Floyd Landis: Welcome Back!
What a wild ride! Cold rain, howling winds, fierce competition, ugly crashes, steep mountains, stalwart fans -- the 2009 Tour of California has put the discipline, talent, and survival of each racer to the ultimate test. And today will be no champagne-sipping toodle. Today's final stage is arguably the hardest, as it features the 5, 123 ft. snow-capped Palomar Mountain, with its famous 21 switchbacks over 11.7 miles.
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| We Love You Floyd! Fans mobbing Floyd for an autograph after the Prologue, Sacramento, Ca (Feb. 15, 2008). |
Today I want to congratulate the racers, the support crews, the fans, the organizers and the sponsors for a job well done. In particular, I want to pay a tribute to Floyd Landis, for whom this stage has special significance. Mount Palomar is one of Floyd’s favorite training rides, and for the past two years it has served as a place where Floyd could stress the body and clear the mind.
It has been a joy to watch Floyd return to the sport he loves. Who can forget the rousing cheers and the crackling energy when Floyd buckled in at the start ramp of the Prologue in Sacramento? I'm sure Floyd is very grateful for the respect and support the TOC organizers showed when they slotted Floyd, who won the inaugural TOC in 2006, right behind the two time defending champion, Levi Leipheimer. His fellow racers have been encouraging and the support from the fans has been overwhelming.
As a lawyer, I admire Floyd for his grit and courage. Floyd's back on his bike, and he's not looking back, but the past two years have, if nothing else, taught us that there's plenty of room for improvement in how the drug detection agencies operate. Are the standards scientifically valid? Do the rules afford the athlete due process? Are the arbitrators biased? Does the standard of proof, as well as the presumptions of guilt, unfairly favor the prosecution?
Much has been written on these and other thorny questions. My wife and I graduated from the University of Texas in Austin. We set up a scholarship in 1996 that challenges liberal arts students to write an essay on a topic we choose every year that deals with current medical, scientific and legal ethical issues. In 2008, we asked students to address whether the renewed funding of the drug detection agency's budget should be conditioned on making important changes (See essay prompt here).
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Floyd at the start of the Prologue, Sacramento, Ca (Feb. 15, 2008). |
The consensus among the three winners was that while drug detection is vital to preserve the integrity of sports, since USADA is partially funded with public money, it should undertake reforms that would move it’s adjudication system more towards the American jurisprudential mainstream.
First, USADA should open up to peer review and public scrutiny the basis for its drug detection standards and the methods used to arrive at same. Criminal forensic labs must disclose their methods and scientific foundations before their results are allowed into evidence. Opening up that process certainly hasn't allowed criminals to avoid detection.
Second, as the prosecution process is criminal in nature, the standard of proof should be stricter than the current unsportingly soft "comfortable satisfaction" standard.
Third, critical presumptions which greatly benefit the prosecution should be eliminated (viz, the presumption that the testing protocol and the test results are reliable as long as the lab is accredited).
And fourth, arbitrators must disclose their past or current conflicts, and if they have represented the prosecuting agency before, they should not be eligible to serve on the panel.
It's my view that, in order for cyclists to obtain these and other reforms, it should do what professional football, basketball and baseball players have done: form a player’s union. Only then can cyclists speak with one powerful voice and not be coerced into waiving fundamental due process rights when they pay for their pro racing license.
Floyd Landis spoke the untimid truth to monolithic power. To paraphrase Kipling, he kept his head when men all about were losing theirs . . . he met with disaster and triumph and treated both imposters just the same. He paid a heavy price but I'm hopeful something good for the entire sport will come out of his ordeal. And, as a fellow Birmingham Hip Resurfacing patient, I’m thankful for his robust example and can-do spirit.
As my colleague Kay Reeves (who represented Floyd in his motion to vacate) so eloquently summed up Floyd’s living legacy, "I can't think of another athlete who has mounted such a full-scale effort to clear his name in the eyes of the world and the anti-doping community, who has suffered the full force of the enforcement power of that community when those efforts failed to overcome the significant barriers that all athletes face, and who has come back with such energy and positivity. He has inspired me every step of the way."
As Floyd would say, "The Dude abides!"
February 22, 2009