The penultimate stage of the Floyd Landis hearings starts in a few hours, so it’s time for Rant’s quick recap of yesterday’s events and a look forward to what we can expect from today’s testimony.
On Monday, Team Landis put on the first full day of their case, calling two witnesses — Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein from Queens University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Irelend; and Dr. John Amory from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Dr. Meier-Augenstein’s testimony got off to a slow start, with frequent interruptions by USADA’s Richard Young. Those interruptions were, at least in part, some of the gamesmanship being played out in the hearings. While some of his questions may have been real concerns, by constantly breaking in, he was attempting to rattle Maurice Suh, one of Landis’ defense lawyers. It didn’t work. And by the end of the day, Young appeared to be the one who was rattled and off his game. Don’t expect that to be the case, today, however.
Dr. Meier-Augenstein, during Young’s cross examination, appeared more in control of the questioning that USADA’s lawyer. As Eddie Pells articles for the Associated Press said, he wouldn’t let Young get a word in edgewise. And during his testimony unleashed a few zingers and memorable quotes. During his testimony, Dr. Meier-Augenstein warned that lives and careers should not be staked on shaky scientific evidence and assumptions.
One of my favorite exchanges from his testimony involved this answer:
q: where is it in the spec it matters if it’s outside the spec?
a: they must have some criteria, how do they choose? Divine intervention? I’m amazed. You’re left with the GCMS, which has mass spectra, then you get to retention time, and it doesn’t match in the IRMS. How do you identify one unknown peak among 5 unknown peaks? I don’t know how they do it.
Dr. Meier-Augenstein proved by his testimony yesterday that the scientific part of the case could also be entertaining. While maybe not as entertaining in his responses, Dr. John Amory’s testimony helped further debunk parts of USADA’s case, refuting claims that microdoses of testosterone help aid an athlete’s recovery from hard efforts, and pointing out flaws (including the lack of full peer review and other problems) with the Cologne study that USADA’s lawyers were able to inject into the proceedings on Saturday.
While the USADA side may have scored a few minor points on cross examination of both these witnesses, they had difficulty making major inroads. So, all in all, it was a good day for the Landis side.
Today’s testimony will be interesting to watch. The day will likely start out with USADA’s cross examination of Floyd Landis. Expect the questioning to be blunt and tough. They’ve had two days to prepare since Landis gave testimony on Saturday, and they will be looking for any way they can trip him up, rattle him, or twist his words into something he did not mean to say. This will probably be one of the most dramatic moments of the hearings.
Also up today will be Dr. Simon Davis, an expert in IRMS intrumentation. He’s expected to testify about problems with LNDD’s instruments, and problems with the way those instruments were used to conduct tests on Landis’ samples. This will be another crucial witness for both cases. If USADA is not able to impeach his testimony, their case may be on shaky ground.
However, Richard Young suggested yesterday that they may call a couple of rebuttal witnesses, if they have time. If that’s the case, then expect those witnesses to at least try to contradict or minimize the testimony of Landis’ expert witnesses. The show won’t be over until the large operatic diva warbles. And the next two days may still be a wild ride. That’s all coming up just a few hours from now. Stay tuned.
Hi Rant! Yesterday was great! Thanks for the coverage. It was so nice to see team Landis have a good day. And, for a capper, FINALLY, positive Floyd news made it to the sports section of Google news — the Hiltzik story was picked up as the third most important story with the follwing headline “Scientists call lab work in Landis case speculation”.
I am delighted and listening to Pink Floyd cranked loud dreaming of Floyd in next year’s Giro — you know, if he gets the race lead he would be Pink Floyd too (or is that two)!