Wednesday 24 February 2010

AFLD: "Agence Francaise' Last Days"


Times are tough


... and the notion of attending to the foibles of the anti-doping world take some funny twists sometimes. Yet a recent (within the hour) search of information regarding the Tour de France 2010, came across this stunning article, by Cyclingnews:

Huge funding cuts threaten future of AFLD


According to the article, "the French government recently announced that it cancelled its plans to increase taxes on television rights in sports, which would have supplied the agency with 4 million Euro of its budget.
" Currently budgeted (according to the author) at Euro 8.7 million, the AFLD and its Directeur, Pierre Bordry, are facing budget cuts that threaten its very existence.


Could this be due to the fiasco between it and the UCI, as reported by WADAwatch and other media last fall? Could it be due to its six-month report for Q1 and Q2 2009, which revealed a huge amount of 'cannaboid' use amongst French athletes?



(Report in FR)


How powerful (need one ask?) are the French Football (soccer) leagues and teams, as well as the networks that carry their games? Let Cyclingnews tell us:


Because there is no guarantee that the AFLD will still obtain the promised finance, Bordry questioned his government's willingness to continue an independent fight against doping in sports. When the government announced its plans to increase TV rights taxes, senior officials of French soccer declared that it wasn't up to them to finance the fight against doping in France.


No mention of French Rugby (nearly as widely broadcast as French football); nor the lesser TV sports like basketball, handball, equestrian and NOT Alpine skiing, which went off French TV many years ago.


More questions arise, and this brief post may require intense follow-ups in the near future.


..........@............WADAwatch

copyright 2010 Ww

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Floyd? What's next: Isle of Saint Helena?

Zee Frenchies sont very mad, évidemment... After the years of litigation, Floyd Landis is now 'under mandate of arrest' for the super-duper mysterious 'hacking case' that began in November, 2006, when AFLD Directeur Pierre Bordry had more influence in his small world.


By zee way... Saint Helena was the English-controlled Island to which Napoléon was banished, for the Last six years of his life

Things have not fared well, recently, for Monsieur Bordry; most recently he had (by circumstantial evidence) been roundly (or severely?) chastised for his 'biased accusations' (which appear now to be mostly unfounded) against the UCI, in claiming favouritism over Lance and the Team Astana.


Yet what you want to know now, is what charges Floyd faces, and based on what proof?




Let WADAwatch take you back to the summer of 2009, and our two (no - Three!) articles about this sordid affair. Their pertinence is one-hundred percent pure...


Remember! The 'paid hackers' were a French firm (now bankrupt) whose staff and contacts/agents were former French Secret Service operatives (????), whose other clients were MASSIVE French entities, and whose work efforts infiltrated lawyers or activists whose own efforts were in seeking to expose 'nasty French corporate or Government secrets'... and is not Loyalty one of the 'qualities' of the French culture?


One dark and foggy November night... read:

Friday, 5 June 2009

Le Pierre Ironie: on French Hacking case v Baker


INTERPOL FLASH ALERT
:


Wanted: on international arrest warrants issuing from France, two dangerous hacking financiers;

Crime
: allegedly funded computer hacking/theft of authentic, sub–quality laboratory documents that proved French anti-doping incompet... *some text missing* ... or Alive.


[....]
One might think that Bordry has become addicted to 'news–makers syndrome', à la Dick Pound, former WADA president and the veritable 'Mouth that never stopped'. Hearing Pierre Bordry and the names 'Lance...' or 'Floyd...' is liking hearing GW Bush saying 'Axis of Evil'... empty of meaning, truth very very questionable.


Actually, this recent 'Bordry news Flash' is twice very old news, centering on the claimed computer–hacking by 'someone' of the LNDD laboratory's computer system in 2006; a case which, of itself, took a two and a half–year submarine tour of the French legal 'instruction' system. However, as 'evidence' in Landis' original 'case', it was never mentioned by USADA and Richard Young, for reasons that can only be due to... the negative weight of these allegations?

[.....]
Did AFLD 'control' their data systems to a degree of professional security reasonable for their industry as demands the WADA ISL, and which is recognized as sufficient within its professional community? (if it's facing a hacking case, to prove it was not 'negligent' or 'insufficiently protected', AFLD /LNDD must offer evidence of its (their) control systems in place, and prove that the 'Hacking' from Kargus (who was paid only Euro 2,000) was of "an unexpectedly–sophisticated capability" to win)


Read more from our first article in this three-part series.


