Laboratory Critisised Over Bad Chromatography

Maurice Suh, Landis's chief attorney, said in his closing statement that he had proved that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA's) case against his client was "a disaster".

In a sustained attack on the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory (LNDD) outside Paris, Suh said technicians there had made errors in every phase of the testing of Landis's urine, including "rule violations, incompetence and miscalculations".

He added: "We believe in clean sports, we believe in clean athletes, we believe in real science. What we do not believe in is incompetent laboratories and cherry-picked data?"

Suh laid out what he described as "a chain of errors" by the lab, including poor quality control, bad chromatography and deleted data.

However, USADA lawyer Richard Young said the case relied on relatively simple science that proved American Landis had taken the performance-enhancing hormone testosterone during last year's Tour de France.

"He cheated the rules of cycling and he got caught," Young added.