OR: SNAFUs at LNDD...
Part THREE of Post Landis Stress Syndrome
LINKS to
Part ONE: Knight, knave, or Don Quixote?
Landis is now a CAS arbitration case name, marking a turning point in the history of sports litigation, a mark for posterity.
Landis the man, is now a vanquished champion.
As a case, Landis may have killed the Quigley Rule. We won't know until another case tries to cite what Quigley formerly stood for, in the future.
Recently, WADAwatch briefly interviewed Jean–Pierre Pedalstrap, a world–famous former Tour de France team domestique, who retired from racing around 199x... Pedalstrap's answer to our one–question interview reminds all that he had the reputation of being able to make everyone laugh in the peleton, even Bernard Hinault...
WADAwatch: “Jean–Pierre! Hey–oh? Comment ça va, mon pote! (How's it going, buddy!) What's your take on the Landis case, the CAS Decision?”
“Salut, WhaWa... You want to know what I zheenk of zees Landis case? I tell you: I pray and zhank God zat zee LNDD didn't make a single mistake! Zees case cost ze WADA and z'USADA over FIVE millions of dollars...
Can you imagine if zee LNDD, she had made zees erreurs under z'ISL, comme Monsieur Landis had, how you say... 'suggested'? If zee laboratoire had made z'ISL erreurs, WADA et z'USADA might have had to spend more zan FIFTEEN million dollars to... [transcription lost] zees lab's problems!!!”
Nobody pointed that out before J–P did here at WADAwatch:
Thank our Gods that CAS (and/or WADA) was right!
USADA, WADA, Richard Young and their All-Star lineup of WADA–system–employed expert witnesses were all legally, factually, under–oath'edly honestly correct: LNDD had committed no 'departure' mistakes, no real ISL mistakes, only SNAFUs, otherwise this case would have cost MILLIONS.
SIDEBAR: (Children under 18! Don't read this) For our non–USA audience : in the US Military, for several Generations, the 'word' SNAFU describes overall command structures and communications. It stands for:
“Situation Normal: ALL FUCKED UP”
(Ww: demonstrating as well, how to correct ISO/ISL approved Lab documents legally, under ANY internationally–agreed scientific body of rules; initials 'Ww' should be included).
The legal Landis tsunami is dissipating across a cycling world gone adrift, and within the pre–Beijing Olympics Sporting world, readers may choose for themselves whether 'tsunami' describes Floyd's “Aggressive assault on the anti–doping movement” (WADA press release) or the Decision by CAS, released on 30 June 2008.
711 days after his 'victory' in
Morzine, France
This, the final installment of “Post Landis Stress Syndrome”, takes a step away from Floyd, the man. A step beyond, a step above: towards the future; a higher viewpoint of 'The Landis Case' v 'The WADA System'.
In Part ONE of Post Landis Stress Syndrome, Ww catalogued points regarding the CAS Decision that confirmed our pre–Decision theory of permissive differential treatment amongst the necessarily–adversarial human components comprising the World of WADA. The key to retain is that 'prosecutions' now are demonstrably (and in our opinion, wrongly) focused on the Lab–shielding 'presumptions' contained in Article 3.2.1, that force Athletes to amass armies of experts, even if now proven futile in persuasion. Why?
Ww argued that the world of WADA had forgotten the twinned Articles 6.4 and 7.1, compelling 'strict compliance' by Labs to their regulations, and in–depth review by ADOs of that work effort.
By forcing focus on 3.2.1, under which Athletes must argue cases to the last comma, illegal erasures and White-Out (TM) on the laboratory documentation package (LDP), Ww argued that WADA consciously created a financially irresponsible burden–shift away from ADOs and onto the backs of accused Athletes such as Landis.
