Landis case will prove a lab test

No matter what happens in the Floyd Landis doping case, it's clear the laboratories will have to tighten up their procedures to prevent athletes from getting off on technicalities.

The cyclist's attorneys hammered away last week at the French technicians who handled his urine samples, trying to expose them as incompetent and slipshod, and got one of them to admit that she knew she was testing Landis's backup sample, a major violation of the rules.

Since the Court of Arbitration for Sport accepts the tests themselves as valid (including the carbon-isotope ratio procedure used in testosterone cases), the shrewder play is to claim that the process is flawed, e.g., the samples were left unattended, the analysts messed up the machine, the athlete's confidentiality was compromised.

"It's a good wakeup call for the labs," said World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound. "This is the next front. We have regular meetings with the lab directors and this will be a case study for them about the kinds of things that can go wrong."

Whatever mistakes were made by the lab at Chatenay-Malabry, doping expert Don Catlin, who ran the fabled UCLA facility for decades, thinks the finding was valid.

"No question about it, my opinion is that doping was going on," testified Catlin, who reviewed the lab records. "It's just inescapable."

If Landis gets off, thus avoiding a two-year suspension and a four-year ban from the Pro Tour, he'll be the first athlete to prevail in a USADA case, and his attack-the-lab defense likely will become the model for those who find themselves on the wrong end of a computer printout.

Even so, Landis concedes, his name always will be linked to one day and one race.

"It's forever connected to me," he said. "Anytime the Tour comes up or bicycle racing comes up, that will be the subject. I can't imagine how it would change."

For now, Landis's fate rests in the hands of three arbitrators: Canadian lawyers Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren, and Bay Area lawyer Chris Campbell, the former US Olympic wrestler who also heard cyclist Tyler Hamilton's case and sided with him. Though the hearing is expected to wrap up tomorrow, it likely will be months before the case is settled, since the losing side is expected to appeal to CAS.

The most expensive part of attending next year's Olympics in Beijing will be getting there. Event prices are a bargain; nearly 60 percent of the 7 million tickets cost less than $13 and some go for under $4. The idea is to make the Games affordable for the average Chinese urban dweller who makes less than $400 a month, which means the ducats are dirt-cheap for foreigners. CoSport, the official US agent, offers packages and individual tickets. You can order them online at cosport.com. Beijing city officials, meanwhile, are busy giving etiquette lessons to the citizenry, which is used to jumping lines and spitting in the street . . . With decision day just over six weeks away, the Korean city of Pyeongchang appears to have a slight edge over Salzburg, Austria, and Sochi, Russia, in the race to host the 2014 Winter Games. Pyeongchang, which came surprisingly close to beating Vancouver for the 2010 bid, has the regional advantage; the Games haven't been held in Asia since 1998 (Nagano). What the Koreans won't have this time is the arm-twisting influence of countryman and former International Olympic Committee vice president Kim Un Yong, who resigned in disgrace after being jailed for bribery and embezzlement. The IOC makes its choice July 4 in Guatemala City.

Just because Bode Miller has quit the US Ski team doesn't mean he can't or won't race next season. He'll just have to train on his own and pay his expenses, which is what Kristina Koznick did six years ago. "I will continue to ski as an American under the US flag and am proud to do so," said Miller. While he has declared that he won't compete in the next Olympics ("Too much emphasis on winning"), Miller has a powerful incentive to race next season: He needs only three more World Cup victories to break Phil Mahre's domestic record of 27 . . . Now that the Canadian men have won their third world hockey title in five years comes the challenge of defending on home ice next year. Only one country -- the Soviet Union in 1979 -- ever has managed that, but Canada, which will host the event for the first time, never has had the chance. The biggest surprise of the recent tournament in Russia was the tumble taken by defending Olympic and global champion Sweden, which didn't even make the podium. The Americans, directed by former Bruins coach Mike Sullivan, ended up fifth but were a shootout goal (against the Finns in the quarterfinals) from reaching the medal round . . . Looks like sailors Andy Horton and Brad Nichol may not be back together for a while. Horton, based in Newport, R.I., is a strategist-tactician for Luna Rossa, the Italian boat that just skunked the Americans to reach the challenger finals for the America's Cup in Valencia. Nichol, a Williams alum from Lake Sunapee, N.H., has been working with Hamish Pepper in the interim. When Horton's done with his Spanish sojourn, he and Nichol will pair up for the Star world championships in July.

Rough reentry last weekend for former world record-holder Maurice Greene, who finished a distant last in his 100-meter heat (in a sluggish 10.84) at the Adidas Track Classic, his first race since last May. "I'll be good for Nationals," vowed Greene, who's determined to regain his Olympic crown in Beijing. "I must get what is rightfully mine. After I win that race, I can walk off." . . . Even though the Olympic trials in New York are only two months later, the US will send a competitive men's team to this summer's world marathon championships in Osaka. Three of last year's top 11 domestic runners -- Fernando Cabada, Mbarak Hussein, and Simon Sawe -- will be joined by Hansons-Brooks teammates Mike Morgan and Kyle O'Brien. The women's team includes Ann Alyanak, Kristin Price, and Mary Akor, who finished 2-3-4 in the US championships here on Patriots Day, plus Zoila Gomez and Samia Akbar. Deena Kastor, who qualified by winning the national title, will skip the 26-miler to focus on the 10,000 meters . . . With Lyubov Denisova banned two years for doping, Lidiya Grigoryeva is all but assured of one of the three spots on Russia's marathon team for Beijing. That means the Boston champion, who was pondering running in Chicago or Berlin this fall to post a fast time, could opt for New York instead.

Huge victory last weekend by the US women's field hockey team, which blanked nemesis Argentina, 1-0, on a penalty corner by Greenfield's Kelly Doton to win the Four Nation tournament in Chile. If the Americans can do it again at this summer's Pan American Games, they'll grab an automatic ticket to the Olympics, where they haven't been since 1996 . . . Still atop the world is US taekwondo fighter Steve Lopez, the two-time Olympic champion who won his fourth straight global title in Beijing last weekend. Along with bronzes from his sister Diana, Charlotte Craig, and Nia Abdallah, the Americans already have matched their haul from last time with three more chances in today's finale . . . The top two US freestyle heavyweight wrestlers might well follow Patriots lineman (and former world champ) Stephen Neal's route to the NFL. Cole Konrad and Tommy Rowlands both went to the Jets' recent minicamp and were invited back for another shot by coach Eric Mangini (a former high school grappler) after next year's Olympics . . . What do the athletes' cafeteria at the USOC's Colorado Springs training center and Wellesley's Blue Ginger restaurant have in common? Both are winners of the Ivy Award handed out by Restaurants and Institutions Magazine. Though the cafeteria doesn't offer Ming Tsai's garlic-black pepper lobster with lemongrass, it does a killer volume -- nearly 400,000 meals and 20,000 box lunches a year.