The Trial of Floyd Landis.

Since it’s cycling, you may not have noticed, and I was perfectly prepared to let it go, but the arbitration hearing pitting Floyd Landis against the World Anti-Doping Agency has implications beyond cycling in and of itself. The assessment of the Malibu hearings at a very basic level is simple: if they rule in the Agency’s favor, Landis will be the first Tour de France champion to lose his title due to being a drug cheat. However, given the regular leaks of information on both Landis and prior winner Lance Armstrong to French newspapers such as L’Equipe, the strategy of Landis’ team is to discredit the agency, and if successful, holds implications for the way we already test for performance enhancers in several sports and would like to test for them in others:

Landis, accused of using synthetic testosterone, needs to prove the lab’s work is shoddy enough to cast doubts on his test results. USADA wants to show everything is shipshape.

The newer strategies used by WADA and the USADA are outlined in this Mark Starr column, and if Landis is able to challenge the methods, it may call into question some of the victories the agencies have roped in as far as drug cheats recently.

 Their effort has been bolstered by a new willingness of sports authorities to accept what is called a “non-analytical positive,” meaning evidence of doping without the athlete having failed a drug test. Recently, the International Olympic Committee issued a lifetime ban against six Austrian cross-country skiers who competed at last year’s Torino Games. Though none of them tested positive for drugs, the expulsion was based on evidence seized in a raid on their Olympic housing quarters.

These are the methods many think pro sports in the U.S. ought to emulate. The problem is that you have folks like Dick Pound, in charge of WADA, and many others who have gone out of their way to savage Landis before this hearing — let’s be clear. The issue is not the tests that came up positive for synthetic testosterone. The question is whether the handling and testing methods were shoddy enough to affect the outcome — and if, by implication, the system we would see as ideal for sport is not.  Cheats will always be one step ahead of the system, and it becomes more and more curious, as Landis claims USADA offered him a shorter suspension if he could offer Lance Armstrong as a doper to them on a plate (Armstrong appears to be USADA’s Barry Bonds.)