One heretofore unstated conclusion on that argument: WADA sets no performance standards for what quality of 'review' an ADO is obligated to undertake...
there is no WADA second–level “ISA”
(International Standards for ADOs)
The ADOs, who should be 'protecting the integrity of the case' by ensuring 'no departures', a clear and accurate audit of the evidence amassed by a laboratory, would thereby create an efficient and dual protection of Athlete and ADOs. NB: this may have been what the Spanish Federation used when refusing to press the Landaluce case forward (brought to CAS by a UCI appeal over the Spanish Decision to drop on grounds of Lab failure to abide by the Rules, which CAS confirmed), but we offer no comments as to any motivating factors that motivated the Spanish Committee; those are for another day.
Equal treatment, equal protection.
Less costly, more justice
In Part TWO: All the King's Men and The Emperor's Clothes, a string of striking evidentiary situations offered somewhat of a concours between the CAS' very own incisive Quigley Rule, calling for systemic fairness, predictability, standardization, and uniformity, which is apparently opposed by the 'small group of insiders': some former Olympians, some attorneys, some both, who apparently advocate ad hoc legal solutions through the philosophy and free–market spirit of 'judicial interpretation' (labs' anti–doping budgets and lab/Anti–doping law have recently become booming businesses; call it career–boosting self–preservation of a system).
More costly, less justice
Ww concluded that this CAS Decision itself indicates the nervousness of an entire pseudo–legal system, really private monopolized sporting 'justice', which now has been examined more closely than it was prepared, perhaps, to reveal. Killing the Quigley Rule will mean... what?
Is CAS aware of the implications that this Decision portends for future Athletes? It really looks, through an objective lens, as though all these separate elements, implemented under guidance and origin of the International Olympic Committee, have protected each other's back against Landis' evidentiary reliability issues:
It's our house, our rules, our members, our CODE, our evidence, our experts, our arbitrators, our justice, and OUR DECISION: of course Landis is guilty.
Sadly, Landis as a 'CAS case' is probably going to be relegated somewhere (in the sense of never becoming a precedent–setting' citation) near the Bush v Gore 2000 US Supreme Court Decision. Like Bush v Gore, Landis uniquely addressed one man's cased by creating a rupture with a long line of cases decided on Quigley's clear logic. This Landis Decision itself favours judicial interpretation, falling in total opposition to Landaluce, whose Panel recently reminded WADA that CAS could only interpret rules literally and clearly.
Or ignore them?
WADA could change its rules back towards Quigley and balance its current biases. Sadly, they are currently moving towards full implementation of harsher measures against Athletes: 'Tough Love'... which often comes through greater lenience provided to the evidence–recording Labs. The hundreds of CODE changes accepted at Madrid provide large swaths of newly–modified content, as well as completely new sub–Articles (7.3, 10.6 et al), and the ignored (in Landis' cases) 6.4 and 15.4, or neglected, underachieving Article 7.1.
WADAwatch also notes how profoundly the WADA press release proclaimed that Floyd had led 'an aggressive campaign against the anti–doping movement', apparently needing to assert 'unity', to the Sporting Press.
We offered a 'refined' retort in Part II, providing an accurate assessment and interpretive response to the World Anti–Doping Agency, concerning any of those 'interested third parties' whose lives have been supremely, surprisingly affected by the charges and cases brought against Floyd:
An aggressive campaign against the implementation
and administration of the anti–doping movement by
a small group of insiders.
A Part TWO post–script: it should be retained that this CAS Panel is only one Panel of three CAS arbitrators, one of whom (Jan Paulsson, logically chosen by Landis) had presided over the Landaluce case; more than a hundred Arbitrators are active on the CAS list (means: it isn't like being in agony by decisions of the US Supreme Court, having nine Justices).
However, the Majority of this seemingly–unanimous Panel apparently never met a WADA witness of whom it didn't approve, or whose offered testimonies weren't comfortably satisfactory and thus sustained. And that is very very troubling.
Landis could have saved a strong part of a million dollars or more, if someone had simply told him: “forget it man: your witnesses won't have any persuasive value, because only WADA people know WADA science and WADA CODE/ISL Articles and WADA doping control analysis... they know absolutely more than anyone you could ever call as witness. We trust only THEM. Period.”
