http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/061012/sports/cycle_landis_doping
American cyclist Floyd Landis goes public with defence in doping case
Thu Oct 12, 5:40 PM
(AP) - Floyd Landis took his case to the public Thursday with an online presentation that included key elements of his defence against doping charges. Exhaustive as it appeared, his lawyer said, "This is by no means, everything."
Landis is scheduled to go before an arbitration panel in January or February and formally appeal doping violations that could cost him his Tour de France and a two-year ban. Rather than wait several months to present his defence in a public form, portions of it were posted on his web site, www.floydlandis.com.
Included in the multimedia presentation was a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Arnie Baker, a retired doctor and longtime coach and adviser, as well as several hundred pages of documents and a motion to dismiss the charges that Howard Jacobs, Landis' lawyer had filed earlier.
"It's an unprecedented step, but if the federations are going to keep breaking the rules by leaking results, it's only fair that athletes can respond," Jacobs said. "That's what we're doing."
The presentation highlights what are said to be 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 Landis' "A" and "B" samples, as well as the presence of synthetic testosterone.
The alleged inconsistencies were part of Jacobs' earlier motion asking a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency review board seeking to have the case dismissed. That request was denied last month.
Jacobs said Thursday, "There's many more elements to the defence," but declined to elaborate.
Tour de France organizers already have said they no longer consider Landis the champion. They also planned to begin proceedings to formally strip Landis' title when the appeals process is exhausted. Landis' final appeal could be to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Landis' 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 a number of factors could have triggered the result - thyroid medication, cortisone injections for a damaged hip, his 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' 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, but Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said Thursday about the lab where the tests were performed, "We have no reason to question the conclusions."
Added Philippe Dautry, general secretary of France's anti-doping agency, "We only have some vague noises about the arguments from Landis and his attorney. All this is part of an ongoing disciplinary procedure, during which all the elements must be examined."
