[Ortho]

This was all hashed out last fall, and I don't feel like getting into it. I agree with what you are saying, from the standpoint of requiring all these things as proof, from a legal standpoint, before you can enter any kind of judgment or assess any kind of penalty.

However, what I am saying is that meeting the legal standard (which is important and should be litigated as they are doing) and making up your own mind as a civilian as to whether you think that Floyd artifically supplemented with testosterone before his great ride last July are two different things. Maybe he's the only innocent guy in cycle racing, maybe this is truly avant-garde science that was horribly conducted by a team of chimpanzees, maybe everyone in the labs and in the media colluded in misinterpreting and overcooking the interpretation of the data, maybe the anti-doping bodies are all pressing unreliable science against him for whatever nefarious reasons, and maybe the statements coming from Floyd's legal team are the only ones that we can trust.

However, that's a lot of maybes and (I cannot stress enough that I am a big fan of Floyd's and of cycle racing--check last year's TDF thread for more detailed thoughts on these things) I am as a civilian fan of cycle racing am going to go with the common-sense interpretation in a notoriously dirty sport until someone who is not on Floyd's side comes out to convince me. This does NOT mean that I don't think that he shouldn't get to fight this out as a legal process for keeping his title and clearing his name professionally, etc. It just means that, provisionally, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and is found in a duck pond, chances are that it is a duck even if there is not sufficient proof to conclude that as a matter of law. How unlucky and heartbreaking for him (and, frankly, us) if he just happened to get this weird result, that he's never had before, the day after the greatest performance in recent memory. But there is eventually a certain level of coincidence where I as a civilian am comfortable with coming to the wrong conclusion.