Disgraced US rider Floyd Landis filed his appeal to the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Tuesday, his final attempt to
overturn a two-year doping ban that cost him the 2006 Tour de
France title.
American Landis is appealing the ruling by an arbitration panel
in September which upheld findings by a French laboratory that he
had used synthetic testosterone in winning the 2006 Tour.
"We welcome the opportunity to present this case to CAS,"
Maurice Suh, Landis's lawyer, said.
"We will prove, once again, that the French laboratory's work
violated numerous rules and proper procedure, rendering its results
meaningless and inaccurate. We are optimistic that CAS will agree,
and stop the miscarriage of justice that resulted from the earlier
arbitration proceeding."
The 31-year-old Landis was stripped of his Tour de France title
and given a two-year racing ban following the arbitration panel's
2-1 ruling on September 20.
The laboratory's results received the backing of the United
States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which had challenged Landis at
his California arbitration hearing earlier this year.
Landis tested positive for elevated testosterone to
epitestosterone ratios after his victory on stage 17 of last year's
Tour. Testosterone can speed up recovery after exercise and
improves stamina and strength.
He tested positive after an astounding comeback in the final
mountain stage which came a day after a poor performance had all
but knocked him out of contention.
In a 90-page brief sent to the CAS on Tuesday, Landis's legal
team said the American rider "fully supports" the efforts by
professional cycling to combat doping.
"However, to wrongly strip a champion of his victory due to a
flawed test result is much worse than to have an athlete cheat his
way to victory," his lawyers added.
Landis is the first rider in the Tour's history to be stripped
of the title for a doping offense.
Elsewhere, Olympic 800 meters bronze medalist Jolanda Ceplak
faces a two-year ban after Slovenia's athletics federation rejected
any doubts about the validity of her positive test for EPO.
Ceplak, 31, who won European gold in 2002 and took Olympic
bronze over the two laps in Athens two years later, tested positive
for blood-booster EPO (erythropoietin) in an out-of-competition
test on June 18. The B sample test confirmed the A sample
finding.
Ceplak, the world indoor record holder in the 800m which she set
in 2002, denies doping.
(Shanghai Daily via Agencies November 22, 2007)