A final recap: our first two instalments moved us through arguments that Landis, as an Athlete, was obviously held to a stricter standard on liability for failure (testosterone), than was the LNDD Lab, which had commensurate CODE–originating duties to comply with its ISL, ISO, accreditation, chain–of–possession, data retention and the beauty of Science, yet didn't. We contended that this bias is written into, or omitted in the CODE, and we now register that these lacunae are legally supported at CAS. We admitted it's nearly impossible to tell whether these lacunae were deliberate or negligent drafting exercises.
We discussed the nearly inconceivable (and handsomely remunerated?) roles played by Richard Young, attorney hired from his private practice in Denver for USADA, whose prosecution of this “simple AAF” case, both at the AAA (where he's listed as an Arbitration specialist), and CAS (where he's also an Arbitrator), was funded by WADA (whose CODE he drafted).
Our third instalment revisits arguments developed in our 'Issue IV' from the Revised Amicus Brief. WADAwatch would like to acknowledge publicly our gratitude to the Secretary General of CAS, whose reply to our email request afforded that CAS has no provisions in its rules that allow for accepting such a document: “this possibility is not foreshadowed in the CAS Rules” (Ww translation from FR email).
That an outside 'body' cannot submit an 'Amicus Brief' (A 'Friend of the Court' writing, which we'd submitted 'to protect Future Victims of potentially inadequate AAF laboratory work), is sad. In our fourth Argument we surmised:
Given the aspects of Argument III [WADA favoured judicial interpretation, which would kill the Quigley Rule], is participation by WADA in financing a majority of the USADA appellate costs in this case a legitimate use of its funding under the controlling 2003 WADA Code, or does it establish a very discriminatory precedent toward future Athletes, whose defense of their cases, solely due to WADA's inordinate reliance on 'judicial interpretation' as opposed to proper Code drafting, may be more contentious and thus more expensive than otherwise would be the case under a properly drafted WADA Code?
Ww used the facetious J–P Pedalstrap interview to present an over–arching point:
If it cost “USADA–WADA” six Million dollars to defend one French laboratoire's SNAFU'd 'laboratory documentation package' against the known “leader of the anti–anti–doping movement” (Landis), how much will it cost when a laboratoire worse than LNDD actually presents WADA CODE, ISL and ISO:17025 errors in its lab doc pack?
In our Brief, we wrote about the highly irregular, extra–budgetary expenditure by WADA of some 1.3 million dollars to fund one of its Member ADO's Landis prosecution:
44. There are three foreseeable problems with the current case being funded by WADA, as well as the revision shown above, to Article 20.7.8.
45. Firstly, WADA appears to be establishing a bad precedent of commencing operations as a 'Central Bank' for extraordinary cases. That it is doing so for the largest anti–doping organization, the USADA, appears to indicate a need to win this case 'at all costs', and detracts from having funds available to perform its duties across the board of its other educational, research and assistance activities. WADAwatch requests that the CAS Panel consider the image given to WADA's member States, and other Signatories, of whom some valid requests for such assistance and support to progress in their implementation tasks, probably received little or no such support by WADA, for lack of available funds. It may not be under the remit of this CAS Panel, to resolve a question such as whether WADA, given its current financial state and its inability to fund some member States' or other Signatories' requests for funding assistance, is legally supported by acting as it has against one particular Cyclist, in one specific appeal. If allowed, the extraordinary precedent established in this case, via WADA's generous funding of it's richest Signatory ADO's most expensive case to date, opens a Pandora's Box of inestimable problems.
NB: Hello Pandora...
WADA apparently wasn't requested to help fund the renegade French AFLD prosecution: Sorry, les amis, or countries processing other cases... Maybe it's Nafta–related, a North American thing: Landis should certainly be the last case in which WADA funds a NADO prosecution with greater than a million in subsidies. Why?
Thanks to CAS, WADA is now allowed to bet 'double or nothing' on any CAS appeal without appearing as a named party, outside the ambit of the obligations and responsibilities it is afforded by Article 20.7. Why?
