The witness gestured, interrupted questioners and warned everyone not to stake lives and careers on the basis of shaky scientific data.
Organic chemist Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, a spike-haired, jeans-wearing expert with a pinky ring and German accent, dominated most of Monday's eight-and-a-half hours of testimony at Floyd Landis' doping appeal hearing, at times entertaining the spectators and participants alike.
Flown to California in a private jet at Landis' expense, he was whisked away just as quickly so he could make his return flight home to Ireland.
PHOTO: EPA
That delayed Landis' return to the witness stand for his cross-examination, scheduled for yesterday, the eighth day of a nine-day arbitration hearing. On Saturday, Landis told his story during friendly questioning, saying "it wouldn't serve any purpose for me to cheat and win the Tour, because I wouldn't be proud of it."
A three-man arbitration panel will decide whether to uphold the Tour de France champion's positive doping test, which would make him the first person in the 104-year history of the race to have the title stripped after a doping offense.
On Monday, it was Landis' witnesses who spelled out the case that the positive test after his Stage 17 comeback ride last year was based on faulty scientific data.
"I'm terribly sorry, but if someone's life depends on it, his career depends on it, you don't go on assumptions," said Meier-Augenstein, an expert in the kind of testing that produced Landis' positive result.
He said the process of trying to analyze what he said was sloppy data was akin to "shooting fish in a barrel."
Landis attorneys showed the scientist test data they claim strays far from World Anti-Doping Agency standards.
"But they're all cheaters?" Landis attorney Maurice Suh asked Meier-Augenstein, mockingly suggesting US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) officials would disregard the rules to catch a cheat.
"Even cheaters have a right to a fair hearing and to have data used against them that can be proved," Meier-Augenstein said.
Every bit as convincing, though maybe not as entertaining, was John Amory, a University of Washington endocrinologist who sometimes serves on the USADA review board.
The board is the first line of appeals for an athlete after he tests positive for doping. If the board won't overturn a positive result, the athlete's next option is to take the case to arbitration.
Attorneys never asked Amory whether he served on the board in this case. But Landis attorney Howard Jacobs did ask Amory why he had become interested.
"The case didn't make a lot of sense to me," Amory said. "Initially when I saw the documents, I thought there were irregularities, first with the handling of the samples, then with the results."
He testified that claims made last week by pro cyclist Joe Papp, who said testosterone gel would help with recovery in a multistage cycling race, didn't make sense to him based on the science he was familiar with.
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