Arbitrators Find Floyd Landis Guilty

Filed in archive Biking on September 20, 2007

This just in. After a four month hearing and a year of protesting his innocence, arbitrators found Floyd Landis guilty of doping. When a Landis tested positive for using a synthetic testosterone, he immediately launched on a worldwide tour claiming his innocence. This move has been an expensive one.

Landis can appeal the arbitrators decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. However, he must immediately drop his Tour de France title and begin a two-year ban. According to a Yahoo! news story, Landis will be the first person in Tour de France history (105 years) to lose his title for doping.

According to documents obtained by AP, and to be made public later Thursday, the vote was 2-1 to uphold the results, with lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren in the majority and Christopher Campbell dissenting.

In its 84-page decision, the majority found the initial screening test to measure Landis' testosterone levels - the testosterone-to-epitestosterone test - was not done according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

But the more precise and expensive carbon-isotope ration analysis (IRMS), performed after a positive T-E test is recorded, was accurate, the arbitrators said, meaning "an anti-doping rule violation is established."

"As has been held in several cases, even where the T-E ratio has been held to be unreliable ... the IRMS analysis may still be applied," the majority wrote. "It has also been held that the IRMS analysis may stand alone as the basis" of a positive test for steroids.

The decision comes more than a year after Landis' stunning comeback in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, one that many people said couldn't be done without some kind of outside help. Flying to the lead near the start of a grueling Alpine stage, Landis regained nearly eight minutes against the leader, and went on to win the three-week race.