Floyd Landis' battle to retain his title in last year's Tour de France entered a new stage on Monday with the opening of his hearing before a panel of the American Arbitration Association.
The 31-year-old cyclist, whose dark suit set off a yellow tie that couldn't help but call to mind the yellow jersey he wore as Tour leader and champion last July, said he was looking forward to the hearing as a chance to clear his name.
"We have a very good team and we have an exceptional case," he said as he arrived at the School of Law at Pepperdine University, where the hearing is being held in a small courtroom.
The three arbitrators were panel chairman Patrice Brunet, US Anti-Doping Agency nominee Richard McLaren and Christopher Campbell, who was selected by Landis.
Landis is facing a two-year ban and could become the first Tour de France champion to be stripped of the title.
Maurice Suh, lead attorney for Landis' defense team, charged that the US doping agency's entire case is built on faulty scientific methods used by the Laboratoire National Depistage de Dopage in France.
"This case is an utter disaster," Suh said.
Over the course of the 10-day hearing, Suh said Landis' camp will outline eight violations of the International Standard for Laboratories, which governs procedures at laboratories sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
"A disaster doesn't result from one or two things going wrong. It results from many things going wrong at the same time," Suh said.
In requesting a public hearing, Landis has said he hopes to shine a light on doping prosecutions that deny accused athletes due process.
"This is a historic case," Suh said. "It has to be done right."
However, US doping agency attorney Richard Young painted the case as just "one of dozens" of similar cases in which scientific data would show Landis had used synthetic testosterone.
"Despite all the attention this case has received, it's not particularly special ... this is just one of many similar cases," Young said.
"No matter how the data was processed, the results were still positive," Young said.
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