The latest news of the weird concerning the doping case against American cyclist Floyd Landis is that someone has hacked into the French lab's servers and is sending bogus e-mails.
French police are investigating the virtual break-in after fake e-mails from the Chatenay-Malabry lab near Paris were sent to other anti-doping groups, such as WADA, the IOC, UCI, etc. The e-mails questioned the lab's responsibility in the Landis doping case and attached internal documents.
Although this is probably an outside job, it gives credence to the speculation that the lab isn't run as tightly as it should be. CyclingNews reports that lab's security has been called into question after the testing files of both Landis and Lance Armstrong have been leaked.
(Update: VeloNews says that L'Equipe — often the benefactor of those leaks from the French lab — reports that the French cyber-police have identified a suspect who is “close” to Landis.
(Note to hacker: If you are trying to help Landis, this ain't gonna do it.)
Landis on French TV
The news about hacking into the lab follows Landis' appearance on French TV last week to proclaim his innocence on doping charges.
His defense — aside from the assertion that he didn't do it — has been the Chatenay-Malabry anti-doping lab mishandled his urine samples. He diplomatically said:
“Even the best people make mistakes. I can't say that the lab has always been the best lab, but I can say that in this case, they made some mistakes.”
Those mistakes will surely play into the defense against doping charges that he'll present to the US Anti-Doping Association (USADA) during a hearing early next year. The stuggle now is making those hearings public.
Public hearing
Landis says he wants the arbitration hearing open to the public with TV cameras running. He says it's his right under rules set up by the American Arbitration Association (AAA). A tentative site is Pepperdine University law school in Malibu.
The Trust but Verify blog, which is closely covering all aspects of the Landis doping case, reprinted a letter to the AAA from the USADA which poses the question: “What does “public” mean, exactly?”
Together with other correspondence posted at the website between Landis, AAA, and USADA, it seems clear that the USADA doesn't want the hearings to be open to the public. Anything done out of public view always raises a warning flag to me.
New slide show
Landis has posted his defense against doping charges at the FloydLandis website in a slide show. The Landis website reports that an updated version of the slideshow will be presented by Dr. Arnie Baker at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Tucson Convention Center.
He'll have a good audience. More than 5,000 cyclists are convening in Tucson this weekend for the 16th annual El Tour de Tucson bike ride on Saturday. There's no word whether Landis will be present, although he's been invited.
Landis and Baker won the ride as a tandem team in 1997; and Landis has ridden the event as recently as last year. In addition to fighting the drug charges, Landis is recovering from hip surgery this fall.
(Update: Nov. 15, 2006 — The International Herald Tribune reports that the French anti-doping lab admits to making an “administrative error” in recording the B sample.)
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