Landis' defence

Tony Raven said:

A presentation of Floyd Landis' main defence arguments is now on the web
and I have to say, having read it it looks like c**k up and mistakes end
to end in the testing process. Whether he did or not there are so many
mistakes identified that its impossible to say anything for certain
other than the testing lab and some others should be fired.
http://ia331328.us.archive.org/1/items/Floyd_Landis_2006_Case_Documents5/Landis_Baker_Slides.pdf
http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2006/10/its-here.html

There must be some red faces in Paris.. and at USADA.

It is a staggering degree of incompetence. Can't really believe that it
would be so poorly controlled.

Will a certain lab's accreditation by under question?
...d

in message <[email hidden]>, David

Martin (') said:

Tony Raven said:

A presentation of Floyd Landis' main defence arguments is now on the web
and I have to say, having read it it looks like c**k up and mistakes end
to end in the testing process. Whether he did or not there are so many
mistakes identified that its impossible to say anything for certain
other than the testing lab and some others should be fired.

http://ia331328.us.archive.org/1/items/Floyd_Landis_2006_Case_Documents5/Landis_Baker_Slides.pdf

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2006/10/its-here.html

There must be some red faces in Paris.. and at USADA.

It is a staggering degree of incompetence. Can't really believe that it
would be so poorly controlled.

Also today, charges against Ivan Basso have finally been dropped for lack
of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee say they may reopen the case if
new evidence comes to light, and the UCI may appeal the case to the Court
of Arbitration in Sport, but Ivan expects to race on Saturday.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Wannabe a Web designer?
<URL:http://userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/97dec/19971206.html>

Simon Brooke said:

Also today, charges against Ivan Basso have finally been dropped for
lack of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee say they may reopen
the case if new evidence comes to light, and the UCI may appeal the
case to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, but Ivan expects to race
on Saturday.

This is all absolutely amazing news. Landis, Ullrich and Basso -- all
innocent! Great for them, and great for the sport!

Simon Bennett said:

Simon Brooke said:

Also today, charges against Ivan Basso have finally been dropped for
lack of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee say they may reopen
the case if new evidence comes to light, and the UCI may appeal the
case to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, but Ivan expects to race
on Saturday.

This is all absolutely amazing news. Landis, Ullrich and Basso -- all
innocent! Great for them, and great for the sport!

I've a nasty feeling that this will described as 'getting off on a
technicality'

If its true, its an almighty [censored] up by the testing authorities.

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK

Love this:
Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

--
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David Martin said:

If the Landis evidence is correct, then there are multiple independent
lines that make the test invalid. We can have no assurance that;

You do have to be sceptical about the evidence presented by Landis here;
he's unlikely to publish anything which makes the test out to be anything
other than shambolic.

AndyMorris wrote on 13/10/2006 01:05 +0100:

Quoted message said:

If its true, its an almighty [censored] up by the testing authorities.

Drugs should not be tolerated in sport but at the moment the more I
learn about WADA and the testing labs, the more I think someone needs to
clean them up big time before one can say anything about the athletes.
The file put forward by Landis' defence, assuming they have not faked
the evidence, points to a system that is failing widely at the most
basic level and has endemic sloppiness and non adherence to procedures
and protocols. Maybe getting one number transcribed wrongly could be
accepted as a mistake but having it happen multiple times at multiple
stages and then try to claim the ID numbers provide an audit trail
between athlete and test result is farcical.

The spotlight really needs to be turned on the testing process and those
who have tolerated and defended it operating in this out of control manner.

I am certainly pleased Landis has been brave enough to put everything
into the public domain where experts can pore over the information and
to not challenge the tests and results but the whole integrity of the
process that produced them.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

David Martin wrote on 13/10/2006 08:20 +0100:

Quoted message said:

But it would be wrong to describe this as 'getting off on a
technicality', unless by 'technicality' you mean 'not actually having a
positive test'

A bit like calling escapng a speeding fine as "getting off on
technicality" because it wasn't your numberplate and you weren't
actually speeding. The press might find it difficult to back down
though from the obvious errors in what they were all writing about him
having elevated testosterone.

Quoted message said:

If a grad student or postdoc came to me wanting to publish results
based on such evidence, they'd get sent back to the lab with a flea in
their ear.

Here too. And in my days when I was running companies, we would have
been shut down and suffered a huge fine if the regulatory auditors had
found that degree of systemic failure. I bet if the auditors went into
LDNN they would find this is just the tip of the iceberg. This sort of
failure indicates an attitude and approach that will have pervaded all
aspects of their work.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Simon Bennett wrote on 13/10/2006 08:30 +0100:

Quoted message said:

You do have to be sceptical about the evidence presented by Landis here;
he's unlikely to publish anything which makes the test out to be anything
other than shambolic.

Actually you can read the whole unadulterated lab file that he has
published to reference the full LDNN data set - although at 370 pages
its quite a lot to wade through. So your hypothesis is either wrong or
the whole file produced by the lab makes them out to be nothing other
than shambolic. From my review of it so far, I think your hypothesis is
correct ;-)
http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2006/10/lab-documentation-package.html

Be warned, it's a 170Mb pdf to download.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Tony Raven said:

I bet if the auditors went
into LDNN they would find this is just the tip of the iceberg. This
sort of failure indicates an attitude and approach that will have
pervaded all aspects of their work.

Have there been other reports of slack practices at this lab? Or has Landis'
legal team unearthed this on their own?

Simon Bennett said:

David Martin said:

[2 quoted lines suppressed]

You do have to be sceptical about the evidence presented by Landis here;
he's unlikely to publish anything which makes the test out to be anything
other than shambolic.

Even if you ignore all the evidence, you are left with a lab that has a
reputation for leaking information to newspapers over a period of many
years. If there is information going out, then there is money going in,
this alone is enough to discredit every test they have done.

