Sink Floyd

Floyd Landis has officially lost his title as the winner of the 2006 Tour de France, according to the three man arbitration panel who found against him in a 2-1 ruling. Currently Landis has one appeal available to him before everything is final - however, it is unlikely that the next panel will rule in his favor.

Now that the ruling has come down, the World Anti-Doping Agency is tooting its own horn and calling this a great victory.

While it is a defeat for Landis, it's no victory for WADA. They were one vote away from a Landis win and were severely chastised and warned should another case like this present itself before the arbitrators, then the ruling would likely go against them.

The panel cited what can pretty much be called the general incompetence and inability of the labs to follow WADA standards and procedures in their warning.

Interesting to note that the panel found that the labs in question were unable to perform the testosterone to epi-testosterone tests in a competent manner, but found that the lab was reliable on the more difficult carbon test. It makes one wonder how clean the arbitrators were.

Rim shots

Arbitrarily speaking...
While it sounds like Floyd Landis had a good day in court on Monday, and it has been revealed that at least one lab tech was aware that the "anonymous" sample being tested belonged to Landis, I believe this still could go either way. I base this mostly on what I have seen from other arbitrators (for example, I still don't understand how an arbitrator was going to find in favor of Terrell Owens when he was trying to get out of his contract with the 49ers).

Dog eat Dawg...
The Washington Redskins released a statement "on behalf of" Clinton Portis apologizing for his comments to a Virginia media outlet regarding Michael Vick and dog fighting. After listening to Portis' tirade, it was pretty obvious that the statement did not come from him - he's no where near as well spoken as the statement would make him out to be.

The meat of the Redskins released statement read, “I want to make it clear I do not take part in dog fighting or condone dog fighting in any manner.” Portis' words to a Norfolk news station, “I don’t know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it’s his property; it’s his dogs. If that’s what he wants to do, do it.” Doesn't sound like the same dude to me.

Gotta admit, wouldn't be surprised to hear that police wanted to talk to Portis at some point regarding the dogfights that he seems to know so much about on the back roads of Mississippi.

At best...
For New Yorkers, the Yankees win tonight and come away with a series win against the Sox and close the gap back to 9.5 games. The Sox finish off the road trip with three against Texas before returning to Fenway for three with the Tribe before hosting the Yankees for three.

The Bomahs - they host the Angels and then go to Toronto for three before arriving at Fenway.

Just a guess, but with the way the Yankees are playing I would be surprised to see them do any better than 3-3 during the next six games (tonight notwithstanding). I could easily see them drop two to the Angels and at least one to the Jays. At the same time, I can't really see the Sox doing any worse than 3-3, and think they will go 4-2 between now and next week when they see the Yankees again.

Say Ow!
Junior's back in the fold with the Pats, giving them the needed depth at linebacker. Rumor has it that Vinny Testaverde could be returning, Belichick has already said that Troy Brown has a place with the team if healthy, and Chad Brown might be returning (I would guess that they wouldn't use him inside like they did last time - he's just not suited to it).