Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy says that because the public is so jaded by juiced-up athletes, Floyd Landis “is not going to get fair treatment. His appeals may extend into 2007, but in the meantime he’s going to be guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion.”
What, precisely, would constitute “fair treatment” for an athlete who’s now flunked two tests, and has been found to have synthetic hormone in his system? Landis was innocent until proven guilty. Yesterday he was proven guilty.
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The bottom line is that genuine perform-enhancing substances do exist; it was not too many years ago when that was genuinely in doubt. Also, new ones are constantly being devised, and even the best policing is chancy. Finally, a significant portion of top-level athletes are willing to use them. An ordinary fan has almost no chance of knowing who is clean. And so, the concept of athletic excellence has been fundamentally debased.
Maybe Dan has actually been following the story more closely than people who are mainly getting the headlines. Articles like this don’t paint this as very open and shut. This is a far cry from the Tyler Hamilton case, where his chimera defense was roundly condemned by scientists from day one. Even Dr. Wadler with the World Anti-Doping Agency appears to have issues questions about what’s going on here.Also, we give the White House well-deserved grief for anonymous sourcing clearly designed to spin the public. Why should I trust the UCI, which has done the exact same thing at every step of this investigation, to be more trustworthy than the Bushies?Fundamentally, Shaughnessy is right for once. The one thing we can’t do now, even if he’s exhonerated, is give Floyd his good name back. The UCI should never have named a name until the B sample had been tested, and they should have learned this lesson ages ago.
Science strikes again. . . .