As Mark Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” (Some credit Benjamin Disraeli for the original and claim that Twain merely popularized the saying, but to my ears this quote sounds more like Twain than anything I’ve ever read by Disraeli.)
So today’s Landis news has two very interesting tidbits. First, it appears that the anti-doping authorities from the Tour de France have been less than honest with us about how many people actually had positive drug tests this year, as noted in articles in VeloNews and on the AP wire. It appears there were 12 other individuals who had positive drug tests, but that these individuals had “therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs).” But the reported numbers don’t add up. Trust But Verify gives a good summary of the numbers in his post Friday Flip-Flop.
The second interesting tidbit is that Floyd Landis’ lawyer is filing paperwork requesting that the doping case against Landis be dismissed, citing inconsistencies in the testing protocol and methodology.
So all this has me thinking (in keeping with the literary allusions): There’s something rotten in France. As TBV points out, if 105 riders were tested at the Tour, and 60% of those riders had TUEs, then there should be another 50 positive results in addition to the currently claimed 13 (that’s Landis plus 12 others). Somebody’s not being honest with their numbers here, and it sounds like the people who aren’t have something to do with anti-doping tests.
From reading the announcement on FloydLandis.com, it sounds like Landis’ lawyers will be filing their paperwork on Monday, but I’d certainly like to see what their evidence is now. Perhaps they will show their hand next week. I suspect there’s a bit of legal and PR posturing going on here, trying to take advantage of the weekend news cycles. I hope that Landis and company — who are asking USADA for hearings open to the public — will release their information for all to see.
That would be real transparency, and not the lame-ass kind that Pat McQuaid and the UCI claimed when releasing information about a “worst-case scenario” positive drug test that branded Landis a cheat even before the test results were confirmed.
It now appears that someone in the anti-doping regime has been playing fast and loose with the numbers and the data. If these people can’t be straight with the data about how many positive tests have occurred, then what other data are they witholding or fudging? There’s an awful stench emanating from deep within the LNDD lab, the UCI and WADA. If it comes to pass that the case against Landis is dropped, there’s a number of folks who are going to have some serious explaining to do.
It looks like the people who have trampled on the reputations and good names of Floyd Landis and Marion Jones may be about to get their own reputations stomped. But first, we have to wait to see the data.
Next week promises some very interesting developments. We may even find out who’s telling lies, damned lies and misusing statistics, indeed.
