Landis Defense Called "Brilliant"

Floyd Landis is continuing his "town hall" meetings in the U.S. to raise money for his doping defense, and L.A. Times reporter Michael Hiltzik continues to do a great job covering the case.

We've cited this Pulitzer Prize winner's investigative articles several times. This week, Hiltzik participated in a web chat where his perspective sheds more light on the issues Landis will raise when he goes before an arbitration panel on May 14.

Landis, as you know, is fighting to keep the Tour de France title he won last year before it was found that he failed a testosterone test late in the race. He contends the testing procedure was fraught with errors, and his evidence is posted on the Floyd Fairness Fund website at [url]http://www.floydfairnessfund.org/the-case.htm[/url]

In the chat, Hiltzik talked about Landis's so-called "wikipedia defense." Some excerpts:

---I think it is, in its way, brilliant. One of the main problems athletes have had in defending themselves in anti-doping cases is the dearth of independent experts. That's because the most experienced doping scientists tend to be employed by [World Anti-Doping Agency] labs, and under WADA rules they can't work for an athlete's defense.

---The wikipedia defense in effect drafts thousands of qualified experts in cyberspace to review the case, and I have no doubt that Landis's defense has profited from the analysis done online.

---As to whether the wiki defense has made the [anti-doping] authorities dig in their heels, I think the aggressiveness of Landis's defense in general has caused them surprise. It's much more common for an athlete to assent to a sanction or, if he or she goes to arbitration, to accept the limited document discovery that [U.S. Anti-Doping Agency] rules allow.

---It's very unusual, almost unique, for an athlete to demand discovery on the scale Landis has, much less post all the material in public. I've never seen an anti-doping prosecution laid out for public consumption like this, and I've certainly seen some responses from USADA that I would think would be considered unacceptable by a normal court of law.

You can read the full transcript of Hiltzik's chat, with his give-and-take with questioners, at [url]http://tinyurl.com/25j48z[/url]
 
"If you brake, you don't win." Racer Mario Cipollini