Floyd Landis to appeal decision to Court of Arbitration for Sport
I just received in my email a notification that Floyd Landis plans to appeal his case that we have written so much about to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
In announcing his decision to appeal his case, Floyd Landis wrote:
"Knowing that the accusations against me are simply wrong, and having risked all my energy and resources – including those of my family, friends and supporters – to show clearly that I won the 2006 Tour de France fair and square, I will continue to fight for what I know is right. Doping in sport seems to continue to get worse under the current anti-doping system, and this is only a part of the huge amount of proof that the WADA/USADA system needs a total overhaul. I will continue to work to clear my name and fight for change in the name of fairness and justice. No matter the final outcome of my case, there must be change in the current system if athletes can ever hope to compete on a level playing field and return to the joy and inspiration that sport can bring all of us."
"My hope is that the CAS panel will review my case on the basis of the facts and the science, and to approach my appeal from the principle that the anti-doping authorities must uphold the highest levels of appropriate process, technical skill, science and professional standards to pronounce judgment on matters that hold an athlete’s career, accomplishments and livelihood in the balance."
"Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my family, friends and supporters who have stood by me and this cause in the face of a huge amount of cynicism and despair across the world of sport. Doping is a cultural problem, and it is obviously a wrong that needs to be addressed and corrected, but perpetrating a cynical and corrupt anti-doping system will not solve the problem. Two wrongs never make a right."
It looks as if this case has months of life left in it and I wouldn't be surprised if the CAS hearing isn't the final word. As I offered in my last Floyd Landis post, if you are a lab scientist with a background in the type of laboratory analysis and procedures required to carry out drug testing and would be interested in writing an Opt-Ed piece analyzing the Final Award findings and dissent for Floyd Landis vs. USADA, please contact me via our contact form. I would love to be able to publish a full scientific analysis of the findings regardless of what the findings reveal. To us, the findings Landis is appealing look like a massive miscarriage of justice and an affront to good science but maybe we are wrong. What I want to be able to publish a solid scientific analysis and see if science was well served with the findings Landis is appealing or if as Landis contends there was a serious miscarriage of justice.
Relevant Hearing Documents
- Highlights of the award (Word Document)
- Majority Award Findings (PDF)
- Minority Dissent (PDF)
Our previous Floyd Landis coverage
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Flase-Positive T/E and CIR Results: Floyd Landis, Mennonites, & Sitosterolemia
Regarding Dr. Sanghavi's article, Detecting Doping in sports (Boston Globe, October 4, 2007), it is surprising to note that little attention has been paid to the idea that some of the athletes proclaiming their innocence may in fact be so.
Certainly, confounding factors exist that may call the use of both the T/E ratio and CIR test into question. Studies suggest that genetic factors, as well as some of the very drugs WADA/USADA permit for use without an exemption (see USADA 2007 Wallet Card), may, indeed, be unrecognized causes of false-positive tests for steroids.
For example, sitosterolemia, a disorder with a high rate of occurrence in Amish-Mennonites and a rare, or perhaps under diagnosed cause of hypercholesterolemia, has the potential of producing false-positive CIR results. In sitosterolemia, plasma levels of plant sterols, particularly sitosterol, stigmasterol, campesterol, and their 5-alpha derivatives, are significantly elevated. Here it is important to note that the CIR detects anabolic steroid use by measuring these very plant sterols, from which synthetic steroids are derived. Regarding the T/E ratio, there is some indication in the medical literature that antimycotics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), many of which are permitted in competition by WADA/USADA without a TUE, are endocrine disrupters that may respectively decrease or increase the T/E ratio.
While athletes and the authorities and organizations who test them agree there should be zero tolerance for illicit drug use in sports, hypervigilance on the part of the anti-doping establishment is necessary in order to ensure the accuracy of the methods used to detect it.
Darshak Sanghavi
Detecting doping in sports
By Darshak Sanghavi | October 2, 2007
DISGRACED CYCLIST Floyd Landis was formally stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title recently, making him the latest athlete felled by a doping scandal. Landis's routine urine test had shown an abnormally high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. Testing showed the testosterone contained a high proportion of carbon isotope derived from soybeans - indicating it was synthetic and not natural.
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/articles/2007/10/02/detecting_doping_in_sports/
Solca, C.; Stanga, Z.; Pandit, B.; Diem, P.; Greeve, J.; Patel, S. B. :
Sitosterolaemia in Switzerland: molecular genetics links the US Amish-Mennonites to their European roots. Clin. Genet. 68: 174-178, 2005. PubMed ID : 15996216
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=210250
http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2110.htm
Do non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs influence the steroid hormone milieu in male athletes?
Int J Sports Med. 2007 Oct;28(10):809-14. Epub 2007 May 11.
Sex, drugs and sports: prostaglandins, epitestosterone and sexual development.
Med Hypotheses. 2007;69(4):829-35. Epub 2007 Mar 23.
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