Open arbitration for Landis starts with frustration

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) -- Floyd Landis wanted an open arbitration hearing to show the world what really happens in doping cases. The trouble-filled session he sat through Tuesday served as a mind-numbing reminder of why these cases are normally done behind closed doors.
A day devoted to discussing practices at the French lab that analyzed the Tour de France champion's urine samples was mainly an exercise in frustration, as arbitrators and lawyers had trouble working with a translator brought in for a French-speaking lab employee.
Landis, who appeared for the second straight day in a yellow tie that matched the color of the yellow jersey he won last year, is accused of using banned synthetic testosterone during his victory.
Interruptions
Early in the day, testimony offered by the lab's analytical chemist, Cynthia Mongongu, was interrupted frequently with instructions to the witness to speak more clearly, to the translator to speak in the first person, and with pleas from the lawyers to find a better way to do this.
Finally, when the translator misspoke -- saying "an hour and a half," when Mongongu really had said "a day and a half" in French -- lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet, who speaks French, called for a break and a new translator. That break lasted nearly 90 minutes and came right on the heels of a 90-minute lunch break devoted to getting things right.
When a new translator finally arrived, the testimony began in earnest.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency lawyer Dan Dunn asked Mongongu if she had worked on the "A" and "B" samples taken after Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour. The Landis camp had cited rules that prohibit the same lab employees from working on different samples as a reason to possibly nullify the positive test.
Clarification
"I didn't perform the analysis of the 'B' sample, but I helped verify the results," said Mongongu, who also said she didn't know she was testing Landis' urine.
Dunn asked if she broke the seal on the "B" bottle, took any measurements, prepared the sample, dealt with the instruments or handled the "B" sample. Mongongu answered "No" to each question.
Testimony was painfully slow, coming four or five words at a time, with several delays so the new translator could get up to speed on the scientific language. (She struggled mightily with the tongue-twister "etiocholanolone.")
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