Joe Papp! takes the stool

A midlevel pro cyclist testified he was a drug cheat at the Floyd
Landis arbitration hearing Friday, describing in detail how synthetic
testosterone helped him recover in multi-day stage races like the Tour
de France.
Joe Papp, who received a two-year doping suspension that hadn't been
made public until this testimony, was brought to the witness stand by
the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
USADA used his testimony to refute earlier claims made by Landis'
attorneys that testosterone couldn't help Landis win the 2006 Tour and
that he'd be crazy to use it if he knew he might be tested.
"It's such a false statement that it makes me angry," Papp said. "Why
am I here? I'm not getting anything out of being here. I have
everything to lose from being here."
Reaching into his jacket pocket to show a packet of the testosterone
gel he used, Papp refuted both Landis theories - saying it was easy to
stay below the threshold of a positive test with the gel and claiming
the gel helped him greatly in recovering between stages.
"You can compete in UCI-sanctioned stage races like a 2,000-kilometer-
long race with drug testing every day, and you can race and win and be
on drugs and not test positive," Papp said in interviews after his
testimony.
He said it was easy to get away with having allowed amounts of
testosterone in his system if he timed it right. After leaving doping
control, he could simply go to a private place and discreetly rub the
gel into his chest.
Landis sat at the defense table, pretty much expressionless as he
watched Papp testify.
The testimony came a day after three-time Tour de France winner Greg
LeMond shook up the hearing, revealing he'd told Landis he was
sexually abused as a child and that Landis' manager, Will Geoghegan,
used that secret to try to intimidate LeMond and keep him from
testifying.
Though the latest witness was nowhere near as explosive as LeMond, it
was still good stuff that surely wasn't designed to show Landis in a
good light.
"I don't know Mr. Landis. I don't have any ill will toward him," Papp
testified. "I don't have any opinion on any of this, other than to
share my experience that the testosterone can improve your recovery."
Papp said he tested positive for metabolized testosterone last May at
a race in Turkey. After planning to fight the allegations "because
it's the expected thing to do," he instead accepted a provisional
suspension a few months ago. His two-year ban became official
Thursday.
Landis is accused of using banned synthetic testosterone during his
Tour victory last year. A three-man arbitration panel is listening to
nine days of testimony and will decide whether to uphold the positive
test.
After Papp's testimony, Landis brought his first witness, Bruce
Goldberger, a University of Florida professor with expertise on the
kind of testing that resulted in Landis' positive urine tests.
He described himself as initially reluctant to get involved in the
case.
"But I saw some glaring issues with the way the chemistry was
performed in the laboratory," Goldberger said of the French lab where
the tests were done.
He derided crossed-out and whited-out numbers on forms that documented
Landis' positive test, all of which he said spoke to doubts about the
chain of custody of the samples - who controlled them and what they
did with them at specific times.
Earlier in the week, the Landis attorneys had used cross-examination
of USADA witnesses to set up these arguments. But Goldberger was the
first witness to connect the dots of the argument.
"It's the pattern that concerns me," he said. "I can't trust it. I
think it's unreliable."
As for gaps in the chain of custody, Goldberger said: "Terrible.
Omissions in the chain of custody should demonstrate lack of
attention."
Before Papp's testimony, the Landis attorneys cross-examined
Christiane Ayotte, director of the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited
lab in Montreal, also in an attempt to portray troubles at the French
lab.
The Landis team asked Ayotte about data from graphs that showed
results from the testosterone-epitestosterone ratio tests that are
used as screening tests in doping cases. Landis' "A" sample, taken
after Stage 17, showed an 11:1 ratio, when a ratio of 4:1 can be
considered a positive test.
Ayotte conceded the peaks in the graphs didn't show the good
"separation" the lawyers contend is needed in these graphs.
"But anyone can see the peak is nine times higher than the epi" peak,
Ayotte said. "It's more than 9-to-1."
She said she came to that conclusion by eyeballing the graph.
"Is eyeballing it acceptable?" attorney Howard Jacobs asked.
"No," Ayotte replied.
It was one of the few concessions the Landis team got from the lab
director.
After lunch, Papp became the headliner. The 31-year-old said he tried
to race clean for years but got caught up in what he called a culture
of racing that dictates cyclists must dope to be competitive.
He said he wavered on taking the stand until 10 minutes before he was
called. In the end, he testified for the same reasons LeMond had the
previous day - to try to clean up cycling.
"Greg LeMond has more courage than anyone I know," Papp said. "When I
started in cycling, I looked up to him as an athlete. Now, I look up
to him as a person."