Double-Secret Probation and Double-Jeopardy

Imagine this: Floyd Landis wins in arbitration, wins at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but still isn’t allowed to ride in the next Tour. Whether that will be 2007 or 2008 for Floyd remains to be seen, depending on how fast the case moves. My personal guess: 2008. I hope I’m wrong, however.

Couldn’t happen, you say? If he’s exonerated he’ll get to ride the Tour, assuming he’s fit enough to race. Right? Not so. An article over at cyclingnews.com drops a bomb-shell: Landis has been on double-secret probation since September 20th. Well, OK, it’s not really double-secret probation, but it sounds pretty fishy.

See, the French anti-doping agency (AFLD) opened a case against Landis in September according to Pierre Bordry, who is the organization’s head. This, despite the fact that the new incarnation of the French anti-doping agency has no authority to sanction a foreign rider competing in French races.

Bordry claims that because the procedure was started by the previous agency, the Conseil de prévention et de lutte contre le dopage (CPLD), which did have the power to sanction foreign riders competing in French races, that his current organization still has the right to sanction Landis, saying:

The whole of the procedure regarding Mr. Landis has been engaged by the CPLD. We therefore keep our sanctioning competence, on French soil, in the Landis case.

The current agency, AFLD, replaced the CPLD on October 1st. Bordry goes on to criticize Landis’ defense team for publicizing their defense of their client, and states that he is impartial in the case. He also claims to have sent a letter to Howard Jacobs and that Jacobs acknowledged the receipt of the letter but has done nothing else.

Bordry also says that any documentation in their proceedings is open and available to Landis and his defense team. At least this sounds more fair than the process that Landis is currently facing with USADA, WADA et. al. But it leaves me wondering: What the hell is going on here?

Granted, the USADA/WADA process seems less than fair in the way it treats the athletes, but shouldn’t this process be allowed to run its course without other agencies second-guessing the whole affair? How fair is it to have to face two proceedings over the same matter at the same time in different jurisdictions? Isn’t it enough that Landis has to go through the whole process here, and ultimately at the CAS?

Now, this isn’t exactly like double-jeopardy, where a person acquited of a crime is tried again. But it’s not exactly fair, either. [Double-jeopardy would come into play if, say, someone tried to prosecute OJ Simpson based on the revelations in his new book If I Did It.]

There’s a lot of duplicated effort in trying to respond to two (almost) identical cases at the same time that are being decided in different places. And it leaves me wondering why this would even be happening.

Consider two possible outcomes:

• Landis found guilty by arbitration/CAS process, but found innocent in the French proceedings
• Landis exonerated by arbitration process or at the CAS, but found guilty by the French process

In the first instance, Landis would be banned from competition for two years, presumably including competition in France. So the fact that the French anti-doping process cleared him would be of little comfort. Nice that someone believes in him, but if he can’t compete, what good do the French proceedings do?

The second instance is what worries me. Landis would be able to compete internationally, according to the USADA/WADA/CAS proceedings, but competing in France would be questionable. Assuming the AFLD really does have the power to impose a sanction, he could be banned from competition in France. Even if AFLD doesn’t have that power, he could still be barred from important races, such as the Tour.

How, you ask? Well, consider this: A promoter of certain races (like Amaury Sports Organization) adopts a rule that says no rider who has a disciplinary finding against him by the AFLD or other governing body will be allowed to race in their events. That gives ASO legal cover to bar Landis, or anyone else in a similar situation, from competing in their events.

Pretty frightening prospect, if you ask me. Now, it’s entirely possible that the outcome in the French proceedings will mirror the outcome in the USADA/WADA/CAS proceedings, which would render my speculation moot. But there’s no guarantee of that, and the possibility that Landis could be cleared to race but still barred from competing in the Tour is something I find very troubling, and fundamentally unfair.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say this is all a concerted effort by the various agencies to bleed Floyd Landis dry and force him out of professional cycling. But I’m not a consipiracy theorist. Yet.