-- Railroaded
-- 7 Days in May
-- The Ballad of Nell
-- Day 1: The Floyd Landis Hearing
-- Hear Ye, Hear Ye
-- Ranting His Head Off
-- With Friends Like...
-- Worth His Weight In...
-- Bad Boy Floyd Could Testify Saturday
-- Landis: 'It wouldn't serve any purpose for me to cheat and win the Tour, because I wouldn't be proud of it.
-- Hero
-- Goat?
-- Day 7: The Floyd Landis Hearing
-- Day 8: The Floyd Landis Hearing

Thoughts Aside
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It’s Officially Bad Boy Floyd Now

Steve — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:37:00 +0000

There should be plenty of commentary today on Floyd Landis's doping conviction, which has now officially stripped him of the 2006 Tour de France title.

Writes the Canadian Press: "The long and winding road that Floyd Landis pedaled out of Mennonite country and onto the wide boulevard of the Champs-ElysDees hit a dead end Thursday, when an arbitration panel overlooked some sloppy labwork and upheld a doping conviction that stripped the Tour de France winner of his title."

But what do Crankset readers have to say? Let us hear from you!

In one sense, I'm glad it's over. Professional cycling needs to have this controversy behind it. However, I'm hardly convinced that Floyd Landis will be the last cyclist to test positive or that this will be the last time we have a doping scandal in cycling. And that, perhaps, is the larger tragedy beyond the personal tragedy that is now Floyd Landis: The lack of confidence that fans will continue to have in the sport.

What will it take to change the perception of cycling? Oh, we'll forget about it during the next race, for the most part. But it will always be there. We'll always wonder -- at least until the science of the sport overtakes the men on the bikes, some of whom will always seek an unfair advantage to make up what their physiology and character didn't grant them: a big enough heart.

ALSO:
-- MSNBC's Mike Celizic: Sometimes Cheaters Don't Prosper
-- Canadian Press: Good Guy Landis Made a Bad Choice
-- Cycling News: Landis's Appeal Denied, two year suspension levied
-- Michael Hiltzik of the LATimes: Landis Loses Arbitration Ruling
-- Amy Shipley of the Washington Post: Panel Rules Against Landis
-- Juliet Macur of the NYTimes: Landis's Positive Doping Test Upheld

Did You Really Expect Otherwise?

Steve — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:53:00 +0000

Julie Macur of the New York Times reports:

"Floyd Landis lost his lengthy, costly and very public doping case Thursday when an arbitration panel upheld the initial charges that the 2006 Tour de France champion used performance-enhancing drugs to win the race."

ALSO:
-- AP: Landis loses doping case and 2006 Tour de France title

Much more to come ...

Could This Be It?

Steve — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 01:23:00 +0000

Finally ...
Arbitrators in the Floyd Landis doping hearing met for the final time this week and declared the hearing officially closed. That means a decision on the 2006 Tour de France winner's fate must come in by Sept. 22.

Bad Boy Floyd testified in May as part of a two-week public arbitration hearing to determine whether his positive doping test from last year's Tour should be upheld. He tested positive for synthetic testosterone after Stage 17 of the race.

Over the past three months, arbitrators have been sorting through the evidence and collecting additional information from the parties. They met Wednesday and are writing their final decision.

Landis, who has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, would face a two-year ban from cycling and the loss of his Tour title if he loses the case. The losing side has the option to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

ALSO:
-- VeloNews: Ullrich faces news questions

The Once (and Future?) Champion

Steve — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:20:00 +0000

OK, one last thought on this day of infamy in the Tour de Farce and I'm going to bed:

What do you think this guy is thinking?

AND:
-- Carol Herwig of USA Today: Landis, Walsh peddle thoughts on ups, downs of cycling