Today’s word that Floyd Landis lost his appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sports just 6 days before the start of this year’s Tour comes as a disappointment.
But not a surprise.
While Floyd’s side made a good case for incompetence at the French lab that found the positive test results, the odds were always against him. In today’s world, anyone accused of doping is guilty until proven innocent. And positive findings are seldom, if ever, overturned — especially not in high profile cases like this.
The simple fact is, they were never going to rule against their own testing procedures, and throw the entire process in doubt. Not gonna happen, no matter how good a case he built.
And let’s be honest. While I was impressed with the irregularities his lawyers’ demonstrated, as well as the scientific evidence resulted from his wiki approach to researching testosterone doping, I keep coming back to one thing.
I was watching that day when he made his big comeback in stage 17 to win the tour. And I’d watched the previous stage, when he suffered such a total physical collapse that he seemed to have lost any hope of finishing the tour — let alone winning. I remember thinking as I watched Floyd demolish the rest of the field that he had to be on something, because no one comes back that strong after bonking that badly.
So I might be disappointed. I might be heartbroken.
But I’m not the least bit surprised.
