The following story from Bloomberg was sent to me a short time ago by a regular reader. Here’s a link to the original Bloomberg story.
Floyd Landis’s Final Doping Appeal Tentatively Set for March 19
2008-01-02 14:49 (New York)
By Mason Levinson
Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — Cyclist Floyd Landis’s final appeal of the drug suspension that cost him a Tour de France title is tentatively scheduled to begin March 19.
The hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, known as CAS, is scheduled to last five days and will tentatively be held in New York, Landis’s attorney, Maurice Suh, said in a telephone interview.
Suh added that Landis’s defense team has submitted its written briefs to the three-man arbitration panel and that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, known as USADA, has yet to submit its written material. He also said the hearing would take place behind closed doors.
A voicemail message left for USADA spokeswomen Carla O’Connell wasn’t immediately returned and CAS Secretary General Matthieu Reeb couldn’t be reached for comment. A telephone recording at the agency’s Lausanne, Switzerland, headquarters said the office was closed for the holidays.
The arbitration panel for the appeal will be composed of attorneys David Williams from Auckland, New Zealand; Jan Paulsson from Paris; and David Rivkin from New York, the CAS Website said.
Suh said he wouldn’t seek to open the hearing to the public, as Landis requested during the initial appeal so that his defense could be widely heard. That hearing, which included nine days of testimony, was the first U.S. drug hearing not held behind closed doors and was broadcast on the Internet.
“They’ll be no chance,” Suh said about the possibility of opening the CAS hearing. “We just thought we wouldn’t make an issue of it.”
The hearing would come almost 20 months after Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone in winning the 2006 Tour de France.
In September, the majority of a three-member American Arbitration Association panel upheld the findings that a strength-building hormone manufactured outside Landis’s body was present in his urine. That same panel found fault with the work of the French laboratory that performed the initial tests.
Landis became the first rider in the Tour’s 104-year history to be stripped of cycling’s most prestigious title because of drug use. In October, runner-up Oscar Pereiro of Spain took possession of the winner’s yellow jersey at a ceremony in Madrid.
Landis also was banned from competition for two years,retroactive to Jan. 30, 2007.
CAS has been the highest ruling body in sports disputes since 1984. It handles about 200 cases each year, using about 300 arbitrators from 87 countries.
–Editor: Larry Siddons, Vince Golle.
March 19, 2008 is on Wednesday. Assuming no weekend sessions, 5 days would end on Tuesday the 25th. Any predictions how long after that until we get a verdict?
Will information about the proceedings be available, say a daily summery or perhaps transcripts, or is it totally closed?
On a different note: Marion Jones wants to stay out of the slammer:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_MARION_JONES_DOPING?SITE=OHLIM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
My guess is that Suh is going to get it his way, with a tight lid until a decision is rendered, so as not to annoy anyone. After a decision is rendered, I don’t see any reason to hold anything back, unless there is a gag-order agreed-to — and I don’t think Landis would agree to that if he lost. If he wins, maybe he would, and who would begrudge him? Except that he might then want stuff as evidence for the suits he’d likely file against anyone he thinks could be held liable for his torment.
TBV
TBV, do you really think Landis could sue someone? The list of people he could potentially sue would seem to be so long as to render them all untouchable. Couldn’t they all simply lay the blame on LNDD, and then the french refuse to allow LNDD to be held liable? That would be a sticky mess.
Well, you can always sue anybody for anything. The qualification was “against anyone he thinks could be held liable for his torment”
If there’s no one who can plausibly be held accountable, and worth ($$$) the effort, there’s not much he can do.
On the other hand, Suh is a smart guy, and one who is as angry as Landis is about the way they’ve been jerked around. If there’s a way to get any payback, they’ll find it.
All, of course, predicated on winning at CAS, which is a dicey proposition at best.
TBV
Speaking of suing, this from NY Times:
“””Roger Clemens told Mike Wallace in an interview for “60 Minutes,” scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday, that he never took injections from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, Wallace said.
McNamee made disclosures about Clemens to federal investigators and to George J. Mitchell, the former United States senator who conducted a 20-month investigation into performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. He said he injected Clemens with steroids at least four times each in the 1998, 2000 and 2001 seasons, and four to six times with human growth hormone in the 2000 season.
McNamee, who was Clemens’s longtime personal trainer, spoke with Mitchell under a deal with prosecutors that he would not be charged with drug dealing or lying to an agent if he told the truth.
McNamee’s lawyers have said they will sue Clemens if he denies the truthfulness of McNamee’s statements. Richard D. Emery, a lawyer for McNamee, said Clemens should prevent the segment from being broadcast or face a lawsuit for damaging McNamee’s livelihood.
“He’s got a chance to protect himself,” said Emery, who specializes in libel and defamation lawsuits. “We’re not going to sue him if he doesn’t do it. But if he does it, we’re going to sue him.”””
This is really quite interesting. The rat is going to sue the cat if the cat denies he ate the rat’s cheese. Doesn’t McNamee need some real evidence that he did what he said he did? Not sure whom to trust here.
BSMB,
That is truly bizarre. McNamee would sue Clemens if Clemens fails to back up his story? Huh? Of course Clemens is going to deny doing anything (whether he’s telling the truth or not is another matter). And whether he says, directly, that McNamee isn’t telling the truth or whether he says so indirectly doesn’t change the fact that he’s most likely to say the opposite of his former trainer. Given the negative publicity he’s already been subjected to, why would he do different? But, as a friend of mine used to say, “For every opportunity there’s an opportunist.” I’m sure McNamee’s lawyers has it all figured out.
Switching gears to the Landis situation, I agree with TBV. Whether Floyd will be able to sue anyone for anything depends on how the CAS rules. If they go in his favor, there are a few organizations that might need some good attorneys. I wouldn’t want to be squaring off against Maurice Suh on a case like that. He’s sharp, and as TBV says, if there’s a way to get some payback, he’s bound to find it. I’d guess he already has a few avenues in mind.
Clemens is changing his story a bit now. He is admitting to injections of lidocaine and B-12 from McNamee. Or maybe this is just a clarification. AP story here:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BBO_STEROIDS_CLEMENS?SITE=KYB66&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
I would hate to see Clemens sued because he denies McNamee’s statements. I don’t know enough (nor, IMO, does anybody but the parties involved) to determine if Clemens used any PEDs, but he does have to right to defend himself. Since, at present at least, his case is only in the court of public opinion, he must defend himself there. If that could be the basis for a suit, it could have quite a chilling effect on anyone who is faced with accusations in public.
Guys,
One part of McNamee’s story is a little strange. McNamee is claiming that if Clemens’ interview is aired on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, this will destroy McNamee’ reputation as a trainer.
But Clemens claims that McNamee did NOT shoot up Clemens with testosterone. Wouldn’t that tend to ENHANCE McNamee’s reputation? Does McNamee expect the courts to preserve his reputation as a trainer who supplies drugs to athletes?
English is not my first language?