+ + + + + + + + +


Only three days later we made further information available, from an intense Internet search of French sites and much reflection:

Monday, 8 June 2009

Holes in the AFLD-zone...


This is a “thinking out loud” post, continuing a focus on the French Anti–doping Galaxy's apparent obsession with Floyd Landis. From a weekend of reflection, several salient points rebounded time and again. These are:


1 how (not to forget one big -IF-) did Baker first contact Kargus?

How easily could a Doctor in San Diego 'infiltrate' the French corporate–espionage culture, to find a well–situated 'partner in crime' such as Kargus consultants? Admittedly such could be done with a 'couple of phone calls', but it seems incredible that Baker would do this after Floyd's A Sample results were announced. What if Floyd (and thus Baker) didn't know the number (995474) before Kargus had infiltrated (with instructions from 'client' to seek documentation under the number?) we know that Judge Cassuto requested the 'date from which Landis had access to his Sample(s) 'control number'?

[.....]


6 Lastly, was Landis/Baker 'the client', or a silent 'third–party beneficiary'?


As touched upon in item #2, the alleged 'Anglo–saxon client' could have been someone that was willing to do anything that might help Floyd, without having a direct tie to Team Landis. As you may be a 'beneficiary' of your parents' life insurance policy, a contract can benefit an unnamed 'third party'. Anyone so inclined as to provide Landis with 'help' from outlaw–shenanigans, and set up the means to do so, ought to be smart enough to receive Kargus' discovered E–files and send them on a CD to Baker, so as to eliminate any network–traces. The only link between Baker and the hacked files is known through his having sent these outward after receiving them.


Read the full (long, dry and detailed) second of three WADAwatch post here


+ + + + + + + + +


Our third essay attempted to provide the English audience with even more detail on the 'French Société' that was at the core of this French hacking case:

Thursday, 11 June 2009

Surveying les French surveillance societés...


It is an interesting company: Kargus Consultants, the company that constructed the hacking transaction into the French laboratoire LNDD. A company offering industrial surveillance, according to Societe.com, Kargus Consultants was founded on November 14, 2003: it has been out of business since October 22, 2007, only two weeks short of its fourth 'birthday'. Paying the price of its success?


Kargus Consultants indubitably provided the sole alleged 'hacker' – Alain Quiros – offering an info–tech commando squad that has made news for three prominent French 'hacking cases': the LNDD–'Landis' affair, the EDF–Greenpeace case, and one involving an activist French attorney (counsel to a French association of small–shareholders), not in that order. The French magazine Médiapart published a detailed article [Ww: controlled access], which was re–posted on the website/forum linuxquimper.org.

[....]
Mediapart does not expand their inflection regarding EDF and Greenpeace, and how the revelations of the LNDD affair brought forth that EDF/Greenpeace process. Intriguing, tantalizing, and yet unfulfilling, as to the interrelationships regarding the three French targets. Using the word 'anonymous' as to the emails described above, seems contradictory to the claims of Baker's involvement, which are discussed throughout the article.



That was the third of three biting probing posts brought to you last summer, by WADAwatch.


Is Plucky Pierre Bordry charting his course of revenge from last fall's UCI/Astana 'J'Accuse!' debacle? Is the French gouvernement a neutral forum, a witting or unwitting player in the latest chapter of:

The Case that Wouldn't DIE?


In the L'Equipe article that appeared yesterday, it is VERY notable to record that the French sporting journal discusses (Translation service: Ww) "Baker and his accomplices".


They do not state that those 'accomplices' were French, were arrested in other affairs, were former French 'secret agents' and were 'very very close' to the French gouvernement.


Why would L'Equipe...

(we remind readers that we boycott linking to L'Equipe... you can find this article (if you read or translate from FR) at L'Express)


... not want it's readers to know the full truth? They should: they're the taxpayers that are paying both AFLD, and the Nanterre Court Judge Cassuto (a bio of him is in the first cited Ww post above...), to either expose or deceive about the involvement of the French former secret agents in this case.



What conclusion to this new-for-2010 state of French affaires?


More French publicity for Bordry, stoking the world Media Machine while all the world is focussing on Vancouver? At least, in this case, everything stated by Bordry is going to be 'On the Record', in court, and appealable to a Fair body without conflicts-of-interest.


Our opinion remains the same: there are more 'elements' in this case pointing to a Watergate-style inside operation, designed to 'add on to' the 'facts' against Landis, 'just in case' their 'Testosterone evidence' was not 'sufficient'.


