Monday Warmup

The Floyd Landis hearings start up again in less than a couple of hours, after taking Sunday as a day off. Today’s hearings begin the first full day of the Landis defense team presenting their case. No matter which side of the fence you are on regarding this case, this is the time when USADA’s case should be looking its strongest. While Team Landis has been able to shoot a few holes in USADA’s arguments, up to now we’ve been hearing USADA’s theory about what happened.

Trust But Verify gives a good summary of where things stand at the current moment:

USADA’s theory as presented is that:

• The lab work meets WADA accreditation standards;
• Only a single metabolite > 3.0 is needed;
• There are multiple occurances of 5aA > 4.0;
• If the T/E reading of 11 is correct, it’s outside the acceptable rage of the Landis longitudinal study back to 2002.
• It is believed by the doping underground that microdoses of T improve recovery;
• Microdoses of T often escape T/E screening detection.
• Microdoses of T often have single 5aA deltas out of whack, with others OK.
• Lemond claims Landis made an implied confession;
• Lemond claims he was intimidated from testifying by Landis’ manager.

What we know so far of the Landis theory is that:

• The lab work is substandard in many ways.
• There are issues with the chain of custody
• There are issues with retention of data
• There are issues with metabolite identification through inadequate monitoring of diagnostic ions in the mass spectrometry.
• There are mysterious issues with manual and automatic peak identification and background subtraction.
• The T/E value or 11 is not reliable, and all other values reported are within limits.
• Landis denies the implied confession
• The person who made the call did so without authority, and is now the ex-Manager.

It’s worth reading all of TBV’s post, as he points out things that the Landis defense needs to address over the coming days. Bill Hue’s Malibu Views post at TBV is also excellent reading, and packed with insights. In talking about independent prosecution of the Landis case, Judge Hue says:

[The] law firm does not act as Independent Prosecutors. They have not investigated the case and made an independent determination to proceed, they act in representing the best interests of their client, USADA. Every day, Mr. Brunet asks for appearances and Mr. Young stands and says; “Holme Roberts and Owen, by Richard Young, Daniel Dunn and Matthew Barnett, representing USADA”. When USADA hired outside counsel, it further skewed this case away from dispassionate prosecution and toward advocacy in representation, in significant part, unbounded.

Judge Hue offers up two examples of advocacy by USADA’s attorneys: Witnesses Greg LeMond and Joe Papp. His analysis talks about how USADA’s lawyers offered up testimony from individuals with minimal relevance to the case, and in both cases which cost those individuals dearly. What concerns Judge Hue is that there seems to be no caring by Team USADA about the impact on LeMond’s or Papp’s lives by injecting them into the proceedings.

Judge Hue also gives us insights into the panel and how well they are doing their job, which can be summarized from the heading “They Are On Top Of The Game.” Find the time to read both articles before the hearings begin again at 8 a.m. Pacific Time.

Saturday’s hearings marked the end of the USADA presentation and the beginning of Team Landis’ turn. USADA finished with testimony from Dr. Wilhelm Schnäzer and Don Catlin. Schnäzer was a strong witness for the prosecution, although on cross examination Team Landis may have scored a point or two. Catlin started off as a strong witness for USADA, but he provided some answers on cross examination that may be beneficial to Team Landis. Not the least of which were his grades for the quality of various chromatograms, and his confirmation that WADA’s rules prevent someone working for a WADA-accredited lab testifying on behalf of an athlete. See yesterday’s post or Saturday’s Second Update or TBV’s summary of the Catlin cross examination for the details.

Catlin’s admission that WADA-accredited labs are expected to conform to their own version of the Reagan Rule for Republicans leaves me with some big concerns over how fairly this case will be decided. (The Reagan Rule is, “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” WADA’s version would be, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another WADA-accredited anti-doping lab.”)

The “independent science advisor” to the arbitration panel (or whatever the official title is) is Dr. Francesco Botre, who works as the Quality Manager and Scientific Director at the WADA-affiliated lab in Rome, Italy. As might be expected, especially given Dr. Catlin’s confirmation that such pressure exists, all of the WADA scientists, WADA-affiliated scientists, or WADA-funded scientists have followed WADA’s modified Reagan Rule. If Dr. Botre does the same, then potentially all of Team Landis’ arguments regarding protocols, procedures and data interpretation could be for naught. While I hope Dr. Botre will evaluate the scientific testimony fairly, a part of me fears that he will stick to the WADA corporate line. For this to be a fair hearing, Dr. Botre must be even-handed in his evaluation of both sides’ arguments.

Testimony on Saturday finished with Floyd Landis taking the stand. This began the presentation of the Landis case, with the exception of one witness who testified earlier, due to scheduling issues. Landis’ direct examination by his lawyers finished the session, but cross examination will be today. According to the witness list for today, Landis’ cross examination is expected to begin after the lunch break.

Before that, two other witnesses for the defense will take the stand. First up today will be Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, who is said to be an expert in errors in IRMS procedures. Expect his testimony to center on a number of problems with how LNDD conducted the IRMS tests and how that affects the data, as well as the data’s interpretation. Next up will be Dr. John Amory, who is an expert in testosterone metabolization. Dr. Amory has testified in past doping cases on behalf of USADA.

The day’s session should finish with at least the beginnings of USADA’s cross examination of Floyd Landis. Expect tough questions from the anti-doping agency’s lawyers. This should be one of the more dramatic moments of the case. Stay tuned, this case is far from over. And over the next few days, we’ll see just how strong a case Team Landis will be able to make that their client is innocent of the charges against him.