I’ve been reading the news about this all day. The director of the Tour says he is “Surprised and angry.” So am I, but for very different reasons. French jurisprudence has a distinctly ambivalent quality about it: If you’re one of a gaggle of French (oh, let’s be kind) photographers who just happen to be in a high-speed chase of the Princess of Wales’ car when it crashes into a concrete abutment, killing her, you’re probably in the clear after a slap on the hand. If you’re even a French cyclist such as Richard Virenque (who is a gifted cyclist—this is not character assassination), busted in the dirtiest doping affair known to the sport, you can still return to be a national hero.
If you’re Lance Armstrong, and your wife is in labor, and you’re rushing out the door to the hospital when the Random Drug Check Squad arrives (off-season even), you’d better make time to fill up a specimen cup and fill out the paperwork, like it or not. And still you will be judged and pilloried for the slightest appearance of wrongdoing, not just by the foreign fans, but by the French tabloids media and even the honorable director of the tour and members of the World Anti-Doping Agency themselves.
What a slap in the face it must be, after Armstrong departed the sport to the cheers of France’s L’Equipe newspaper, which published, “Never has an athlete’s retirement been so welcome,” that yet another American has won the race, and further that the top Frenchmen were 7th place Cyril Dessel, and the talented Christophe Moreau in 8th.
A few bits of background are in order. First, each tested rider (the stage winner, the overall leader, and two random cyclists per race day) always gives two samples, A and B. The A samples are tested after each stage, and if a positive result is found a rider has the right to request a test on the B sample in case sample A was somehow tainted or mishandled. Second, the French laboratory where all these tests are performed is Chatenay-Malabry, which is closely linked to the French paper L’Equipe, both of which have had their share of ethical missteps on the subject of doping, American doping in particular, and, to my knowledge, have have yet to retract their baseless accusations in the face of lawful findings. These are the same lab and newspaper that started the libelous “The Armstrong Lie” story after last year’s tour. Anyone see a pattern here?
So, as in the last case with Lance, when Jean-Marie Leblanc immediately labeled Lance a cheat, another official, this time UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani, has stated (in a divergence from WADA B-sample regulations) that “We are confident in the first [test]. For us, the first one is already good.” In other words: Guilty. Even the WADA chairman himself, Dick Pound, an avowed enemy of Lance Armstrong (who never tested positive), has said “a huge black mark” would remain on the sport, regardless of the backup test result. Again: Guilty! I’m sorry sir, but to my thinking, the Huge Black Mark here is the summary judgments that you, Mr. Carpani, L’Equipe, and former Tour Director M. Leblanc have been so quick and so willing to publicly hand down. Doping must be excised as a factor in all sport, but when did you all get into the judge, jury and executioner business? What if Mr. Landis’ other approved prescriptions might have skewed the test? What if the sample was tampered with? What if it’s just plain wrong (more detail on that in “Read the rest of this post“)? Would that be a concern for you, or is it just easier to ruin careers from your lofty positions?
It gets worse. At this point, to my knowledge, Landis has contacted only one journalist, someone he seemed to think he could trust, because the man talked to Floyd on the day of his miraculous performance: Sports Illustrated’s Austin Murphy. Here’s his piece on the discussion. Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait. Then click “Read the rest of this post.”
Steve's Peeves & Affinities 