Louis
09-23-2006, 01:40 PM
From the NYT Web site
September 23, 2006
Landis Vows Spirited Fight as Drug Case Moves Ahead
By JULIET MACUR
The case against Floyd Landis, the winner of this year’s Tour de France, moved forward this week when antidoping officials formally charged him with using performance-enhancing drugs during the race.
Landis, 30, tested positive for synthetic testosterone at the Tour in July, and he could be suspended from cycling for two years and stripped of his title. He would be the first winner in the Tour’s 103-year history to be disqualified because of a doping offense. In that event, the runner-up, Oscar Pereiro of Spain, would be named the champion.
Landis received a letter this week from the United States Anti-Doping Agency explaining that disciplinary procedures would be initiated against him, according to his lawyer, Howard Jacobs. A recommendation from the agency’s review board was attached to the letter, saying there was sufficient evidence of a doping violation.
“We expected this to happen,” Jacobs said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The review board is basically a rubber stamp. They are not deciding the case. They are just looking at whether there is a case, and it’s exceedingly rare for them to dismiss one.”
Jacobs said Landis would appeal the charge and that the defense would be multifaceted. He said they would challenge the accuracy and validity of the urine tests and the testing procedures.
The next step, a hearing before a three-person arbitration panel, will probably not take place before January. Landis has said he will ask for that hearing to be made public. If he loses the appeal, he could take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The court’s decision would be final.
Travis Tygart, general counsel for the antidoping agency, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. He typically does not discuss pending cases.
Michael Henson, a spokesman for Landis, said Landis was unavailable to comment.
“I think there is a real focus to Floyd right now, and that focus is in two places,” Henson said. “One is the hip surgery coming up. The other is bringing the strongest case possible to arbitration.”
Surgery on Landis’s ailing hip is scheduled for Wednesday. His doctor, Brent Kay, said the chances that Landis could return to top-level cycling were good.
Still, Landis’s future in cycling is in limbo at a time when the sport is in chaos because of drug-related scandals.
On the eve of the Tour, nine riders, including three favorites, were disqualified for being implicated, or for their teams’ being implicated, in a doping ring in Spain. Nearly 60 athletes and coaches in the sport have been linked to that drug ring, including the 2004 Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton.
Hamilton’s file from the Spanish doping investigation was referred to the antidoping agency this month, according to USA Cycling, the sport’s governing body in the United States.
Hamilton and Landis are two of three former lieutenants of the seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs after setting out on their own careers as lead riders.
Earlier this month, two of Armstrong’s teammates from the 1999 Tour also confessed that they used the banned endurance-booster EPO for that race, both saying they felt pressure to use performance-enhancing drugs to make the team. EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone used to improve stamina by increasing the body’s production of oxygen-rich red blood cells.
In an interview with The New York Times, Armstrong said the failed drug tests of his former teammates had nothing to do with him. Armstrong has repeatedly denied using performing-enhancing substances.
As for Landis, Armstrong said he thought he was innocent and that he had kept in touch with him to show his support.
“I don’t think he did it,” Armstrong said. “To me, it doesn’t make sense, the way he was tested and the number of times he was tested.”
Armstrong also said he did not trust the French national antidoping lab, which conducted the drug tests for the Tour, including those on Landis’s urine samples. “I hope he gets off,” Armstrong said.
Landis, the third American to win the Tour, submitted a urine sample after Stage 17 of the race, the day he rode solo through the Alps en route to his remarkable victory.
Three days after he won the Tour, he was notified that his urine sample tested positive for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, as well as for synthetic testosterone. His ratio was 11 to 1, well above the accepted limit of 4 to 1. Most men have a ratio of 1 to 1 or 2 to 1. The next week, Landis learned that his backup tests confirmed the initial result.
Landis, who was in Europe last week to watch the Spanish Vuelta, said he would fight to clear his name.
“The Tour’s doping tests are full of irregularities,” he told the Spanish daily sports newspaper Marca. “I’m innocent and I think my lawyers are going to be able to prove it, though they’ve had lots of difficulties gathering information.”
He said he was at the Vuelta to support his former teammates on Phonak. The team, plagued with doping scandals, disbanded shortly after Landis tested positive. The owner could not find a buyer for it.
