Tangled Webs

In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail `72, Hunter S. Thompson weaves a story about late-night campaign financing, private jets, Frank Mankiewicz and all manner of strange happenings. It’s a classic moment in Thompsonian Gonzo journalism, one that I will never be able to achieve (though not for lack of trying way back in the late 70s and early 80s).

No one can weave a tale quite like the Good Doctor could. And I wonder what kind of tale he would weave out of the Floyd Landis situation. No doubt it would include some biting social commentary, wicked satire and dashes of cracker-jack, right-on-the-money observations about the world of professional cycling and the greater world around us. I’m sure he’d have some choice things to say about the War on Dope, along with razor-sharp comments about how it’s as effective as our decades-old failed War on Drugs. Or the War on Poverty. And HST would throw the War on Terrorism somewhere in there, for good measure.

Two years ago, Hunter chose to leave this world. The world of Journalism hasn’t been the same without him, that’s for sure.

The following story may be wild-haired, it may be close to the bone, it may be out in left field. I’ve got a hunch about the truth, and I’m going Gonzo. I have no doubts about one thing: If I’m way out there, someone’s sure to tell me.

Ready? Here goes: A number of pieces of the Floyd Landis puzzle are falling into place, or at least they seem to be. And what’s slowly emerging is a strange and terrible saga of lab work gone wrong, administrators trying to cover their asses, a sport in crisis and a man wrongly accused.

At the San Francisco FFF fundraiser on Sunday, Arnie Baker gave his latest Slideshow. According to TBV, one of the interesting tidbits is that the mass spectrometry was run at too high a pressure. As I discussed in my previous post, when run at too high a pressure the ions that make up a compound may not separate, and that can lead to erroneous conclusions about what compound has actually been identified.

We know from a CyclingNews article two weeks ago that USADA sought to test Landis’ B samples from other stages at the 2006 Tour. Speculation about why they would want to do so included the conjecture that there was something wrong with the B sample data from Stage 17. We’re beginning to find out what that is.

Baker did not identify what mass spectrometry was done at the wrong pressure, but it’s easy to take a leap here: The CIR/IRMS confirmation test. Suppose it was the CIR/IRMS data, the “foolproof” test as someone called it. The one that supposedly detects if someone took synthetic testosterone. If it was the CIR/IRMS test, the data is inconclusive because of the excess pressure in the mass spectrometer at the time of the test.

Knowing that the data that “confirms” Landis took synthetic testosterone is not solid, USADA goes on a fishing expedition, in the hopes that they can run other tests that will give conclusive results implicating that Landis had been using synthetic testosterone during the tour. But Landis refuses. This leaves USADA in an awkward position.

They’re the point people in the Landis case. And they’re under huge pressure from WADA, the Tour de France organization, AFLD, the UCI and God knows who else to find Landis guilty. But the case is flawed. And they know it. This is the case that’s going to break their winning streak. One hundred fifty seven straight, up to now. But that’s going to change all too soon. Bummer for Travis T.

The data from the B sample will be shown up in the May hearing to be flimsier than a tar-paper shack in a hurricane. There are problems, too, with the data for the A sample, especially if that same pressure mistake was also made during the GC/MS tests used to determine the crucial A sample’s T/E ratio.

There are clear instances of improper lab procedure and improper documentation. First, there’s the manner in which changes have been made to the documentation that violate protocol. Then there’s the matter of not having the manuals and documentation for the mass spectrometer — a central piece of equipment in the case — as well as the fact that it was run at too high a pressure.

There’s probably even more lurking within the lab documentation pack, just waiting for someone with a fine-toothed comb to tease it out.

The speculation rumbling up from the depths is that Landis was being watched by WADA last year because he was having such a stand-out year. Much better results than he had in the past. It’s not that Floyd had suddenly became a significantly better cyclist. Or that he’d juiced up like some baseball players I won’t mention. He just happened to go from team member to team captain, and after a year of settling into the captain’s role, he started achieving.

Should it be surprising? No, not really. The resources of the team usually go towards achieving results for the captain, especially in the races that he’s targeting. Look at Landis’ results from last year, look at how he achieved them, you’ll see this is true.

But some nameless, faceless bureaucrat took notice (or perhaps it was someone (in)famous like Dick Pound, who really knows?) and figured that Landis must be on something powerful to be doing so much better than in the past. Harley-sized powerful. We’re talking one of the big bikes, not the entry-level Sportster XL 833, even. So they start watching. And waiting. Just one slight slip and they’ll pounce on him like a wolf on its’ prey.

We all know the story of Stage 16 and how Floyd bonked. It was team tactics used very effectively against him. No one from his team could get enough food or liquid to him on one of the hottest, toughest days of the Tour. And so, he cracked. Lost a huge amount of time. Enough that mere mortals would be knocked out of contention for good. A man with a dead hip? He shouldn’t even have been there at all. It should have been the last straw. But it wasn’t.

Landis came roaring back on Stage 17. How he managed to disguise the Harley he was riding and make it look like he was pedaling a bike, I’ll never know. The noise of the exhaust didn’t tip anyone off. Neither did the fumes. Maybe the others in the peloton were too busy choking on the exhaust to reel Floyd back in. He rode away with the stage.

Again, the result was due to team tactics. Only this time, they backfired. Pereiro and his team, as well as all the other riders and teams, figured Floyd’s goose had already been cooked the previous day and he was out of contention. So they let him get away and didn’t bother to chase. When they realized the errors of their ways, it was too late. He was gone. And he had made up virtually all the time he lost the day before.

