Landis goes public with defence
2006-10-12 11:12
New York - Floyd Landis rolled out key elements of his defence against doping charges in an online presentation on Thursday, several months before the cyclist is scheduled to present his case to an arbitration panel in hopes of keeping his Tour de France title.
Early on Thursday, Landis posted a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Arnie Baker, a retired doctor and long-time coach and adviser, as well as several hundred pages of documents related to the charges on his website, www.floydlandis.com.
The presentation highlights a number of inconsistencies in both the paperwork and the results provided by the French lab that reported elevated ratios of testosterone to epitestosterone in both Landis' 'A' and 'B' samples, as well as the presence of synthetic testosterone.
Those inconsistencies were part of a motion that the cyclist's attorney, Howard Jacobs, submitted to a US Anti-Doping Agency review board seeking to have the case dismissed. That request was denied last month.
Landis is scheduled to present his formal appeal to a panel from the American Arbitration Society sometime in late January or early February. He could also appeal to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Tour de France organisers have already said they no longer consider Landis the champion, elevating second-place finisher Oscar Pereiro instead. They also planned to begin proceedings to formally strip Landis's title when the appeals process is exhausted.
Landis's positive test results were reported less than a week after his triumphant July 23 ride into Paris. In the days following the report, Landis contended that a number of factors could have triggered the result - thyroid medication, cortisone injections he was taking for a damaged hip, his body's tendency to produce too much testosterone, even some whiskey he drank the night before his stirring win in stage 17.
In the online presentation, Landis's experts now contend the French lab erred in its analysis, incorrectly labelled samples and ignored the World Anti-Doping Agency testing standards and chain-of-custody protocol, among numerous other mistakes.
"The whole process has been full of errors," Baker concludes at one point in the presentation.
USADA rules prohibit the agency from commenting on an active case.
- AP