Landis losses final appeal to keep the Yellow Jersey

On Monday, Floyd Landis lost his finial chance to retain his 2006 Tour de France title and officially becomes the first winner to be stripped of the prestigious title because of doping charges. It has been a long, expensive battle to clear his name. Truthfully, he never had a shot! He was going up against the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the US Anti-Doping Agency who have deep pockets and scrupulous moral issues. All of those agencies have had allegations of corruption and unethical practices. The ruling upholds Landis’ two-year ban from cycling, which is due to end January 29th 2009. Throughout the entire process and the appeal, Landis and his attorneys have proven that the French lab that conducted the drug test compromised the samples with “shoddy” lab work and exaggerated the results. In its 58-page decision, the panel at sports' highest court said the lab that analyzed Landis' positive test results used some "less than ideal laboratory practices, but not lies, fraud, forgery or cover-ups," the way the Landis camp had alleged. Even the Court of Arbitration for Sport realizes that the French lab is unreliable and unethical. In my mind, that is enough to cover the entire case with doubt.

I understand that the sport of cycling has a reputation for cheating and I don’t know if Floyd is guilty or not. I am not that naive to think that he definitely didn’t cheat. But I feel that Floyd, and his defense team, did more than enough to expose the fact that some people in these agencies are so focused on finding the cheaters, they cheat themselves. I know that cyclist are the most tested athletes out there and for his results to change that drastically over night is fishy. It might come out one day in the future, once Floyd releases a book where he admits he was guilty of doping, but right now I believe that he was a victim of unethical practices and anti-American sentiment. Lance Armstrong, who is the most drug-tested athlete ever, has spoken out about the French lab and the guerrilla tactics of the World Doping Agency. He feels that they aren’t necessarily trying to clean up the sport but they have agendas and target certain athletes and definitely Americans. Listen I understand that most people could care less about cycling, but this type of treatment of athletes is going to carry over to other sports and other athletes. The procedures for testing need to be standardized and ethical and they need to be updated to catch up to the technological and scientific advancements of the supplements athletes are taking. If not, all of sport is going to run amuck with cheaters and athletes looking for that extra edge. But before these agencies can clean up sport, they need to clean themselves up first!

By the way, the 2008 Tour de France starts on Saturday, July 5th! I am still looking forward to this event, even knowing there is going to be some scandal to come out of the peloton, there always is!