Wonders Never Cease

Last July, French sports newspaper L’Equipe broke the story that there was an adverse analytical finding among the drug tests for the 2006 Tour. So it should come as no surprise that the French sports daily might send someone to cover the Floyd Landis hearings at Pepperdine University School of Law. And one might reasonably expect that L’Equipe’s full-time doping reporter, Damien Ressiot, would be the person sent to do the coverage. That, however, was not the case. L’Equipe sent reporter Vincent Hubé, instead.

Last Wednesday, L’Equipe published the following article by Hubé. Unlike other articles that have appeared in the French publication, this article shows a remarkable balance. So, without further ado, regular reader Marc’s translation of the article:

L’Equipe May 16, 2006

Landis in court
Having tested positive, the American cyclist is presenting his case before an arbitration panel in Malibu in California

Ten months after his positive drug test the evening of the 17th stage at Morzine, Floyd Landis is going before an arbitration commission called by the American Anti-doping Agency (USADA). The hearings–public at the racer’s request: at Pepperdine University in Malibu (California). The first session was held Monday, the last is scheduled for Wednesday May 23. At stake for the American: a suspension of two years and the loss of the 2006 Tour de France.

MALIBU (USA) – Special to l’Equipe

A year ago, almost to the day, an American cycling champion had a triumph at an American university. May 21, 2006, at Tufts University, near Boston. the seven-time winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong, received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, and had the much sought-after honor of delivering the commencement address. Despite revelations in l’Equipe of his use of EPO during the 1999 Tour, despite other suspicions and overwhelming testimony, Armstrong was celebrated as a hero and role model in the heart of intellectual and right-thinking America. One year later, crossing the entrance barrier to the Pepperdine campus, Floyd Landis is not expecting to receive any diploma. At most, he hopes to save his career, his victories, and his honor. Sure of his case, it’s a relaxed Landis who arrived Monday morning in the hearing room. Smiling, shaved, an elegant black suit with a yellow tie (in place of the jersey), the former Phonak leader even stopped to shake hands and greet the press. “It’s ok. I’m not stressed. I’m confident,” he chatted a half hour before the beginning of the hearing.

It is true that the decor encourages serenity. Greeting you on the vast lawns which surround the entrance to the campus are deer. Then a steep little hill which seems for a while like it’s never going to end, and you could think you were on the Col de Joux-Plane. A modern building without style on a hill, that’s the Law School of Pepperdine University. It’s worth the detour to look at the splendid panorama over the Pacific coast, the stars’ houses with their feet in the water, and the beaches with “over-siliconed” swimming teachers. For the first public hearing in its history, the USADA didn’t mess up on its site.

Inside, the “Hugh and Hazel Darling Courtroom” is all carved wood and thick carpets, the walls decorated as if out of 19th century newspapers. A true criminal court, with jury boxes, which are empty today. Facing the public, and in front of a dozen filing cabinets containing the thousands of pages regarding the case, the trio (the “panel”) of judges who make up the antidoping arbitration commission. At left, brawny, former bronze medal winner for wrestling at the Barcelona Olympic Games, Chris Campbell is a lawyer chosen by Floyd Landis as an arbitrator. Doping hearings–he knows them: Campbell had previously been chosen in a similar proceeding by Tyler Hamilton. In the center, Patrice Brunet, a Canadian lawyer with a juvenile air, who sometimes gives the impression of being a Pepperdine student who got lost in the hallways. Independent, he was drawn by lot to preside over the panel. At the right, finally, Richard McLaren, the arbitrator picked by the USADA.

As for a divorce, the room is divided in two.To the left, the Landis clan. The American racer is in the first row, with his celebrity attorneys, Howard Jacobs and Maurice Suh. Behind him, his wife Amber, his parents Arlene and Paul, both Mennonites, who came from Pennsylvania last night, Landis’ doctor, Dr. Brent Kay, and Michael Henson, a young man who launched a support web site to collect funds for the good fight and who now acts as spokesman (www.floydfairnessfund,org). On the other side of the central aisle, the opposing camp. The USADA lawyers: Richard Young, Matt Barnett and Dan Dunn. Their witnesses are seated behind them. In the afternoon, that’s where Jacques de Ceaurriz will take his place–the director of the laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry, who arrived from Paris Friday with six of his employees. The atmosphere is solemn, almost tense.

The opening statements have hardly got under way before the objections and other appeals to procedural rules sprout up. One person who will keep her smile all day is Arlene Landis, come to California in a mauve dress, white vest and a hat as white as her hair. His father prefers a Phonak cap. For her first trip to Los Angeles, Floyd’s mother is making the most of it. And one photo of her son in the courtroom, one! “When your child is in trouble, the parents have to help him,” she confides during a recess. “My son is innocent. God looks down and sees all this in a completely different perspective.”