Imagine fighting a municipal parking ticket, and the US Justice Department offers to fund your Smallsville prosecutor's office? Just what did you do, anyway? WADA already has very broad plenary rights to join ANY case as an Appellant or Respondent (Articles 13.2.3 and 13.3).
SIDEBAR: It may not appear obvious, but there's a whale of a legal difference between WADA 'funding USADA's appeal' and WADA appearing as a separate appealing 'agent' as specified in the CODE. By not appearing as an appellant, WADA did not have to develop any arguments, call any witnesses, and thus, most importantly, would not be subject to legal cross–examination 'Attacks' by Generalissimo Landis. It 'stood behind' USADA, not alongside.
“Mr. WADAwitness, can you provide a list of any and all communications (in any format) that you've undertaken throughout the Landis case, with your countryman AAA Panel president Brunet (of Canada, during Canadian Dick Pound's term), or your countryman Williams (President of this CAS Panel, Australian as is John Fahey)?”
Some questions could have been harsh, were WADA an appellate party. Similarly, France could have come to CAS as a legitimate party in appeal to resolve its quest: absolute certainty that Landis would not race in France this year (perhaps a presaging of the mutiny of ASO from the UCI?). Yet France did not, and by running its renegade AFLD 'second case' against Floyd, opened it up to exposure (as Ww tried...) as an irrespective Signatory of the CODE.
From our Revised Amicus Brief, again, we add verbatim more previous commentary, sadly noting that these were not made part of the CAS Decision:
49. The sum total of evidence originated with one exceptional positive test against Landis, by the LNDD, and the procedures of litigation surrounding that evidence, has created the perfect lens, an eye into this case with which to examine "what is the WADA Code and system?" In attempting to create judicial balance between the Athletes, on the one hand, and the entire investigatory and disciplinary mechanisms on the other, WADA has glaringly mistepped and poorly fared: the financial burden on Landis remains enormous. As we see through the Landis case–lens, Articles appear to have been designed simply to dissuade present and future Athletes from succumbing to, or reverting to the world of insidious doping practices. In redrafting its sub–Article 20.7.8, the omission of these three words “... and disciplinary procedures” (supra, para. 48, in italics) will project, in all likelihood, yet another future 'judicial interpretation' defining WADA's Code. However, and more importantly, the sum evidence of poor Code redrafting by WADA of Article 20.7.8, denies member Signatories, those States and International Federations, as well as the IOC, an open debate as to whether this was a proper role, for an Organization whose limited financial resources would become increasingly strained by such selective case–support.
50. Moreover, the third strike against this action is the worst: the fact that WADA finances an appeal running against Athlete 'A', and does not do so against Athletes 'B', 'C' or 'Z', is the most blatant exhibition of institutional discrimination that such an Organization could portray. WADAwatch cries, in a loud voice charged with reason, and rationality, that injustice is being forced into any Decision that favors WADA's position throughout this case.
[Ww: Italics added July 2008]
WADAwatch is proud to stand on those words, unchanged in four months. The 'sum total of evidence' cost WADA–USADA over five million dollars to 'defend'. Not one Attorney sitting on either AAA or CAS Panels, could embellish the nature of the evidence presented (more below), and the lot was insulted ('untrustworthy' by Campbell), forgiven ('sloppy: next time maybe an acquittal'), put on a judicial scale OR supported ('honestly inadequate', then 'only minor procedural errors': CAS).
Honestly, inadequacies that are forgivable, by such highly reputed legal 'scholars' as are found in the CAS Arbitration roster, the 'small group of insiders', the supporters of “pay us: we can get you a 'judicial interpretation' you can live with”, strike deep in the belly of someone believing in Truth and Justice. Paraphrasing a comment from our Part TWO: if only the mother and wife of Floyd Landis could have felt that the 'System' had given Floyd the benefit of a doubt, when evidence on the T/E test was so untrustworthy that the AAA legally refused that test result, so it could eliminate his best argument as to tainted lab work. But the system that had been called into question by Emile Vrijman, had to have revenge: Floyd was the wrong American in front of a good race on a good day, and being 1/32nd positive (based on 32 metabolites analysed across eight Tour de France testosterone controls, one was, in the true sense of the word, 'suspiciously positive'.
