fredag, september 21, 2007

Landis case: Worst possible ruling

Cycling needs somebody to trust. Somebody who stands for truth, justice and fair play. Somebody who stands above the petty, commercial interests that fight to increase their share of the economic pie rather than working in a reliable manner to increase the size of the pie itself.

What we have instead is Dick Pound, a man who has built his organization (WADA) in his own image. A loose cannon, deemed unfit by the IOC to replace Samaranch as chairman, but thrown the bone of forming a new World Anti-Doping Association, which was supposed to streamline and simplify the complicated morass of national Anti-Drug Associations and ruling bodies. One might rightly question the wisdom of appointing Ben Johnson's lawyer to head up such an august body, and one might further question the wisdom of leaving him in place despite his history of shooting off his mouth first and never asking appropriate questions later.

If you ask him, Dick always knows best. He never backs down, no matter how large the mountain of evidence. He has no need for evidence, for his is the only truth necessary. Why even bother to have labs when Dick knows everything that needs to be known about an athlete's guilt? (I was going to write: "...or lack thereof", but there is never any lack of guilt. All athletes who have been formally accused have been found to be guilty.)

I find it hard to believe that any scientist who takes pride in the precision and correctness of their methods and the veracity of their findings can be anything other than dismayed by the results of the Landis case. In essence, the ruling shows that any doping lab can be so sloppy as to completely mess up the findings of the initial screening, but the athlete will be found guilty anyway.

It also doesn't matter if the person who designed the secondary screening machine and the usage manual states in court that it is his opinion that you don't know how to use it and that he has no idea what you found in the testing. Dick said that you are guilty, so you are.

WADA always had the right to control 2 of the 3 members on the panel, as well as the vast majority of accredited experts who can be called to testify in any case, so it does not matter how strong your evidence is or how eloquently you present it. You can't win, so you shouldn't even try.

Do not accuse me of being on Floyd's side because I really don't know whether he took testosterone or not. What I am certain of is that LNDD and WADA and USADA did not come close to proving it, but despite that fact they won anyway.

Lady Justice has one more reason to be crying today.

2 kommentarer:

Anonym sa...

Dude, Lady Justice slit her own throat years ago...

Daner sa...

That was just a rumor.

She has been trying, but she hasn't been able to find the knife, what with the blindfold and all.