Landis update

[IFallsRon]

After two trying months marked by doping allegations, an assault on his reputation and his father-in-law's suicide, Floyd Landis doesn't wish for a stirring comeback so much as the simpler things in life.

At this point, he'll take a good night's sleep, free of pain.

To reach that goal, Landis had hip-replacement surgery last week. With his rehab under way, the 30-year-old won't rule out a return to competitive cycling and the Tour de France. As much as resurrecting his career, though, he wants to feel good again.

"Things have been up and down for me," Landis said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'll be happy when it's a little more simple. I'll get through it though. I have a strong family. We're all being tested. Right now, this hip is something for me to focus on, something positive to focus on."

He had endured three earlier operations on the right hip, injured in a 2003 training crash, to keep him competing over the years, including this summer's winning ride through France — a victory derided by Tour officials after a positive doping test.

Soon, the pain became too much.

He underwent a state-of-the-art procedure, in which a metal cup was inserted into his damaged right hip socket and a metal cap was placed on top of a small stem that was inserted into the top of his thigh bone. The cap was then fit into the cup, and they combine to work as the new joint.

Sometime next week, Landis will begin riding the stationary bike — the first major step in his rehabilitation process. In three weeks, he expects to be released to do anything he wants.

And in a year?

"We're moving forward with the idea that he will be back and be competitive," said Landis' personal physician, Brent Kay.

Landis looks at the bigger picture.

"A year from now, I see myself as the same human being I am now," he said. "I care about other people. I love my family. I'd like to race my bicycle again.

"I know how I did it," Landis said of his Tour win. "I did it clean. The accusations against me are unfounded. I hope the world gets to see that. But I'm going to remain myself no matter what, and that's the most important thing."

During this forced sabbatical, Landis spends a good deal of time working on his defense for his doping case, which is coming up in the next few months. His legal team is expected to argue that the tests that found an abnormal epitestosterone-to-testosterone ratio are faulty.

Landis' attorney, Howard Jacobs, wants the arbitration hearing to be made public, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which will prosecute the case, has said it will agree.

Landis said he thinks a public hearing will be his best chance to have his side heard. He said officials at the International Cycling Union (UCI) and World Anti-Doping Agency have prosecuted his case in the press.

He blames the UCI for the cycling's public-relations problems and says many who run the federation only want to stay in the good graces of the International Olympic Committee in hopes of advancing their careers there.

"I'm not hopeful this sport can be fixed as long as UCI is running it. That's all I can say," Landis said.

He did not, however, lump USADA with those he believes have tarnished his reputation and that of his sport.

"Apart from my side, USADA has been the one group that has followed the rules, done everything properly," he said.

It gives him hope that he'll get a fair hearing in front of an arbitration panel. His reputation, to say nothing of his Tour de France title, hangs in the balance.

Meanwhile, he continues his rehab with the hope that a victory in the case could lead to other victories, and maybe another winning ride down the Champs-Elysees.

"Hopefully, my career will go on, and I'm going to do my best to get there," Landis said. "But obviously, there are more important things."

[IFallsRon]

Report: More evidence found against 2006 winner Floyd Landis

By Philip Hersh

Tribune sports reporter

April 23, 2007, 9:20 AM CDT

Evidence of synthetic testosterone has been found in "several'' of the other urine samples Floyd Landis gave while winning the 2006 Tour de France, the French newspaper L'Equipe reported on its web site Monday.

The arbitration panel hearing Landis' case approved in March a request by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to allow testing of the other samples. The tests were done in the same Paris laboratory that found Landis positive on the sample given after his dramatic mountain stage victory that wiped out a substantial time deficit and put him in the race lead for good.

According to L'Equipe, which did not cite the sources of its information, two representatives each of both Landis and USADA witnessed the retests on the "B'' portions of the urine samples.

Landis was tested eight times during the Tour de France; seven of the eight, on which only the ``A'' portion was analyzed, originally were declared negative. Those seven reportedly had not been analyzed with the more sophisticated carbon-isotope ratio testing until last week.

A spokesman for Landis did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

[IFallsRon]

PARIS (Reuters) - A United States arbitration panel has ended deliberations on 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis's doping case and will reveal its ruling in the next seven days, the American's legal team said on Monday.

Landis tested positive for the banned male sex hormone testosterone but has maintained his innocence, blaming the positive test on incompetence by the French laboratory that analyzed his urine samples.

"The arbitration panel ended its deliberations three days ago. They have 10 days to announce their decision so it will be known by next Monday at the latest," Kellie Power, marketing manager with Landis's lawyers Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher told Reuters on Monday.

Since the announcement after last year's Tour that he had failed a doping test, Landis has been fighting the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which has never lost a case on appeal.

If found guilty, Landis faces a two-year suspension and the possibility of becoming the first Tour winner to be stripped of his title.

However, the American could take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

His lawyers say the samples were mislabeled by the French laboratory which conducted the tests, the process was unreliable and the rider never in fact returned a positive result.

Testosterone can speed up recovery after exercise and generally improves stamina and strength.

[IFallsRon]

PARIS (AP) - Floyd Landis lost his expensive and explosive doping case Thursday 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, handed down nearly four months after a bizarre and bitterly fought hearing, leaves Landis with only one more outlet to possibly salvage his title — an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

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

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 January 30, 2007.

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.

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."

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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?"

[Scott M]

Landis is going to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Didn't know there was such a thing. It's on ESPNdotcom.