September 23, 2006
Landis Vows Spirited Fight as Drug Case Moves Ahead
By JULIET MACUR
The case against Floyd Landis, the winner of this year’s Tour de France, moved forward this week when antidoping officials formally charged him with using performance-enhancing drugs during the race.
Landis, 30, tested positive for synthetic testosterone at the Tour in July, and he could be suspended from cycling for two years and stripped of his title. He would be the first winner in the Tour’s 103-year history to be disqualified because of a doping offense. In that event, the runner-up, Oscar Pereiro of Spain, would be named the champion.
Landis received a letter this week from the United States Anti-Doping Agency explaining that disciplinary procedures would be initiated against him, according to his lawyer, Howard Jacobs. A recommendation from the agency’s review board was attached to the letter, saying there was sufficient evidence of a doping violation.
“We expected this to happen,” Jacobs said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The review board is basically a rubber stamp. They are not deciding the case. They are just looking at whether there is a case, and it’s exceedingly rare for them to dismiss one.”
Jacobs said Landis would appeal the charge and that the defense would be multifaceted. He said they would challenge the accuracy and validity of the urine tests and the testing procedures.
The next step, a hearing before a three-person arbitration panel, will probably not take place before January. Landis has said he will ask for that hearing to be made public. If he loses the appeal, he could take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The court’s decision would be final.
Travis Tygart, general counsel for the antidoping agency, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. He typically does not discuss pending cases.
Michael Henson, a spokesman for Landis, said Landis was unavailable to comment.
“I think there is a real focus to Floyd right now, and that focus is in two places,” Henson said. “One is the hip surgery coming up. The other is bringing the strongest case possible to arbitration.”
Surgery on Landis’s ailing hip is scheduled for Wednesday. His doctor, Brent Kay, said the chances that Landis could return to top-level cycling were good.
Still, Landis’s future in cycling is in limbo at a time when the sport is in chaos because of drug-related scandals.
On the eve of the Tour, nine riders, including three favorites, were disqualified for being implicated, or for their teams’ being implicated, in a doping ring in Spain. Nearly 60 athletes and coaches in the sport have been linked to that drug ring, including the 2004 Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton.
Hamilton’s file from the Spanish doping investigation was referred to the antidoping agency this month, according to USA Cycling, the sport’s governing body in the United States.
Hamilton and Landis are two of three former lieutenants of the seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs after setting out on their own careers as lead riders.
Earlier this month, two of Armstrong’s teammates from the 1999 Tour also confessed that they used the banned endurance-booster EPO for that race, both saying they felt pressure to use performance-enhancing drugs to make the team. EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone used to improve stamina by increasing the body’s production of oxygen-rich red blood cells.
In an interview with The New York Times, Armstrong said the failed drug tests of his former teammates had nothing to do with him. Armstrong has repeatedly denied using performing-enhancing substances.
As for Landis, Armstrong said he thought he was innocent and that he had kept in touch with him to show his support.
“I don’t think he did it,” Armstrong said. “To me, it doesn’t make sense, the way he was tested and the number of times he was tested.”
Armstrong also said he did not trust the French national antidoping lab, which conducted the drug tests for the Tour, including those on Landis’s urine samples. “I hope he gets off,” Armstrong said.
Landis, the third American to win the Tour, submitted a urine sample after Stage 17 of the race, the day he rode solo through the Alps en route to his remarkable victory.
Three days after he won the Tour, he was notified that his urine sample tested positive for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, as well as for synthetic testosterone. His ratio was 11 to 1, well above the accepted limit of 4 to 1. Most men have a ratio of 1 to 1 or 2 to 1. The next week, Landis learned that his backup tests confirmed the initial result.
Landis, who was in Europe last week to watch the Spanish Vuelta, said he would fight to clear his name.
“The Tour’s doping tests are full of irregularities,” he told the Spanish daily sports newspaper Marca. “I’m innocent and I think my lawyers are going to be able to prove it, though they’ve had lots of difficulties gathering information.”
He said he was at the Vuelta to support his former teammates on Phonak. The team, plagued with doping scandals, disbanded shortly after Landis tested positive. The owner could not find a buyer for it.