Is it that, when the Hon. John Fahey signed the Press Release that castigated Landis for his 'assault on the entire anti–doping movement', might WADA have had these words in mind, first read here at WADAwatch? We'd carry that as an honour, were it to be true.
Which way will WADA advance in the coming year(s)?
The cartoon above was offered before the
WADA World Conference, in Madrid, November 2007:
click on photo to link to the November 2007 Madrid
posts.
That depends on whether it realizes what it has 'done' or 'learned' in these last twelve months, vis–à–vis Floyd Landis.
Thanks to the new-found policy, that SNAFU evidence equals quality evidence, a classic 'judicial interpretation' rules this case in favour of WADA. That move opens doors for relaxed standards of lab work to appear:
– 'SNAFU–only, appeal–proof evidence' –
... in those AAF cases that are based on a scientifically–produced lab doc package.
Similarly, Member States (under the UNESCO Treaty) and Member Signatories, as well as the Olympic Movement, must determine if they have sufficient assurances that their sum total budgetary contributions to finance WADA operations will fund the Budget, and not be diverted into a major 'perp' headline–drawing (or –seeking?) legal battle royale.
Who next will be singled out of the herd, a 'doper' whose case must be won at any cost, to justify press releases of self–congratulatory praise?
Did WADA win new financial support because it proved it has an ethical system, providing simple and swift justice? (NB: the press release quoted above has sunk out of 'site': Ww could not locate it today for linking)
John Fahey has a fast–paced summer in front of him; we have no idea at this point how things will turn out with this year's renegade DETour de France, and we wait with trepidation to see whether 'anti–doping busts' in Beijing might clear a path (risky conjecture bordering on the... responsible?) for some unexpected Chinese successes. Maybe these conjectures are invalid: one could only hope so.
WADA should assess how to reassure its Signatories that it is fully aware of its commitments to Fairness and Justice, such as are prominently displayed in the CODE's 'Fundamental Rationale', also found historically in the quoted passage from the defunct Quigley case, the Council of Europe Anti–Doping Convention of 1989 and the Olympic Charter of 1990 (see our Part TWO). WADA must acknowledge that its extraordinary, extra–budgetary funding of this National ADO's case (USADA) presents an unsustainable financial burden to its annual operations.
Question: If CAS had decided Landis was not to suffer a suspension, and issue an acquittal, due to the evidence per se, where would WADA go, what would become of LNDD, how would USADA face Congress?
The tsunami might have returned to the source.
WADA also now has to determine the effects of its continued emphasis on 3.2.1, if the jurisprudence continuously ignores 6.4/7.1, and forgets the latter's requirement to induce ADOs to inspect and 'certify' Lab doc packages (LDPs). WADA after Landis can literally choose to eliminate burdens on laboratories to actually work to a higher–than–SNAFU standard, and for the ADOs who receive evidentiary LDPs to certify that such LDPs contain only SNAFU or better contents.
SIDEBAR: Signatories, WADAwatch and others commented on the new CODE Article 10.6 Aggravating Circumstances (A month after Madrid, Ww asserted that WADA appears to endorse the 'small group of insiders' sense of Justice and Fairplay). The new sub–Article boosts 'first offense' penalties from two to four years based on a series of aggravated 'causes', some justly derived, and one ('obstruction of justice') that is heinously undeserving by an august body such as WADA.
In much the same vein, removal (in certain circumstances) of B Sample confirmation tests is now a fact, and the change in CODE Article 7.1 (the evidentiary standard was formerly 'undermin[e] the validity', now an Athlete will have to prove that these errors 'caused' their AAF finding) raises the bar, just as CAS has provoked, in requiring 'proof of dishonesty, bad faith, conspiracy or... ghostly intervention? SNAFUs?).
