The 110-page Landis ruling — the 84-page majority opinion and the 26-page dissent — demonstrates one thing loud and clear.

The tests on Landis’ A-sample were so fraught with errors that even the majority opinion stated that Landis’ positive T-E results (testosterone to epitestoerone)  from the A-sample had to be  thrown out.

In American jurisprudence that would have meant that the B-sample would be thrown out as well, because the positive on the A-sample led to the B-sample test, which tested positive for synthetic testosterone.

But in arbitration, the B-sample test could stand on its on, and the majority opinion made it so.

Still …

According to the ruling, the T-E test is fairly simple, and the lab screwed it up big time. So it defies logic, as stated in the Landis dissent, that the lab would be trusted with conducting the more complex carbon-isotope test that showed synthetic testosterone, given that the lab so botched the simple T-E test.  

On one  level, the headline (Landis guilty) and  the  length of the report  makes one almost  want to shrug it off as old news and go on to the next scandal. O.J. on every channel 24/7!

But then American sensibility kicks in, and one wonders about the fairness and justice of it all. Maybe Floyd did cheat and maybe the following is getting him off on a technicality –well, a lot of technicalities and lab errors — but if the lab made so many errors, Landis guilt cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt, which the majority opinion made clear is not the standard in arbitration.

Landis’ next recourse is to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports. It’ll be costly, and the case vs. USADA cost him $2 million. But Landis isn’t one to give up. He’s a fighter, and the prediction here is that he will continue to battle.

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