After the last L'Equipe/Chatenay-Malabry affair regarding 10 year old
armstrong samples, how was this lab allowed to keep testing?

Steve

Tony Raven said:

From my review of it so far, I think your
hypothesis is correct ;-)

At 170Mb, I think I'll let you get on with it!

Simon Bennett wrote on 13/10/2006 09:12 +0100:

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

I bet if the auditors went
into LDNN they would find this is just the tip of the iceberg. This
sort of failure indicates an attitude and approach that will have
pervaded all aspects of their work.

Have there been other reports of slack practices at this lab? Or has Landis'
legal team unearthed this on their own?

Yes, the whole 1999 Lance Armstrong retrospective testing debacle where
the same lab was heavily criticised, as were WADA, by the independent
expert investigator appointed by the UCI. You can read his damning
report at http://www.uci.ch/imgArchive/Homepage/Rapport%20HR%20zonder.pdf
Paras 1.14 and 1.15 are a succinct summary of the problems found with
LNDD and WADA by the investigator. I am not aware of anything happening
as a result of this report.

When I say the testing regime needs cleaning up, the whole system from
WADA down seems to be in aggressive attack denial of the obvious
problems being pointed out to them.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Simon Brooke said:

Also today, charges against Ivan Basso have finally been dropped for lack
of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee say they may reopen the case if
new evidence comes to light, and the UCI may appeal the case to the Court
of Arbitration in Sport, but Ivan expects to race on Saturday.

He's still not on the start list for Lombardy...

in message <[email hidden]>, Simon Bennett

(') said:

Simon Brooke said:

Also today, charges against Ivan Basso have finally been dropped for
lack of evidence. The Italian Olympic Committee say they may reopen
the case if new evidence comes to light, and the UCI may appeal the
case to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, but Ivan expects to race
on Saturday.

This is all absolutely amazing news. Landis, Ullrich and Basso -- all
innocent! Great for them, and great for the sport!

I have a nasty suspicion that what this really boils down to is a turf-war
between the UCI/ProTour and the owners of the three big Grand Tours, at
the expense of the cyclists. The UCI was happy to pre-emptively leak and
talk up the evidence - as it turns out, wholly inconclusive - against the
winners and major stars of the Giro and the Tour de France and it seems to
me the motivation may have been to damage the pre-eminence of the Grand
Tours, and to increase the influence of the UCI.

It seems to me that the cyclists whose reputations have been traduced have
a real complaint against the UCI, one which I would expect Landis, at
least, to turn into legal action. The UCI has committed two major sins:
they've played dirty, and they've lost. I would not like to be in Pat
McQuaid's shoes this morning.

Personally, I shall be bouncing up and down on the sofa on Saturday
afternoon, yelling 'Basso! Basso! Basso!' with the best of them.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Due to financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel
has been switched off.

Dan Gregory said:

He's still not on the start list for Lombardy...

He's still under investigation in Spain. That would exclude him from
competition, wouldn't it?

David Martin wrote on 13/10/2006 10:05 +0100:

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

Simon Bennett wrote on 13/10/2006 08:30 +0100:

Quoted message said:

You do have to be sceptical about the evidence presented by Landis here;
he's unlikely to publish anything which makes the test out to be anything
other than shambolic.

Actually you can read the whole unadulterated lab file that he has
published to reference the full LDNN data set - although at 370 pages
its quite a lot to wade through. So your hypothesis is either wrong or
the whole file produced by the lab makes them out to be nothing other
than shambolic. From my review of it so far, I think your hypothesis is
correct ;-)
http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2006/10/lab-documentation-package.html

Be warned, it's a 170Mb pdf to download.

Which hypothesis?

Simon's hypothesis that Landis is "unlikely to publish anything which
makes the test out to be anything other than shambolic" and that his
publishing of the unadulterated complete lab file from LDNN is
consistent with this.

--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Simon Bennett said:

Dan Gregory said:

He's still not on the start list for Lombardy...

He's still under investigation in Spain. That would exclude him from
competition, wouldn't it?

As much as I want drug cheats out of cycling, the Spanish investigation
has become nothing but trial by innuendo. It will be a long time before
the investigation comes to any actionable conclusions, in the meantime
anyone who has been implicated, has had their careers disrupted.

Remember that nobody has been found guilty as yet, in fact all those
riders from the Astana team have been exonerated, and yet their whole
team could not take part in the Tour de France because of Operation
Puerto.

David Lloyd
The pub is responsible for my opinions.

Steve said:

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 08:30:47 +0100, Simon Bennett wrote:

Even if you ignore all the evidence, you are left with a lab that has a
reputation for leaking information to newspapers over a period of many
years. If there is information going out, then there is money going in,
this alone is enough to discredit every test they have done.

After the last L'Equipe/Chatenay-Malabry affair regarding 10 year old
armstrong samples, how was this lab allowed to keep testing?

After the years of dominance by Armstrong, there is manic anti-American
feelings floating around France. One might think that they see it as
their patriotic duty to bring down a Yank, forgetting that there isn't
a Frenchman within shouting distance of the podium, let alone the final
yellow jersey.

If you want independant testing, the lab would have to be outside
France. IMHO.

David Lloyd,
The pub is responsible for my opinions.

Simon Brooke said:

It seems to me that the cyclists whose reputations have been traduced have
a real complaint against the UCI, one which I would expect Landis, at
least, to turn into legal action.

Apart from his loss of earnings and the damage to his reputation so far
Landis faces the problem that his name being cleared, which now seems a
certainty, is likely to be perceived by the average person as some kind
of lucky escape. It therefore seems to me that legal action from him is
almost inevitable as the only way he can really establish his innocence
in the minds of the public.

--
Dave...