That's the 'official WADAwatch' theory, at least... and there's certainly more to come


..........@............WADAwatch

copyright 2009 Ww

Friday 12 February 2010

VANCOUVER: "Dopening Ceremonies"...


A new Angel from Georgia

No one can smile on this Opening Olympic day that began, early and cloudy, with the violent death of a bright Georgian star,
Nodar Kumaritashvili:

CREDIT: Peter Parks, Getty Images
Words cannot express the family's, the colleagues', the World of Sport's sadness: he shouldn't have gone that way. Yet a dangerous sport (when things go wrong) is compounded by the indecisiveness of a (our regulatory opinion) track or Federation management that does not understand physics, dynamic G forces, and geometry.


But for a couple thousand CAD of reinforced nylon barrier tarpaulins, designed to absorb and redirect the free-falling body back into the hard icy cocoon that consittutes his track 'universe', this young man would be alive, bruised and discussing his next run.


Announcements of a investigation can not ignore that exposure (similarly when Swiss skier
Silvano Beltrametti hit the mid-finish line (later banned) vertical pylon several years ago, he was paralyzed for life...) to a non-secure, impressive steel structure (surely it will be protected tomorrow: isn't that the way?)... and although no express rules discuss the utility of a safety harness (would the weight of his sled kept him away from Death's Out-Post?), the organizers are going to have to satisfy the second paragraph of the FIL-Luge Rules, Article 3.5:

3.5 Safety regulations

The track layout and components such as curves, walls, bridges, tunnels, transportation set-ups, etc. as well as all facilitities originally belonging to the track must be provided in such a way, that they meet the internationally recognized safety standards.

If the safety regulations on a track are neglected so that the participants in FIL competitions are exposed to a typical danger to their health, the track may only be released by the technical delegate for further use if these deficiencies are removed.

If the steps taken are not sufficient in order to guarantee that the internationally recognized safety standards are followed during a competition, the jury, in accordance with the technical delegates is empowered to shorten the track.



As of midnight, indications are that the luge competition will go on tomorrow. This seems distressing, even to a casual admirer of the sport: what about the other lugers? What about their families? Addressing that situation will transpire away from WADAwatch: we turn to the news of the opening day.


CBS News tells us that "Thirty Athletes Out of Olympics for Doping". The article expresses an interesting thought:

[WADA President John] Fahey confirmed Thursday that more than 30 athletes had been excluded for breaking anti-doping rules over recent months and that the cases include a mixture of positive samples and failure to comply with testing protocols. He refused to give details of the athletes, sports or nationalities but noted that more than 70 athletes were prevented from competing at the Beijing Olympics for violating anti-doping rules in the similar period leading into the 2008 Summer Games.



Now don't take this personally, President Fahey, but obviously there are no cyclists in this group. If any one of those thirty were cyclists, some paper in Europe (whose name escapes us at the moment) surely would have allowed for heady headlines, juicy exposures of suspicions, hunches and insinnuendo.


Noted were the comment made by Fahey, that more than 70 in Beijing had been 'tagged' and withheld from competitions prior to the 2008 Summer Games. Russian athletes "will be under tight scrutiny" after six had been suspended in the last 12 months or so.


Another unique factor: Scott Burns, former Bush Administration Deputy White House 'drug czar' will be leading an international observer commission, that will "for the first time, have the ability to meet on a daily basis with the IOC to report any concerns about the testing process."


Scott, there's still time to bring in an independent expert! Someone that knows the WADA Code nearly as good as its original drafter (maybe better). Just call... WADAwatch is available. We promise not to show up in either of our WADAwatch hooded sweatshirt(s), available in Black or White!


After all, how complicated can a simple urinalysis be?


Is there more to a urinalysis that meets the eye (of any trained bureaucrat)...? Just ask the good Doctor's office in Avon Colorado!


Sometimes the best wayy to experience what these Athletes are going through is to experience yourself the necessity, embarrassment (how crass can one be in joking with the nurse about photographic evidence (pre-sealing of the containers)?), and 'faldoral' of the whole process?


Imagine being a known cyclist; who may be tested once per week or more? Yes, they must. Yes, they should. Yes, they agree. But if it is a different person every time... does it not get old?


But Hey! We're watching Vancouver, with you,

..........@......... WADAWATCH

one hundred percent pure

copyright 2010 Ww



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