Back in Pack

Just got done watching the live coverage (via DVR and fast-forwarding through the commercial breaks) of the Amgen Tour of California. Levi Leipheimer got his hat trick, with three consecutive wins the the ToC now. So, with four editions of what is fast becoming the biggest cycling event in North America (if it isn’t already), there have only been two men to claim the crown. The other one, Floyd Landis, was finally back in the game, riding his first big race since finishing his long time-out.

Lance Armstrong played the role of super-domestique to his Astana teammate, working with the Astana squad to dominate the racing so that Leipheimer’s trifecta would come about. It was an epic event, complete with several stages featuring the kind of cold, numbing rain that often appears during the Spring Classics over in Europe. As the Tour headed south, the riders eventually were rewarded with sunnier and warmer days.

Today’s stage featured the climb over 6100+ foot [[Mount Palomar]], part of Landis’ stomping grounds where he trains on a routine basis. While Leipheimer was firmly in the lead of the ToC from early on, Landis has been slowly coming into form over the last week. In today’s stage, he appeared to give teammate Rory Sutherland a leadout going into the final sprint, as the main pack was fighting for the last available podium spot for the final stage. First and second went to Saxo Bank’s Frank Schleck and Liquigas’ Vincenzo Nibali, the survivors of a seven-man breakaway. The two cyclists managed to hold the main pack at bay even into the final kilometers of the race.

Another few weeks of racing like that, and Landis could be in good enough race shape to cause some nightmares for some of the other big dogs of the peloton.

It’s hard to maintain that competitive edge after being out of the competitive ranks for almost two-and-a-half years. And it’s been a rough ride for the 2006 Tour de France winner, who saw that victory taken away due to the decision of two arbitration panels assembled to consider whether Landis had used artificial testosterone during his fabled Stage 17 comeback that year.

Neil Browne of Road Magazine caught up with Landis for an interview a while back. The full interview, “to hell and back,” appears in the current issue, which can be found at Barnes and Noble, Borders, and various cycling shops and newstands around the country. In the interview, Landis talks about the last couple of years, and what motivated him to get back into race shape:

So what has motivated you to start training and become a competitive racer again? For whatever reason, I like to race my bicycle. It is hard and painful at times, but rewarding. The part I enjoyed didn’t go away; I just didn’t have the option of racing my bike. So when I say ‘I [didn]’t have a reason to be in shape,’ I just didn’t have any races to look forward to. Nothing to train for. As soon as I had a date that would allow me to start racing then I had something to work toward. I became focused and it was easier to train.

Looking back, would you have done the exact same thing? I’m not the type of person to look back. It has no value to say that what I know now would have changed what I would have done then.

No regrets? None. That doesn’t say that I wish things had gone a different way but it doesn’t mean that I somehow calculated things and made the wrong decision. There were certain things I didn’t know.

What didn’t you know? I didn’t realize that athletes, whether they are cyclists or any other athlete in any Olympic sport [have] no say in what goes on in the politics of the sport. I didn’t realize that what was purported to be a system to serve justice really isn’t that at all. For that reason I advocated some changes … In any Olympic sport in general  [the athletes] are … [severely] disadvantaged and there nees to be a change, but how could I have known that? The way the contracts are written, how the rules are written, it appears as if the athletes have some say, but that isn’t true.

Despite the quote above, throughout most of the interview with Browne, Landis focuses more on looking forward, rather than dwelling on what happened in the past. The rest of the interview is well worth the cover price, and until the folks at Road Magazine see fit to put the interview online, you’ll have to scoop up a copy to read the entire interview. Road Magazine is a glossy, cleanly designed and very well put together magazine filled with a number of interesting articles and interviews beyond the Landis story. Find a copy — if you can — you won’t be disappointed.

Meanwhile, Back in Doperville…

Stefan Schumacher recently expressed some surprise at the suspension handed out by France’s anti-doping agency, the AFLD, as a result of an October test result that suggested the winner of two time trials during the 2008 edition of the Tour de France was, shall we say, juiced up on CERA, the latest variant of EPO. After expressing “surprise” and calling the system “a farce,” Schumacher went on to say that he would be taking action to prove that he didn’t do it.

The 27-year-old, who last rode for Team Gerolsteiner, said in a statement that, “I did not dope.”

He added that there can only be one reaction to this “unprecedented investigation and unbelievable verdict: I have told my attorney to file an appeal of the investigatory practices and the scandalous verdict with the Conseil d’Etat, the highest French court of appeals.”

