So What’s Fair, Anyway? Part 2

Imagine this scenario: You’re driving to work on your usual route. Suddenly, you notice a lot of debris in front of you, so you swerve this way and that to avoid running over it. A police officer behind you sees you swerving but doesn’t see the debris in the road and pulls you over, suspecting that you’re driving drunk.

He asks you to take a Breathalyzer test. “No problem,” you think to yourself. “No way I can fail this test. I haven’t had any booze in days. I’m clean.”

So you blow into the Breathalyzer, fully confident that you’re going to pass. After all, you’re clean, what could possibly go wrong? Bad news: You fail. Worse: You live in a place where failing the Breathalyzer leads to an immediate lifetime ban from driving. And, because this particular test only gets things wrong one out of a thousand times, it’s deemed to be accurate and you can’t fight it. You’re out. Taking a cab, the bus, riding your bike or walking is now your mode of transportation whenever you need to get around town.

But wait! You gargled with Listerine before leaving for work, and that frequently can cause a positive Breathalyzer test! Can’t you just go explain that to the judge and get your license back? Nope. It’s zero tolerance, baby. You’re not going to drive again. Sorry, but it’s the price we have to pay for clearing our roads of drunk drivers.

Is that fair? I don’t think so. And I bet you wouldn’t, either, if you’re the unlucky sap that gets caught in a situation like this.

But it’s the best we can do at the moment, some would say. Maybe, but unless the system includes a way for the accused to contest the finding, then there’s absolutely no fairness at all. Nothing in life is black and white, not even a “black and white” photo. There are many shades of gray. And although the goal, in this case removing drunk drivers from the road, may be laudable, there needs to be a process in place to deal with people who may be falsely accused.

Like the person who gargles with Listerine before taking a Breathalyzer test. The test may be right 999 times out of 1000, but if you’re the one where it isn’t right, you’re going to pay a very high price. Easy to be tough on cheats when it’s not you who’s going to be punished. Not so easy, I suspect, if you’re the one out of 1000 (or however many) bad tests.

One out 1000 sounds like pretty good odds. But let’s take a look at WADA’s data for 2005. In 2005, WADA-accredited labs analyzed a total of more than 183,000 A samples. If one out of every 1000 of those samples were false positives, then you’d have 183 A samples incorrectly showing that an athlete doped. Let’s assume for a moment that WADA had adopted the ill-advised idea to drop the B sample requirement and make the A sample the only criteria for a positive test.

For those who advocate a zero-tolerance, lifetime ban for athletes who test positive, then in 2005 as many as 183 athletes with false positive tests could have been banned. All of a sudden one in 1000 doesn’t seem so fair, does it? Is it fair to these individuals who would no longer be allowed to compete? Hardly.

Is it acceptable? I don’t think so. That seems like too high a price to pay. Even one person falsely accused is a high price to pay, if you happen to be that one person. Imagine, for a moment, what Floyd Landis may have been thinking when he went to the doping control area after Stage 17.

No problem. Been here dozens of times before. Except for that little bender last night, I’ve got nothing to worry about.

Just like lots of other athletes who’ve had to submit to this post-race ritual, I would guess. But unlike a lot of athletes, he wound up with a test result that casts doubt on whether he raced clean on the way to Morzine.

And, like a lot of people would if wrongly accused, he’s fighting back. Fighting to regain his reputation and his opportunity to race in the pro ranks. Some suggest that he should just shut up and gracefully be the sacrificial lamb. An unfortunate casualty in the war to clean up cycling.

I don’t see it that way. From the first press conference he held after the results were leaked, even up to the Gumbel interview, Floyd has looked more like a deer caught in the headlights than a person guilty of cheating. I don’t blame him for fighting back. I would. The only difference is that I don’t have the resources to carry on the kind of fight he is. And as an amateur, my living doesn’t depend on whether I race or not.

But Floyd’s ability to earn a living does hang in the balance. And judging from the Gumbel interview (and just about every other interview he’s done), Landis clearly loves cycling and would love to return to racing. He deserves a fair opportunity to prove his case (the current system leaves a lot to be desired), and the benefit of the doubt until he does. This whole trial by media nonsense is unfair to all who get caught in its evil clutches.

Just because the “science” may suggest that he doped (and that is very much dependent on how the data is interpreted), science can come back later and surprise you with new insights and explanations. The East German Women’s Swim Team in 1972 is a good example for this. Back in 1972, several of the women were considered to be “men” based on drug screening tests. Why?

Interestingly enough, as I recall, because they had elevated testosterone levels. More than any woman should. The science back then led to the conclusion that these athletes were men masquerading as women, when in reality they were women who had been doping with testosterone. Yes, the East Germans had been cheating, but not in the way that the anti-doping science of the times suggested.

Until the science and the testing labs have processes that are completely error-proof, I won’t support the idea of lifetime bans for athletes accused of doping. Consider the death sentence. The fact that states or countries have a death sentence still doesn’t deter people from committing murder. Lifetime bans won’t stop people from doping, either. But innocent victims could pay a very heavy price for imperfect science and imperfect testing.