February 26, 2007 | Late last week, cyclist Floyd Landis claimed that a testing protocol violation was made during the urinalysis that produced positive doping results after his Stage 17 win at last year’s Tour de France. Landis’s defense hopes that this possible violation will bolster its argument that the Laboratorie National Depistage du Dopage in Chatenay-Malabry outside of Paris strayed from basic testing procedures.

Purportedly, two technicians by the names of Esther Cerpolini and Cynthia Mongongu at the French government-owned lab worked with both the “A” and “B” samples that pinned doping accusations on Landis at last year’s Tour, the Associated Press reported. Laboratory rules prohibit technicians from participating in both tests as they would be able to validate their own tests. It is unknown, however, whether the two technicians played a significant enough role to invalidate the positive test results.

“We know that the same technicians touched both samples, but we are not sure at this time whether the same technicians tested both samples,” said Landis’s spokesman Michael Henson.

Landis’s attorneys are hoping to have the technicians questioned at the United States Aniti-Doping Agency (USADA) arbitration case scheduled for May 14.

“We are asking for depositions from the witnesses, and we hope to get it,” said Henson. “But there’s no ruling on that yet.”

There is a precedent that strengthens Landis’s case if the two technicians, in fact, conducted both tests. Spanish cyclist Inigo Landaluce was dismissed of doping charges in December after the same lab infraction occurred in his 2005 tests. Arbitrators in the Landaluce case wrote in a formal decision that it is “forbidden that the same analyst handles or manipulates” original and validation samples and that “the applicable rule is clear and devoid of any flexibility,” reported the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

According to Henson, Landis’s team filed a request two weeks ago for access to more lab documents. The USADA has since made a formal rebuttal to the request, providing some documentation but nothing new, and it now lies in the hands of arbitrators.

“Our case will not be hinging on this one issue [of the technicians],” adds Henson. “Our case is still focusing on it not being a positive test. These are all further examples of scientific misconduct at the lab that support our claims.”

In the meantime, Landis held fund raising events for the Floyd Fairness Fund in San Jose, San Francisco, and San Pedro this past week, garnering the attention of cycling enthusiasts attending the Amgen Tour of California, which Landis won last year.

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