Pepperdine law students have two rows of seats reserved for them in the room. Some have taken advantage of them. Bryan Lang is finishing his second year. Last July 17, this amateur cyclist–“but not here, it’s too hard, there are too many hills”–followed the Morzine stage in a pub in London. “It was phenomenal!” Cold shower the following week when Landis’ positive test result was announced. “First, there was the huge disappointment,” the American student admitted. “I wouldn’t like him to get out of this simply on procedural issues. That would not be good, not for cycling, nor for American sports.” The discussion involves a German student, Felix Doerfelt, at Pepperdine for a year. For Bryan, one has to go to the very simplest, the questions should be limited to “Did you dope? Yes? OK, you are suspended. No? That’s fine, you are innocent.” “Yes, but there, the controversy gets interesting,” responds Felix. “On the one side, the Landis side, some eloquent lawyers, sometimes aggressive, as if they were addressing a popular jury. On the other, experts who are looking to convince the panel of arbitrators.”

For Landis and his advisers, it is indeed public opinion that they must reach. Hence the vast communications campaign mounted since last summer. With redoubtable and effective attorneys, but also very expensive ones. Landis admitted last week that he had spent more than a million dollars to make defend his case across the country. Hence the interest in having the hearings be public. More than fifty journalists have thus made the trip to Malibu. But the American press remains divided regarding the Landis case, much more than for Lance Armstrong. “Landis is playing to the public and the media,” insists Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Like Armstrong, he has some very offense-minded attorneys.”

For others, the Landis story is one of a poor cyclist victimized by an incompetent laboratory and an administration that ignores his rights. That is the opinion of Michael Hilzik, moustache and white hair, of the Los Angeles Times. Very well informed, Hilzik revealed several protocol errors at the laboratory which could, according to him, cause the dropping of sanctions against Landis. “Readers will be able to see that not all scientific tests are infallible,” the California journalist argued before the first hearing.

Whoever was expecting big revelations right from the first day has been disappointed. “We’re a long way from cycling,” Bonnie DeSimone of espn.com stated with amusement. With the first two witnesses, British steroid specialist Cedric Shackleton and Thomas Brenna, an American expert on IRMS detection, the public was “spoiled” with pointed technical questions on the procedures for detecting testosterone and the methodology of the French laboratory. Microscopic studies of spectrograms, interminable debates about data, about metabolites and isotopes–the Landis hearings turned into a trial of the laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry. By turns aggressive or mock astonished at errors committed by the French lab, according to them, Landis attorneys put the witnesses in a bad light. By recalling, for example, that Brenna had financial ties to the USADA (his laboratory has received $1.3 million from the USADA over the last three years).

The atmosphere of the hearings could change in the coming days. Greg LeMond, triple winner of the Tour de France, who has already testified in the arbitration against Lance Armstrong and his insurance company SCA, is expected tomorrow. He will be questioned by the USADA, and could report telephone conversations with Landis. On the Landis side, there had originally been an announcement that there would be testimony from Eddy Merckx via video conference. His son Axel was in fact a teammate of Landis last year on the Phonak team. The latest word is that the five-time winner of the Tour would not be testifying. As for Landis himself, no date has been set for his testimony, but both parties could call him to testify. He can refuse, but that could be taken as an admission by the panel of arbitrators.

One other American cyclist may well turn up in Malibu: Joe Papp, a retired professional racer, unknown in Europe. He has agreed to speak in order to testify that he doped with testosterone.

VINCENT HUBÉ

SIDEBAR: TBV: Pro-Landis blogger

Perhaps not the most impartial, but in any case the most prompt of the spectators. Monday, blogger “TBV” was the first to arrive at the Pepperdine Law School. 7:30 a.m.–that’s to say, two hours before the beginning of the sessions. TBV is driven. Last July 29, this programmer created the blog “trustbut.blogspot.com” or “trustbutverify.com” (“croire mais verifier”) in defense of Floyd Landis. “It’s twenty years that my wife and I have been following the Tour de France on the television. And we really loved the 2006 Tour.” Whence their disappointment at the announcement of Landis’ positive test result, and the fierce will to prove that he is innocent. Since July, Californian TBV and his network of correspondents, one of whom is in Paris, gather and publish on the site just about everything that appears on the Landis case, including official and confidential documents. For the hearings in Malibu, TBV is using some of his vacation days. He didn’t come to Pepperdine alone: in his luggage there’s a judge from Wisconsin, William Hue, an amateur cyclist who will give his expert opinion on the courtroom action. In addition, on trustbut.blogspot.com you can follow–just about in real time–the witnesses’ testimony, and press reactions, like the live commentary of a soccer match. And you will also have the images: passwords for following the hearings are given out on Floyd Landis’ web site. Monday, for the first day [of the hearings] close to 10,000 visitors connected to TBV’s blog. –V.H.