The following press release was issued by the Floyd Fairness Fund just a short while ago. I’ll be commenting on it later. In the meantime:
Landis Responds to Apparent Leak of Information about ‘B’ Sample Retesting to L’Equipe
Illegal Re-testing Initiative by United States Anti-Doping Agency Breaks ADA Rules, AFLD Should Audit LNDD Lab
New York / Murietta, Ca., February 9, 2007 – Floyd Landis today responded to a report in the French newspaper L’Equipe concerning unprecedented and illegal attempts to re-test cleared samples from the 2006 Tour de France and two subsequent out-of-competition samples given in early August. The original request for re-testing came from United States Anti-Doping Agency ( USADA ) general counsel Travis Tygart in late December and proposed further testing of the “B” portion of cleared “A” samples at the Labaratoire National Depistage de Dopage’s (LNDD) laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry. Landis and his team are concerned about this latest strategem, which involves retesting samples that have previously tested negative for any performance enhancing substances at the very same laboratory whose procedures are at issue in the upcoming case.
Landis: “They Got it Wrong the First Time, and They Are Trying To Get It Wrong Again”
“I have not taken testosterone or any other performance enhancing substance. I am 100% confident that if best practice in process and technology were applied to testing my sample back in July, I would be racing my bike this season. With all that we have learned, however, I am very concerned regarding the LNDD’s handling of my samples over the last six months as well as the Anti-Doping Agencies’ (ADA) complete and consistent disregard of their own rules and procedures. With the steady stream of news flow regarding serious problems at the LNDD, it’s impossible to understand USADA’s motivation for this move, unless it’s simply another way to drain my resources in this fight to clear my name. My message to USADA and the LNDD is: this testing should have been done right the first time.”
Landis’ “A” Samples Negative – USADA / LNDD Re-Testing Violates the ADA’s Own Rules
The ‘A’ samples for each of the seven stages for which Landis produced samples have already tested negative for all prohibited performance enhancing substances. USADA’s request for further analysis of “B” samples is in clear violation the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code and Union Cyclist International (UCI) rules and is unprecedented in athlete anti-doping cases. USADA’s illegal initiative would also cause the Landis team to expend unnecessary resources to halt a clearly prohibited activity — resources that have already been unduly and unfairly stretched by the ADA’s unethical approach to their pursuit of unsubstantiated allegations against Landis.
Along with violation of the ADA’s own rules and principles, the Landis’ team is fighting against a process that ignores democratic principles of fairness and due process. For example, the Landis team has been denied access to the full analyses detailing the results of his other ‘A’ sample tests and has no reason to believe that it would be provided with the results of any further tests. Given USADA’s consistent refusal to provide relevant discovery documentation, Landis’s defense team has no expectation it would receive appropriate documentation from any proposed illegal re-testing.
Maurice Suh commented, “Illegal re-testing of these cleared samples is designed to further injure Floyd by costing him and his team substantial time and money, more deeply invading his privacy and destroying evidence that may later on be valuable in his defense. USADA continues to dramatically demonstrate that they have no interest in providing Floyd with a fair and just outcome to this process.”
Background: Original Stage 17 Sample Unfit for Testing But Ruled a “Positive” by the LNDD
The sample that is the basis for the unsubstantiated allegations against Landis was confirmed to be contaminated, yet the LNDD proceeded to test this sample, in violation of WADA protocols. The results of testing this contaminated sample did not meet the criteria for a “positive” test based on the standards of the world’s leading anti-doping laboratories in the US, UK and Australia.
Background: LNDD a Compromised and Conflicted Facility
The scientific misconduct committed by the LNDD in testing Landis’ Stage 17 sample, the Vrijman Report castigating the LNDD for its leak of false information regarding Lance Armstrong’s 1999 samples, “whistleblower” documents citing previous grave LNDD testing errors, and last year’s Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decision citing LNDD errors in the anti-doping allegations against Spanish cyclist Iñigo Landaluze all highlight the strong possibility that any testing conducted on the remaining ‘B’ samples by the LNDD will be handled in an incompetent and possibly corrupt fashion, and analyzed on the basis of flawed “science.”
For further information, documents and case history pertaining to the unsubstantiated allegations can be found on www.floydfairnessfund.org.
I was contemplating the implications of your earlier post this afternoon, trying to look up the reliability and stability of old urine samples should USADA actually be allowed to go back and test them. This new press release seems to confirm my instincts that it is, in fact, illegal to do this, so I shall wait for your further comments…when does it end?!
There is no reason to assume that the various doping agencies will do anything other than cover each others asses. USADA’s request is just that, let the French try to verify (re-verify?) their flawed data.
I can’t figure why they didn’t request transfer to the UCLA lab, but if I was Floyd, I would assume the French would spike the punch before they let it go anyway.