Wake up and pay attention...

So, as most of you know by now, Ty lost his Appeal to CAS to overturn his two year ban. CAS informed him that the decision would be rendered this past friday the 10th, and would go public at 3:00pm Swiss time on the 11th. So, I jumped on a plane after work on Thursday night to be there (in Boulder) for him on Friday, good or bad. No panel of arbitrators could ever influence my loyalty to friendship or my wholehearted belief in Tyler's innocence.
I have read the entire 34 page decision a few times now. I have also read a document that capitulates the facts of the case that are MAJOR points of contention. I realize that I am by all means not a medical expert nor an attorney, but I am an educated person, and after fumbling through the two documents, I have come to my own conclusion. Tyler Hamilton is innocent. Read for yourself and come to your own conclusions. But I warn you to not just read the decision without reading the facts sheet as well. Each of those points of contention were raised in the proceedings, yet most were completely ignored in the decision. Almost like the CAS board had selective hearing and random reasoning.
Ty and Haven were saying that in the proceedings, the CAS board had asked USADA a lot of tough questions of which they had no concrete answers for like why were they using a test in August of 04 with admittedly accuracy and validity problems of many sorts, while the lab did not receive certification for the test till 5 October 0f 2005. Hmmmm....That's a tough one...what say you USADA? (enter silence.......a cricket chirps...darkness falls....still no answer) and it was like that for an entire day of cross examination. In the decision, the CAS board was willing to overlook this fact stating that eventually, the lab did receive accreditation and that was satisfactory. So, in this logic...say you get pulled over for drunk driving, it's okay, because later, in the drunk tank you will eventually sober up and no longer be a drunk driver. At least that what the CAS is saying.
Or how about this one...How is it you (USADA) can explain that your accuracy is even remotely reliable when originally the lab technician MIS-TYPED the blood? Okay...STOP...this is killing me...Come on...that's a rookie mistake. (after reading all of this stuff, I even know how to type blood...) Yet, in the decision...there is no mention of this...hmmmmm. Is somebody asleep at the steno machine??? Instead, the board claims that there is no reason to believe that human error is any explanation for the mixed population of blood. Yeah right.
Ty felt like during the proceedings the board was fair and the onus was on USADA to prove their Swiss cheese case and they were failing miserably on multiple accounts. Yet when the decision was written, it was like someone else wrote the opinion, someone with an interest in building a greater precedence for future cases despite all of the obvious reasons to clear Tyler Hamilton of any wrongdoing. Again, I urge you to read the opinion and the case facts sheet and decide for yourself. Pay close attention to the facts and how the decision either skirts them or dismisses them altogether with some whacked crack pipe logic.
One final note, I find it interesting that USADA receives it's funding from WADA. Additionally, WADA funds the labs that conduct the tests. WADA is headed by Dick Pound who is very vocal about his contempt for cyclists, especially American Cyclists. Maidie Oliveau, one of the three CAS board members in Ty's case, was Associate Vice President with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. She managed the Corporate Relations Department which handled all of the 1984 Olympics' sponsors, suppliers and licensees. In 1984, Dick Pound was responsible for delivering NBC as the major TV sponsor for the Olympics, key marketing engine for Maidie Oliveau's Corporate Relations Department. It just makes me wonder who is doing what for whom?
The foundation for the anti-doping movement hangs in the balance on this case. If Ty won, then clearly, the system is flawed and Boss Man Dick Pound loses his funding and his integrity. So Ty loses, WADA catches the big one (and some more hefty funding), and a little American cyclist with a big heart is left with a tarnished medal, and without a race to ride in. All because someone made a little mistake in some lab in Switzerland. Dick Pound better man up and admit that there were mistakes, because you don't want to be caught in a Hamilton Hurricane, just ask some of Ty's fiercest opponents on the road.