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Tour de France Champion Accused of Hacking
ub3r n3u7r4l1st writes "A French judge has issued a national arrest warrant for US cyclist Floyd Landis in connection with a case of data hacking at a doping laboratory, a prosecutor's office said. French judge Thomas Cassuto is seeking to question Landis about computer hacking dating back to September 2006 at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, said Astrid Granoux, spokeswoman for Nanterre's prosecutor's office. The laboratory near Paris had uncovered abnormally elevated testosterone levels in Landis' samples collected in the run-up to his 2006 Tour de France victory, leading to the eventual loss of his medal."
FINALLY that phrase makes some kind of sense.
A hacker that doesn't weigh 250 lbs, doesn't live on Cheetohs, and actually exercises!
Landis grew up a Mennonite, sometimes refered to German Baptists, often mistaken as Amish. I'm not saying it's impossible for him to have learned the skills to do something like this, but I'm sure he has almost no access to a computer while growing up and his riding training probably kept him from honing his skills online.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The warrant only applies to France. They are not seeking extradition. I do not know if Landis was actually guilty or not, but given the suspicious behavior of the lab and the French authorities during the initial doping case, it sounds to me like they simply want to prevent him from cycling in France ever again.
If the way he was riding last year in any indication, he would not be a contender for even a stage win in the TdF, but there is concern that he could take 20th overall, knocking the highest placing Frenchman to 21st.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
actually engaging in it.
Oh come on, a hacking cyclist? Everyone knows professional cyclists are even dumber than professional soccer players. The French just can't stand loosing from Yanks, look at all the allegations they made against Lance Armstromg.
Oh, look, everybody, the troll is even dumber than a professional soccer player.
What's the matter with you? Did a French soccer player knock up your mom?
Uh.... I have two state time trial championships, and finished fourth in my class at the American Mountain Bike Championships. Top cyclists are pretty smart people, and you have to be to get your body in the kind of shape to perform at that level.
A friend who has won over 6 state championships says the strongest guys doesn't always with, but the smartest strong guy usually does. He fits that description to a T.
Place nail here >+
There were several issues with the case in general:
- There were several mistakes with tracking numbers of the so-called anonymous samples; these numbers should have all been consistent, but were not. In some cases, white-out was used to make corrections.
- There were irregularities in test procedures, including with calibration of the device used to test the testosterone level. The technicians appeared to not be competent in the operation of the device, and interpretation of results.
- One the original test results sheet provided to Landis and his defense team, there were actually 3 test results, and 2 of them were below the allowed threshold. Personnel from other UCI-approved labs have stated (in confidence) that those results would not have triggered a test failure in their lab. These personnel are not allowed to testify in the arbitration hearing, since they are barred from doing so by the UCI as a condition of becoming a UCI-approved lab.
- The test was not measuring testosterone levels, which vary by person and situation, but a ratio of one kind of testosterone to another. The actual testosterone level was not high, but the amount of the 'other testosterone', whose level is the denominator, was low.
- These were supposed to be anonymous tests, but the results were announced in haste by the UCI because the French press had gotten the results from the lab, and were about to go public with them. This should be a major strike against the lab.
- The arbitration hearings that result in a suspension do not appear to be at all like a normal legal proceeding, and they seem to be organized to rubber stamp (my opinion, of course) the results of the test lab. Landis' team introduced facts that helped their case, but it doesn't look like the 3-judge panel was all that interested in facts. Even so, the vote against him was 2-1, so one of the judges did not believe the test results either.
There is a good paper on the case, written by a retired criminalist (whatever that is), at this location: http://www.cacnews.org/news/4thq07.pdf
Some are saying that Landis' performance on the stage on which he tested positive was 'super-human', but he was riding with a PowerTap (which measures power output at the rear wheel hub), and it indicated that he was riding at power levels that he had ridden at in previous races that year (and for which he did not test positive for elevated testosterone). One unusual circumstance of the performance was that he rode ahead early in the race so that he was riding alone, allowing his team car to be near him most of the way, and to keep giving him cold water bottles, around 90 in all. 80 of these he used to douse himself, allowing him to stay cool (it was in the upper 90's in temp), while those in the pack did not have that luxury.
I don't think this is entirely accurate. From what I can recall, the case against Landis was from two tests. The first showed that his T/E ratio was well outside the normal ratio for humans. Note that this is different from having elevated testosterone, in fact I believe his testosterone was actually lower than normal. It was just that his epiesterone was WAY lower than normal (these are normally about equal, his ratio was 12/1). As far as I remember this test was somewhat discredited due to shoddy procedures at the lab. The one that stuck was an isotope test which showed that the testosterone in his sample had a different isotope ratio than is found in humans. From this they concluded that it was synthetic and thus upheld the ban. I don't claim to entirely agree with all of their methods or even the results of the test, but I really don't think it's fair to say that he crashed, had a surge of adrenaline and subsequently tested positive.
I followed it closely at the time, but have forgotten the details by now. I'm sure google would be my friend. However, Landis' main complaint was that the lab results were poorly handled, poorly tracked, and altogether lacking a real chain of ownership to show they were even his samples. Furthermore, IIRC, the surprisingly high results for that day were incompatible with samples taken before and after. The kind of doping they accused him of would have left traces in the blood for some time afterwards, long enough for later tests to have shown something, which they didn't. And the samples they used were the backup samples, because they had lost the primary samples.
It smelled pretty bad from what I remember. It didn't mean he hadn't done it, but no court would ever have accepted their evidence, and to strip someone of a Tour de France championship because of it was pretty outrageous. IIRC he had also beaten the French favorite and the French have never taken much to foreigners who do that, especially Americans.
OTOH, I undoubtedly have forgotten a lot of the details, and I just don't care to look them up -- I mainly remember how shoddy their case was, how much it seemed like petty officials running amuck, and especially taking revenge for their gross carelessness and incompetence being shown to the world by some uppity bicycle rider. After all, everyone knows that the true purpose of any bicycle race is the glory of the promoters, not the racers.
Infuriate left and right
It is true that his defense was based upon the lab mishandling the samples, and claiming that there was no proof that the samples that tested positive were his. It is also true that tests before and after the positive test showed nothing. Nothing from before the positive is unlikely, as steroids tend to work based on continuous use, not a single use. Having nothing from samples after seems impossible. Steroids take a while to go out of the system.
There was no French favorite. The highest finishing Frenchman was Cyril Dessel, who moved from 7th to 6th after Landis was removed from the results and was still almost 8 minutes behind of the replacement winner, Óscar Pereiro (Spain).
Landis is no longer appealing the decision, as all of his appeals have been used up. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against him. That's it. Please note that the rules there are different from the U.S. legal system. This case would have never resulted in a conviction based upon reasonable doubt. There was a lot of very reasonable doubt. I'm still not convinced that he did it.