Granville57 said:
Something got lost in translation there. No matter how times I re-read that bit I can't make sense of it.
I made the mistake of assuming that anyone who complained so much that others weren’t paying attention to his posts would actually read mine. That's why I said, me too!
I’m not going to go all over the point that doping sanctions can be both proactive and retroactive--I spelled it out clearly upthread--but I’ll just say that if you can’t understand that LA has been sanctioned for fifteen years so far, you must think that Contador was sanctioned for just six months. I can assure you if you read the decision in that case, that is not what they say.
The USADA document then provides the specifics behind this reasoning. It's all right there for everyone to read. No mystery. No behavior on the part of USADA that they are not fully entitled to. None.
The portions of the USADA document you quote justify increasing sanctions, but nothing in your post shows they were justified in increasing them to the point of a lifetime ban. And in fact, Tygart’s own words indicate very clearly that a lifetime ban was not what he had in mind.
Tygart was widely quoted saying that if LA had come in and talked, his sanction would have been much lighter, perhaps two lost TDF titles and six months to a year going forward. Now some may believe that was never really on the table, but that doesn’t matter. The point is, Tygart said it was, which sends a clear message that he thought that lighter ban was adequate punishment for what LA did. If Tygart believed otherwise, it would have been very irresponsible of him to say that.
So how did LA end up losing all his titles and a lifetime ban? Part of the reason surely was because LA didn’t come in and talk; he resisted cooperating. But that can’t be the entire reason. Why not? The WADA code specifies how much a sanction may be reduced if the athlete cooperates substantially with investigators:
No more than three-quarters of the otherwise applicable period of ineligibility may be suspended. If the otherwise applicable period of ineligibility is a lifetime, the non-suspended period under this section may be no less than eight (8) years.
(10.5.3)
This passage makes it crystal clear that if LA’s sanction if he had cooperated had been loss of some titles and six months or a year going forward, there is NO WAY that the sanction for not cooperating could be extended to a lifetime. You simply can’t get from A to B following the WADA code.
So how did WADA get from A to B? Here’s my theory: When LA refused to cooperate and the deadline had passed and USADA published the charging letter, they must have anticipated that LA would fight the charges. Indeed, USADA invited LA to skip the usual procedure and take the case straight to CAS. If you anticipate a lengthy legal battle, it makes sense to stake out an extreme, hardline position. Often in such cases, both sides will seek to settle, and the more extreme your position is, the more you can give up and still get what you want. With the death penalty in place, USADA had several TDF titles and many years of reduced ban to offer in return for getting what they had originally wanted.
In summary, if you take Tygart at his word, USADA never believed that the draconian penalty they gave LA followed from his anti-doping infractions. On the contrary, he publicly stated that those infractions would have led to a relatively mild ban if he had cooperated. If one applies the maximum three-quarter rule for cooperation, this suggests that what they had in mind without cooperation was two to four years going forward, along with perhaps the complete loss of TDF titles as actually they ruled.
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