Schumacher said that he was sure that the court would “prove his innocence”.

Schumacher has been banned from racing in France for two years. Most likely, he has actually been banned from participating in any athletic event — cycling or otherwise — on French soil during the course of the ban. So far, none of the news reports that I’ve found relating to Schumacher’s ban have mentioned when, exactly, the former Gerolsteiner rider’s ban begins and ends. At the moment, he appears to be free to race everywhere except France. The only problem is that he doesn’t have a team. Quick Step dropped him like a hot potato just as soon as the charges against him were announced last autumn, leaving him with no contract for the 2009 season.

Schumacher’s situation illustrates the problems that occur when a major event like the Tour de France is sanctioned as a national event, rather than as an international event on the official UCI calendar as in years past. While the French cycling federation, the Tour organizers and the AFLD are free to run the event under their own rules, it makes for a great deal of inconsistency and uncertainty in just who has authority to create and enforce doping rules, and it leaves the riders subject to differing rules and systems depending on where they happen to be competing.

While the current anti-doping system created by WADA and adopted by most major international athletic federations (including the UCI) is far from perfect, at least it has (supposedly) a single set of rules and procedures. One can only hope that the ASO and the UCI have settled their feud, otherwise riders in the coming 2009 Tour could find themselves subject to the same kinds of anti-doping proceedings that Stefan Schumacher is currently having to deal with.

While Schumacher may well be guilty of the charges, it will be a while before his saga comes to an end.

Blinding Me With Science

Turns out, a recent report issued by the National Academy of Sciences questions whether certain testing done at crime labs is really up to snuff. Eagle-eyed reader Mike Garrison sent me a link to a story from MSNBC.com talking about the report. That reminded me of another story, which appeared in The New York Times earlier this month. The Times’ story, written by Solomon Moore, reported that:

Forensic evidence that has helped convict thousands of defendants for nearly a century is often the product of shoddy scientific practices that should be upgraded and standardized, according to accounts of a draft report by the nation’s pre-eminent scientific research group.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences is to be released this month. People who have seen it say it is a sweeping critique of many forensic methods that the police and prosecutors rely on, including fingerprinting, firearms identification and analysis of bite marks, blood spatter, hair and handwriting.

The report says such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court. It concludes that Congress should create a federal agency to guarantee the independence of the field, which has been dominated by law enforcement agencies, say forensic professionals, scholars and scientists who have seen review copies of the study. Early reviewers said the report was still subject to change.

The result of a two-year review, the report follows a series of widely publicized crime laboratory failures, including the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer from Portland, Ore., and Muslim convert who was wrongly arrested in the 2004 terrorist train bombing in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000.

MSNBC.com’s story picks up the ball and runs with it, telling us:

“The fact is that many forensic tests — such as those used to infer the source of toolmarks or bite marks — have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny,” [the report] says, adding that even fingerprints are subject to varying interpretations.

…

The report’s authors say the root of the problem is the lack of strict standards. They call on Congress to establish a national institute of forensic science to accredit crime labs, require that analysts be certified and establish uniform standards for analyzing crime scene evidence.

…

“Science should serve the law. Law enforcement shouldn’t drive the science,” said federal Judge Harry T. Edwards of Washington, D.C., one of the panel’s co-chairmen.

…

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the report calls attention to “far too many weaknesses in our system of forensic science.”

“I am troubled by the report’s general finding that far too many forensic disciplines lack the standards necessary to ensure their scientific reliability in court. I am also concerned that forensic laboratories and their experts do not have uniform, mandatory accreditation policies,” Leahy said.

Sound familiar? It certainly makes me wonder whether a certain cyclist mentioned earlier in this article could have gotten a fair shake in the criminal justice system, either, given the problems this report suggests that may exist in certain types of forensic tests. Something to think about.

And Finally

You might want to check out an article about Tom Hicks, the winner of the 1904 Olympic Marathon, held in St. Louis, that appears in today’s edition of the Boston Globe. Hicks just barely finished the race with the aid of a concoction of raw eggs, brandy and strychnine (yes, strychnine, the active ingredient in rat poison) fed to him by his manager/trainer/coach. TD Thornton, the story’s author, tells Hicks’ tale in part to remind us all that doping stories in sports aren’t really all that new. If you take the time to read it, you’ll find some quotes by none other than the author of this humble blog.