T.T.T.
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it’s well to remember thatThings Take Time.
So much has appeared in the press over the last two days that it’s got my braincells spinning. First, the chorus of frustration about how long it’s taking to decide the Landis case has a couple of new voices — Travis Tygart and Christian Prudhomme.
Prudhomme speaks about his frustrations directly in articles published by VeloNews, CyclingNews and other media outlets, saying:
“[USADA] won’t meet until the first days of March to study the Landis case. That’s too much time. The situation is unbearable. March?! … So much delay is not good for the Tour, for Oscar Pereiro, for Caisse d’Epargne or for cycling. It’s not good for anyone.”
First off, a little fact check. USADA is not the agency that will be hearing the case, an arbitration panel composed of members of the American Arbitration Association will hear Landis’ case. Second, according to my sources no date for that meeting has been set. We’ll return to that in a bit.
Prudhomme goes on:
“The disappointment is that we are going to know the winner of the 2007 Tour before we knew who won in 2006. Horrible!” he said. “We don’t know why the wait is so long. In the road book, when we have to print the names of the winner, maybe this year we are obliged to leave the name of the winner blank. What else can we do?”
Prudhomme is right about one thing: It is a travesty that the winner of the 2006 Tour won’t be officially known before the 2007 Tour begins in London.
The wait is long, and it’s frustrating. But if you’re at all interested in determining the truth and dispensing true justice, perhaps it’s worth the wait. Rushing to judgment has, in the past, led to some pretty disastrous results. Like, say, that rush to judgment about the supposed weapons of mass destruction “possessed” by a certain oil-rich country nestled between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Kuwait and Jordan and Syria and Turkey. What’s it called? Oh, yeah. Iraq.
Interestingly, in the VeloNews article Prudhomme moderates his stance on Ivan Basso’s potential participation in the 2007 Tour. But then he goes on to say this:
“Last year we cleaned the race, even though later we had the hard blow of Floyd Landis,” Prudhomme said. “We have to keep going and that’s what we’re going to do, that the winner of the Tour is the outright winner. That cannot happen again.”
So, while Prudhomme is willing to wait and see what happens vis-a-vis Ivan Basso and Operación Puerto, he’s clearly made up his mind about Floyd Landis. Nothing like knowing where you stand and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Should Landis be exonerated, it will be interesting to hear what M. Prudhomme’s reaction will be.
Travis Tygart, for one, sympathizes with Prudhomme’s point of view, telling VeloNews:
“Not speaking directly about the Landis case, but in general, we like to move these along as quickly as possible,” he said. … Our rule is to ensure that we have a hearing within three months of the formation of the panel.
And in an article published at ESPN.com, Tygart says, “We’re ready to proceed, We want hearings done as soon as possible.” Meanwhile, in an in-depth interview published by the Daily Peloton, he offers this:
The current trend is for some athletes to engage in obstructionist defenses that, despite publicity claims to the contrary, are designed to do nothing more than hide the truth. What is unfortunate, is that one of these days an athlete may succeed in cheating the system through legal maneuvering and there will be no honor in that outcome.
Yes, that would be unfortunate. Tygart, however, neglects to mention that it would be equally unfortunate if through legal maneuvering (such as the Clinton-esque debate of what the meaning of the word “public” is while trying to find creative ways of denying Floyd Landis’ request for a public hearing) the process ended up convicting an innocent man.
There is much more to the Tygart interview, and much more to dissect, but that’s a rant for another time. In the midst of the growing chorus of frustration comes a voice that speaks of patience. And that voice is from the person who, by rights, ought to be the most frustrated person of all — Floyd Landis. In the ESPN.com article, Landis is quoted as saying:
“Right now,” he said, “I want to believe that the right thing will happen and we’ll get a fair hearing, as long as it takes.”
In the ESPN.com article, we also learn that a part of the reason for the delay in the case revolves around the Landis defense team’s efforts to obtain the documents and information necessary to put on their case, also known as discovery. According to the article:
The rules governing discovery in anti-doping arbitration cases are much more restrictive than they are in a U.S. criminal or civil court. Landis’ lawyer Howard Jacobs, who has defended several high-profile athletes accused of doping including Olympic track star Marion Jones and cyclist Tyler Hamilton, requested a number of additional technical and scientific documents he argued were pertinent to the case last fall. His request was denied by USADA.
Los Angeles-based lawyer Maurice Suh of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher firm, a former U.S. attorney with experience in prosecuting public corruption and misconduct cases, formally joined the defense team in December. Suh and Jacobs are continuing “efforts to get evidence relevant to Floyd’s defense,” Henson said. “It’s a real uphill battle for them to get basic pieces of information they need to conduct a fair hearing.”
In addition, the this article tells us that selection of the arbitration panel has only recently been completed, and continues:
Under USADA rules, the athlete’s hearing is supposed to be held within three months of the panel being selected, but Henson said that Landis’ legal team has asked for an extension of that time to deal with discovery issues.
“We feel the legal process athletes have to go through is fundamentally unfair,” Henson said. “In order for Floyd to get due process, it’s going to take longer than we originally thought.”
Henson’s comment suggests that the hearing date hasn’t been set (contrary to M. Prudhomme’s assertion that it will be in March).
Landis sums up his current life this way:
“I spend the same amount of time and energy trying to gain whatever resources are necessary and trying to learn what I need to learn, trying to solve this problem, as I spent trying to win the Tour. Every single day.”
As he has said a number of times before, it will take the same kind of focus to prevail in this test as it does to win the Tour. Perhaps even more. Because preparing for the Tour, at least up to now, didn’t involve the constant glare of the media spotlight on his life. All that changed in the days after the Tour. The glare of the spotlight is upon him, and the media sharks are out for blood.
Landis remains determined. But he recognizes that this fight isn’t just about him.
[Landis] said he hopes a win in his case would help provoke change in WADA’s testing and adjudication procedures, which are currently under internal review. WADA solicited feedback from its member organizations and will consider possible changes in its rules and sanctions at its annual meeting in November.
“That, to me, is more important than me right now,” Landis said. “A lot of the damage is done whether I win or lose. To my way of thinking, the only good that can really come out of this is that no one has to go through this again.”
Indeed. Let’s hope no one else has to endure what Floyd Landis has had to these last 6 months. And while the wheels of justice may spin too slowly for some, it’s more important that justice be done than to rush into a speedy, but wrong, judgment.
