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Landis faces lengthy wait for hearing outcome
2007-05-25
Embattled Tour de France champion Floyd Landis is unlikely to hear the outcome of his doping hearing before this year's Tour starts on July 7. Lawyers on both sides have been asked by the arbitration panel to submit legal briefs within two weeks of receiving transcripts of the nine-day hearing that ended on Wednesday. Once those arguments have been forwarded to the three arbitrators, they will sift through the evidence before deciding whether Landis took performance enhancing drugs. The entire process, according to officials, will take "at least a month and probably longer." Nine days of often tedious scientific testimony at the hearing in Malibu, California ended with both legal teams arguing they had proved their respective cases. U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) prosecutor Richard Young claimed relatively simple science proved Landis had taken synthetic testosterone during last year's Tour. "When the facts aren't on your side, you accuse people," Young said in his closing argument. "The science is solid. Landis had exogenous testosterone in his 17th stage sample and, in his effort to win at all costs, he cheated the rules of cycling and he got caught." Landis has consistently denied using performance enhancing drugs and his legal team have branded the French laboratory that analyzed his urine samples as incompetent. FALSE POSITIVE "We have looked behind the false positive, and what supports it is incompetence and misrepresentation," Landis's attorney Maurice Suh said. "This is the first case to comprehensively challenge the systematic failures of an anti-doping lab." Although dense scientific jargon dominated the hearing at Pepperdine University, three-times Tour winner Greg LeMond rocked proceedings on the fourth day by claiming the Landis camp had tried to prevent him testifying. LeMond said he had received a threatening phone call from Landis's former business manager, Will Geoghegan, intimating he would reveal LeMond had been sexually abused as a child. Geoghegan was fired by Landis the following day but the LeMond incident was seized upon by Young. "Typically in a case like this, you only get to hear about what is in an athlete's urine," he said. "Here the events and the evidence have also shown us a glimpse of what was in the athlete's mind." While appalled by Geoghegan's phone call, Suh said USADA was trying to imply Landis's guilt by association. "Ultimately, that has nothing to do with the science underlying this case." If found guilty of doping, Landis faces a two-year suspension and the possibility of becoming the first Tour winner to be stripped of his title. However, the 31-year-old American could take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Cyclist Landis to appeal doping ruling (2007-10-11)Gerdemann decries doping after stage win (2007-07-14)Landis faces lengthy wait for hearing outcome (2007-05-25)1996 Tour de France champ admits doping (2007-05-25)Laboratory criticized as Landis hearing ends (2007-05-23)
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