By Susan Westemeyer The French lab that has conducted tests on Floyd Landis's doping samples...
Landis believes he is the victim of a conspiracy (Image credit: AFP)
By Susan Westemeyer
The French lab that has conducted tests on Floyd Landis's doping samples allegedly destroyed electronically stored data concerning those tests, the cyclist has charged.
In a statement released Sunday, Simon Davis, a technical consultant for Landis, said that "critical evidence stored as electronic data files had been erased from the hard drive and the original data destroyed at the Laboratoire National de Depistage du Dopage (LNDD). The existing data bears indication of alteration."
According to the French AFP press agency, Davis and representatives of the USADA were at the lab last week "to witness the extraction of the data files by an independent expert commissioned to retrieve and analyse the files," which "electronically preserved records of the Isotope Ratio Mass Spectometry tests conducted on Landis' stage 17 samples."
In the statement, Landis charged that before Davis and the independent expert arrived, the LNDD had destroyed the original electronic files of the relevant test results, "exposing the files to potential tampering."
In addition, Landis said that he was considering asking the US Department of Justice to investigate the use of government funds by USADA in his doping case. "I have every confidence that they can determine if any misuse of federal funds and any resulting criminal activity has taken place on the part of USADA in my case," he said.
Cyclingnews' coverage of the Floyd Landis case
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