The 2006 Tour de France winner, Floyd Landis, has gone public with an online presentation via his personal website in an attempt to garner support for his innocence, after registering an alleged 11-1 testosterone/epitestosterone ratio following the 17th stage of this year's Tour de France on July 20.
Publication of the documents is part of an overall strategy to clear his name of the allegations, which could see the American become the first winner of the Tour to be stripped of the yellow jersey for a doping infringement.
The documents, that claim "the whole process has been full of errors", points to inconsistencies in both the testing and related paperwork being the cause for positive readings in both his A and B samples.
Among the documents made available is Jacobs' application to the Independent Anti-Doping Review Board of the United States Anti Doping Agency submitted on September 11. However, this document failed to have the case dismissed and on September 24, USADA announced that it would proceed with the case.
In Jacob's submission, he claims the French laboratory's documents "are so replete with such gross errors ... that their results in this case cannot be seriously accepted as accurate.
"At a minimum, those laboratory errors must go to the benefit of the athlete, and must result in a finding that the T/E results are wholly unreliable," Jacobs claims in the submission.
Jacobs claims: "the single T/E analysis in this case is replete with fundamental, gross errors. Examples of these errors include: Mismatched sample code numbers that do not belong to Floyd Landis". The lawyer says that the "alleged confirmation T/E 14 data on 'B' sample, containing different sample number from that assigned to Floyd Landis". He also claims there is a compromised "chain of custody documentation regarding receipt of sample (that) does not identify any sample numbers matching the code number for the Floyd Landis sample".
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Jacobs then turns up the heat on this apparently poor record-keeping: "Clinical laboratories making these types of gross errors could easily find themselves answering to a wrongful death lawsuit. Simply stated, if LNDD cannot get the sample code number correct, how can they be trusted to accurately report quantitative test results?"
In addition the USADA submission, Landis' legal team has also produced and published a detailed PowerPoint-style presentation (images shown here on Cyclingnews) that is made available via his website, www.floydlandis.com. This was produced with the help of Arnie Baker, a retired doctor and coach.
The next step is for the USADA to hold hearings that may be open to the public, however, USADA is yet to announce a date for these proceedings.