Readers are recommended to read Rant your head off, who created a well–developed argument on 'concepts', as CAS ruled that certain aspects of the ISL evidence did not necessarily require being followed verbatim, as long as the 'concept' is 'followed' in at least SNAFU–ish competence, or better than Honest inadequacy; another concession by CAS that helps enable a sense of having accepted for publication a new book: 'WADA Lab Rules for Dummies'.
Landaluce won because CAS said “clear rules must be followed clearly: change them if they're not producing the anticipated results...”. That Decision never drew attention to the new CAS legal standard: the 'Concepts of rules' (below).
Landis lost, because a different CAS Panel said “rules designed to produce clear evidence may be legally acceptable if at least the concepts behind them are evident in that evidence...”.
Where WADA failed most, however, was in its utter 'laisser faire' attitude continually displayed regarding France, the State whose laboratory SNAFU'd Landis' LDP, decided to dishonour the election of the Hon. John Fahey after its own insider candidate slinked out of his WADA Vice–President office, and finally insisted on holding the renegade French 'legal anti–doping hearing', a clear double jeopardy case against Landis (read our posts here or here).
France, at the origin of the Armstrong = EPO rumour scandal, for which Lance properly requested the IOC to 'chastise' (our term) the former president of WADA for scandalous comportment (a separate lawsuit filed by the UCI against Dick Pound is still pipelined, the announcement of which helped crush WADA contributions to the UCI Passport program).
France, at the origin of the Landis case (if the reader is okay with SNAFU evidence... that's a good thing; yet there are many others that don't see this as anything but an affront to the 'science' of anti–doping control analysis).
France, at the origin of the Landis 'renegade' French AFLD procedure, which unfortunately (and apparently) was never appealed, and was factually and legally error–ridden.
France, whose renegade FFC cycling Federation is suspended from UCI for 2008, following its disdainful attitude to its international parent, while supporting the private corporation ASO in its parallel renegade 'hors–le–loi' 2008 Tour. Who boosted the concept of the longitudinal passport, then withheld funds destined to aid the UCI to put this plan in action.
WADA mess to clean up, John... you entered this hornets' nest of lax SNAFU practices that prove bias against Athletes. If only someone could have captured your attention!
It certainly cannot be said that no one tried... this writer, in February at Lausanne (the Third WADA Press Symposium), asked Mr. Fahey a question about these very situations involving France and Landis, via AFLD adjudications, and Article 15.4.
His response... 'Oh Jesus' was a swiftly muttered aside, indicating... well, we're still cogitating over that one, but we feel it's a compliment to our investigatory nature.
The painfully obvious conclusion, in spite of efforts to act as a conscience for WADA, to remind its better side of its Fundamental Rationale, to whisper in its ear that 'these things you promote are WRONGLY based, legally', is this:
Under Richard Pound, first president of WADA, it never had any intention of creating a Quigley–derived 'strict and yet fair' system, which could, as was requested by the Olympic Charter, to “ensure that the rights of suspected Athletes are protected”, building on the Council of Europe's desire to see the global anti–doping movement “applying agreed international principles of natural justice and ensuring respect for the fundamental rights of suspected sportsmen and sportswomen.”
Certainly one must never forget that there are many good and ethical people working, doing their job, at the World Anti–Doping Agency, on a daily basis. They simply are a world apart from the top job, which for eight long years was in the hands of one Richard Pound. A political job, a post for which elections are held, sometimes competitively, for the precious nomination that leads to a vote. As a fairly new organization, growth pains are normal, expectations are high, and results are necessary.
The Landis case, busted open and shocking those who watched Landis 'win' in Morzine, busted by a sad French system of bureaucracy cum science, offered all the necessary glitz that didn't become available when the UCI had refused to dance to WADA's tune back in 2005, when L'Equipe, a French sports newspaper owned by the Tour de France's parent, offered 'expertise' that wasn't, in publishing a slam against Lance Armstrong, as gratitude for the millions of dollars in pure profit Lance brought to the Tour, and L'Equipe, by being the most talented American cyclist with the ambition to win more Tour victories than any previous European or American victor in History.
