Homeboy Floyd Landis will be back in the hearing room next week with his appeal of last year’s arbitration decision that stripped him of the 2006 Tour de France title.
The appeal before the international Court of Arbitration for Sport is Landis’ last effort to have the results of the stage 17 urinalysis test voided. A French lab concluded Landis’ sample contained artificial testosterone, a banned hormone.
The hearing before the Switzerland-based court will occur in New York City beginning Wednesday. It is scheduled to last six days.
The hearing before sporting’s highest appellate body should be much less sensational than last May’s U.S.Anti-Doping Agency hearing in Malibu, Calif. Unlike the national-level hearing, the international hearing will be held behind closed doors, the Associated Press reported. There will be no live television coverage or live blogging.
Landis, a Farmersville native and Conestoga Valley High graduate, has always maintained his innocence. He will contend the French lab work was fraught with errors. It’s conclusions cannot be believed, Landis has maintained.
According to the AP report, the CAS secretary-general said he did not know how quickly a decision would be announced after the hearing. He said only that a statement would be issued at the end of the hearing saying when a ruling should be expected.
Landis, 32, is now serving out a suspension from professional racing until the end of January 2009. That suspension could be lifted with a ruling rejecting the doping finding. If that happened, a European web-based publication cast doubt on Landis’ ability to quickly rejoin the pro peleton. That report, repeated on Cyclingnews, was that Landis had gained 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, since his suspension.
