Landis' character takes the stand

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By Greg Johnson

The character of 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis was put under the microscope today, as United States Anti-Doping Agency attorney's chance to cross-examine the cyclist finally arrived; a day later than originally scheduled. Amongst the barrage of questions put to Landis by USADA attorney Matt Barnett were many focusing on the events that allegedly saw Landis' now former business manager Will Geoghegan tamper with witness Greg LeMond.

Barnett questioned the rider on his reaction to Geoghegan's phone call to LeMond, in particular asking why he seemed to delay a decision to release Geoghegan from his duties.

"In hindsight, we probably should have fired him immediately," Landis responded.

USADA highlighted Landis' decision to wear an all black suit and tie on the day LeMond took to the stand and told revealed details of Geoghegan's call, breaking from what has been a daily attire of a suite complete with a symbolic yellow tie.

"Everything I did after I got here that morning and discussed it with the lawyers was based on what they advised me to do," he explained. "It was not a day to celebrate by wearing a yellow tie. There was nothing good that came out of that day. It was a bad day."

Barnett, choosing to focus more on character than actual science during his cross-examination, made a point of questioning Landis on his reasons for making an internet post last November in which he threatened to make public personal details that LeMond, a three time Tour de France winner, had told him in a private conversation. When LeMond took to the start last Thursday and revealed the details of Geoghegan's phone call, he also revealed that he had been sexually abused as a child - which was discussed with Landis during their earlier conversation.

"He [LeMond] spoke about his personal opinion that everyone who has won the Tour since him has been doped," Landis said. "It [the forum post] wasn't related to his being sexually abused, it was a message to him to please stop."

Landis' original message, which has since been lost after the website suffered a server failure, read: "The facts that he divulged to me would damage his character severely and I would rather not do what has been done to me. However, if he ever opens his mouth again and the word Floyd comes out, I will tell you all some things that you will wish you didn't know. I will have entered the race to the bottom which is now in progress."

USADA later explained its reasoning for focusing on Landis' character, rather than countering testimonies that had been made by expert witnesses brought in by the Landis' side. It said that in general - referring to some of the other testimony - though it would like to proceed with cross-examination in all instances, it did not always have the preparation or the technical know-how at this point in time within the framework of an arbitration.

After a hostile morning in the witness chair, Landis was afforded the chance to smile later in the afternoon when Dr Simon Davis was called to the witness stand. Davis, a British technical director of Mass Spec Solutions, which manufactures the mass spectrometer, faulted the Chatenay-Malabry Laboratoire National de Dépistage du Dopage's (LNDD) instrumentation practices in a brutally forensic afternoon with Landis' attorney Marice Suh, again armed with a series of multi-coloured slides.

"I think they are totally unreliable," said Davis, who was present at the lab's re-testing of Landis' sample in April this year.

"They clearly did not understand the instrument," he added in a scathing assessment of the technician's abilities. "I had to help them load the reprocessed data on the machine. They tried to help each other during the processing and did not seem to know how the software worked."

With that, the day's proceedings drew to a close. Dr Davis is expected to be cross-examined by USADA attorneys on Wednesday.

Testimony at the hearing was originally scheduled to conclude on Wednesday, however it's not yet known whether the hearing will keep to that schedule. The schedule was thrown out by at least one day with Landis' questioning by his own defense taking a day longer than originally planned.