Richard Pound, himself, knows the value of big–splash headlines. He learned them throughout his career, floating between private legal practice and a star–quality lifestyle as a former Olympian–turned–attorney, an IOC Committee Member, he who chaired the IOC corruption investigation, then lost a year later to Jacques Roggé, now President of the IOC. However, Pound still seems fixated with his own ego and place in Olympic History. Because of his presidency, WADA finds its headquarters in his home city of Montreal, although the official record shows that Pound played 'no role' in the decisions taken to locate its HQ far from the finite world of other International Federations and the International Olympic Committee, here in Switzerland.
Given all that we have all learned, through a massive 'assault' on the system promoted under WADA's direction, what conclusion may we draw, as witnessed through the prismatic spectrum of the case Landis endured?
At WADAwatch, we have a sincere opinion, unfortunately:
WADA was created to be an
INSURANCE POLICY.
Inaugurating WADA insured the major facets of the Sporting Business, especially the Organizers of events (Certainly the Olympics: the Tour de France, World Cup Skiing, Track and Field athletics, etc.) against Sponsorship withdrawal due to scandals.
Big Money sports (Not the HUGE MONEY sports: remember the US Pro leagues, as well as FIFA, are the last and largest 'players' to agree to align their businesses with WADA) needed an Agency that insured that the message would be delivered, a plan of action would be initiated, the appearance of legitimacy would offer the Sporting press, avid to soak up its Press releases, a true sensation of legitimacy.
The tests and controls were strong, we were told, the labs were duly accredited, we were told, and WADA was going to get those bastards that had been getting away with (Doping) violations, we were told.
Thanks to the Richards (Pound and Young), WADA's CODE was implemented, and its growth would only be assured if suspected Athletes were cleanly convicted based on its CODE system of Inquisitions.
Through 'diligent (non)-standardized laboratory performance' acceptability criteria, the scenario we project then worked to allow the following dialogue:
Please, Mr. KoKa–Kola, Mr McDarnolds, Ms Credit Mayonnaise, Mr Nikie! Please don't take your multimillion (dollar Yuan Euro) sponsorships away from our Sport Business Enterprise or Event because of Doping...
Because we're doing all we can...
We proved it with Landis...
Is the Landis conviction, a final decision because of WADA's 'proven system of results management'?
A reminder that Results Management is a term for properly informing Athletes of AAFs, not a term for controlling through a 1.3 million dollar infusion of appeal funding, the outcome of the case.
Landis: this so–important conviction of that bastard, that upstart, that who–does–he–think–he–is, a virgin–busting, testosterone–abusing, nothin–but–a–Cyclist, that (gasp) American, and my God (!) his attorneys who dared (“How could they??”) to peek under the corner of the rug of our beautiful system...
A system of now publicly acknowledged and authorized SNAFUs, a system that shows outsider attorneys that there is no proof so fine as the proof coming from the mouth of a finite WADA family of associated 'experts'. Ww hopes that people in the anti–doping movement will soon realize that if they hold the power to affect person's lives, through imposition of legal norms and severe criteria, that they hold themselves as accountable as those whose convictions they seek.
Almost sounds like Quigley... This author needs a vacation...
WADAwatch will do all it can, to sustain and revive the memory of QUIGLEY.
Doing better than WADA has performed to date, than has LNDD, in the Landis case, is really their one combined obligation, more than a concept: their sole responsibility. The world supporting WADA needs confidence that that organization will create a real system, as soon as they demystify the opacity surrounding 'concepts' of Rules and honest inadequacies.
Recall the infamous words of Jean–Pierre Pedalstrap: After Landis, with its sufficient level of evidence (a Decision is a Decision, after all), how much would evidence of ISL–violating, CODE–violating, Laboratory–suspending activities have cost these two cash–strapped organizations in defense?
