Ho, hum, Landis case drags on

Wacky stuff obscured much of the dense science that was supposed to dominate the hearing.

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) — They turned out the lights on the Floyd Landis courtroom drama Wednesday, a whopper of a case that whirled wildly between arguments about wardrobe choices, malfunctioning machines, shoddy science and much more.

Like any soap opera, this story isn’t close to being resolved.

It will be more than a month before the three arbitrators who sat through nine days of testimony sort through the evidence and decide whether the Tour de France champion is guilty of doping. Whoever loses is almost sure to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Final day

The final day began with scientific testimony and ended with closing arguments. Not surprisingly, the sides squabbled over who would go last.

When they finally figured that one out — the Landis people prevailed — Landis attorney Maurice Suh told the panel what he thought of the testing methods that produced Landis’ positive tests.

“Garbage in, garbage out,” Suh said, referring to a graphic with garbage cans moving across the screen.

He also said the case was about more than just Landis, and his quest to retain the Tour title and avoid a two-year ban from cycling.

“It is the first to comprehensively challenge the systematic failures of an anti-doping lab to follow its own rules,” he said.

Suh spoke after attorneys for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency resumed their attacks, showing evidence they say proves Landis used synthetic testosterone during his Tour win, and taking one last swipe at his character.

“Usually all you get to hear about in a case like this is what was in the athlete’s urine,” attorney Richard Young said. “In this case, the events and the evidence have also shown us a glimpse of what was in the athlete’s mind.”

Rolls eyes

Landis rolled his eyes and closed them after that statement.

Young was referring, of course, to the Greg LeMond affair, a debacle of a day for the Landis camp that must have made Landis wonder if exposing the arbitration process to the public was such a good idea.

LeMond, a three-time Tour winner, showed up last Thursday and told of being sexually abused as a child, then followed that bombshell with the revelation that Landis’ manager, Will Geoghegan, threatened to reveal that secret if he testified.

USADA’s point was to show Landis had planned to intimidate and embarrass LeMond. When USADA attorneys questioned Landis on Tuesday, they asked why he wore all black for LeMond’s appearance in court after choosing a yellow tie all other days.

It was wacky stuff, and it obscured much of the dense science that was supposed to dominate the hearing.

Much of the Landis argument centered on the alleged incompetence of the technicians at the Chatenay-Malabry lab outside Paris where Landis’ urine was analyzed.

Seizes moment

Young seized on that contention, as well, and turned it into a character issue.

“They take great pride in their work and are not the sort of people who would try to hide anything or tamper with results,” Young said. “That’s in contrast to what we saw on the part of the respondent’s business manager, who did try to tamper in this case. ... You can be the judge of that relative credibility.”