Floyd Loses Appeal
100 weeks after Floyd Landis tested positive for exogenous testosterone, he has his final verdict. CAS, the high court of sports, has upheld his conviction that was handed down last summer. Floyd has exhausted his options for clearing his name through the courts. Adding to Floyd’s bad news, the court ordered Landis to pay $100,000 to the United States Anti Doping Agency to help cover their court costs. It has been widely reported that one method of revenge that Floyd was employing was to financially drain USADA through expensive trials and appeals. The $100,000, however is not anywhere close to the $millions that the trial actually cost, so his plan did work to some extent.
The Court’s findings were sometimes very harsh on Floyd’s team. I found the following statement in response to Floyd’s accusations of fraud to be especially harsh:
“The Panel has found no evidence at all to sustain any of these serious allegations. Moreover, the panel is surprised that such serious allegations should be pursued in the closing brief when it must have been clear at the end of the hearing that there was no evidential basis from expert testimony or otherwise to support them.”
There is no telling what will come next in the Floyd saga. There might be civil suits from Floyd or directed at Floyd. His suspension runs through the end of this coming January. Will he race again? Will any race organizer let him race again? Will US Cycling try to ban him for an extended period of time because he has participated in mountain bike racing or because he was rumored to be consulting pro-cycling team Rock Racing? What will the website TrustButVerify report on now that Floyd’s hearings are over? Many questions and not alot of answers right now.
Leave a Reply