After the stage, he pees into a cup for the man. And then he goes on to win the Tour in dramatic fashion, retaking the yellow jersey on the penultimate stage — a time trial. It’s a classic moment. Much like when LeMond won the Tour by 8 seconds, because he was using aero bars and the other guy wasn’t. But enough about that faded has-been.

A few days later, a lab tech at LNDD notices something funny about some test results. Rumors start flying. Pat McQuaid flaps his jaws about a “worst case scenario” adverse analytical finding. Phonak confirms that it’s Floyd who’s in the anti-doping crosshairs. All hell breaks loose. Nobody knows what to think. Me, I see Floyd’s first press conference, and my impression is, “Look at that guy, he looks like a deer caught in the headlights. No way he’s guilty. The guilty ones come off as smooth and polished. Because they’ve mastered the art of deception.”

But the die is cast. The wolves pounce. Floyd Landis is twisting in the wind. The lab’s initial results may have been sketchy and full of holes, but even knowing that they press on. With all the publicity that’s kicked up, there’s no way to back down. Then the B sample results come back. No one notices during the testing that the equipment is set up wrong, running at the wrong pressure. So the results come back and “confirm” the A sample. Except, that once someone in the lab takes a close look at the data, they realize they are well and truly f&*ked. The data is wrong. And there will be hell to pay if someone finds out.

Too late now. Too many people like Dick Pound, Pat McQuaid and Christian Prudhomme have already been puffing out their chests about how awful it is that the winner doped, and they’ve set the wheels in motion to punish him for having done so. They know, but won’t admit, that the case has no merit. They’re hoping that through bluff and bluster they can get Landis to cop to the charge and it will all go away before someone notices the case’s real problems.

Except Floyd is not the kind of person who cops to something he didn’t do. So he refuses to play along. He fights back. Well, this pisses off the powers that be even more, so they ratchet up the smear campaign against him.

Which isn’t hard to do. The mainstream media are all too willing to follow along. It makes good copy and sells papers, magazines and commercial time on the telly. Pat McQuaid’s letting Landis’ name out in the first place was enough to smear Landis. And Dick Pound’s verbal cluster bombs every now and then stir things up.

The AFLD make a big show of putting Landis through the wringer, because how dare someone dope their way to victory in Le Tour. Pat McQuaid checks in every now and then, just to stir the pot some more. And John Lelangue launches his “wounded bride” act, pissing and moaning about how he was “deceived.”

With all that’s happened, if professional cycling hadn’t already been wrapped up in scandal after scandal (like Operation Puerto, which caused an uproar just before the 2006 Tour), then the sport surely is now. Imagine the whole World Cup-winning soccer team testing positive for drugs. Or the entire winning team of the Super Bowl. Ditto the World Series. For cycling, this story is of the same importance, and regardless of its truth (or lack thereof) it smears the sport in ways just like in the big leagues. And it divides those who follow the sport along a fault line that may be impossible to heal.

So where does that leave us? We’ve got lab work gone wrong, a system out of control, an innocent man accused, a sport in crisis and prosecutors pushing a bad case. Well, hold on a minute. About those prosecutors…

USADA gets their documentation from LNDD and the UCI sometime in August or early September. They know, just by looking at it, that they’re hosed. The pressure is on and they have to follow the case through. Landis’ attorney puts together a memo requesting that the case be dismissed.

But it isn’t. In fact, by all appearances the decision was made ahead of the supposed Anti-Doping Review Board meeting to decide what to do. The fax cover sheet announcing the decision is dated three days prior to when the meeting supposedly took place. Simple clerical error? Or evidence of shenanigans? Hmm. Whatever it is, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

The Landis defense team requests the documentation of his other tests at the Tour. USADA turns them down flat, saying that the rules don’t require them to give the information, so they won’t. The real reason is that they know the info would support Landis’ arguments. And if they haven’t figured it out before, they finally realize just how flimsy the case is.

So they stall. And stall. And stall. Landis puts the lab documentation on the web for all to see. People start picking through the data. Questions start being asked. It’s not the slam-dunk the anti-doping authorities said it was. Not by a long shot.

Someone at USADA, WADA or the UCI (or all three) decides: Let’s bleed him to the point where he gives up and takes his punishment. But that doesn’t happen, either. Worse, the Landis side seems to be gaining momentum. The tide is turning.

USADA keeps stalling. They seek to do additional tests of samples that had already been cleared, fishing for any evidence that might show the use of testosterone. Tygart gives an interview to bolster USADA’s position. In it, he decries fishing expeditions by defense lawyers, all the while knowing he’s gone on at least one of his own.

AFLD decides to force USADA’s hand, in part because the owners and sponsors of the Tour are getting antsy that the Landis case may not be decided before the 2007 edition starts in London in July. Landis appears to get jerked around, but is able to maneuver enough to get the AFLD hearing postponed.

And then news breaks about USADA’s fishing expedition, just after word comes out about Landis’ hearing being scheduled for May 14th. USADA is now under the gun and starts breaking the legal logjam. Landis finally gets copies of all his other test results from the 2006 Tour, just as the Tour of California — which he won in its inaugural event last year — begins.

Which brings us back to where we started, the FFF fund-raiser in San Francisco where Arnie Baker drops a hint that there’s something wrong with the way some mass spectrometry tests were performed. There’s something wrong here, that’s for certain. And it smells an awful lot like an innocent man getting shafted because various agencies got themselves into a mess where they couldn’t admit their mistakes and do the right thing. Which would be to drop the case.

Note: If this Gonzo-inspired screed turns out to be correct — the B sample test is where the lab ran their tests at the wrong pressure (thus invalidating the data and the whole case) — remember one thing: You read it here first.