Can the World Anti–Doping Agency afford a “two–front army” (the Pentagon's 'prescient' ideal during the post–Soviet 'stand–down' years under Clinton)?
Spending over five million to defend its system: the CODE, its ISL and a Signatory Laboratoire, the case WADA–USADA brought and funded against Floyd Landis, showed incompetence, arrogance, and SNAFU evidence. In the eyes of highly–reputed and well–trained, non–Richard Young legal opinions, these LNDD problems ranged from Untrustworthy to Sloppy to Honestly inadequate to Minor procedural errors.
A better judge, perhaps, would have made all but the last a 'legal threshold' for throwing out the 'charges', or acquitting the 'suspect').
Are WADA and its partenariat, urgently but silently, in off–the–record communications to implement better forensic procedures regarding evidence, without effecting any changes to the language of the CODE? Signatories deserve to know this.
Honest Athletes deserve to know that false positives (we know they exist, it's been acknowledged by one of WADA's 'strongest' witnesses, Don Catlin) will not be allowed to ruin their lives.
WADAwatch was born as a blog, due to the Floyd Landis case.
WADAwatch may become a fully–vested Non–governmental Organization, due to the Landis Decisions.
Our day in Morzine began with a river swim some five kilometres below the village because, at 10AM, it was already raging hot: hot enough to change anyone's physiological values.
The images offered on the big screen and bar TVs were incredible. The shock of the news when it came out, after the Tour, was immense (much as when Frank Schleck went over the guardrail in this year's Criterium Dauphiné Liberé).
That the Landis case certainly could have been born out of the frustrations felt in France, between the AFLD and LNDD, from the way the UCI responded to the L'Equipe's August 2005 Armstrong–EPO myths, is our theory. Rather than staining Armstrong due to tainted evidence on samples which no longer qualified as such, the UCI initiated an independent investigation, brought forward by one of the finest and most courageous sports–doping legal experts, Mr Emile Vrijman of the Netherlands, whose professional rigor, and outright dismay, was cautiously presented in the Vrijman report, which was published only two months before Floyd was controlled positive for Testosterone.
If Floyd Landis' case gave birth to WADAwatch (and TrustbutVerify, and many other good blogs), then the sequence and discordant rulings found in the three Decisions (the 'legal' AAA/CAS process, as well as the 'renegade' French procedure), may propel WADAwatch into a more substantive future.
WADAwatch is taking a great part of this summer off, to explore seriously the feasibility of transforming into an NGO.
Ww has received a 100 per cent non–Landis–associated 'seed money' donation of several thousand Swiss Francs; this fund will be put towards exploring the feasibility of legally establishing an NGO, somewhere.
Building the NGO requires a Board of Directors, and many more steps that require full-time attention.
Our 'Mission' will simply be to create a world in which WADA fulfils its own Fundamental Rationale, in seeking to respect the Heritage that gave it birth, from the Council of Europe in 1989, the 1990 International Olympic Charter, by returning to the legal guidance offered by Quigley's famous and now, perhaps, forgotten case. An informative role, publication of more regular and wider–ranging information, would help keep Sportswomen and Sportsmen aware of their rights and responsibilities, lobby Federations, Governments, even WADA itself, for the honest system that pulls honest Athletes forward.
That can only be done if, when evidence that screams 'Positive!' is unassailable, because the analyst in the Lab devotes as much integrity to their job, as does the man on a bike, who trains seven hours a day, to earn the right to be tested as an Elite Pro Cyclist.
WADAwatch will be watching the renegade non–UCI Tour de France and the Beijing Olympics, with eagle eyes for irregularities.
Enjoy your summer...
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed by WADAwatch are
strictly formed with the purpose of inciting WADA to adhere
to its Fundamental Rationale, achieve its goals and fulfil
the aspirations of its Signatories, in achieving the
highest possible level of objective, neutral
science in sport-doping control.
... and thanks for reading about the World Anti-Doping Agency,
.................@...................WADAwatch
copyright 2008 Ww
