“I know the sport, and I doubt that there is anyone who has wrongly tested positive when they are negative” he said. “There could be, but I doubt it. Standards must be really high to ensure that athletes are not wrongly accused”.
“When you have enough circumstantial evidence, and enough witnesses, you don’t need a smoking gun”, he said
Eh ? How do these two statements reconcile ?
Standards applied in testing must be really high
- yep, agree with that, that's where we are in criminal law cases : the burden of proof is that someone is guilty if the case is proven beyond reasonable doubt, so the tests must be conducted fairly and rigorously, and where there's no possibility of false-positives.
But saying that enough circumstantial evidence is proof
- err no, that's not the same burden of proof at all.
As opposed to circumstantial evidence, what is his 'smoking gun' - a failed test ?
We are talking about riders careers and livelihoods - we must have a high burden of proof to ban someone.
I guess it depends what the circumstantial evidence actually is - enough witnesses, etc perhaps, but simple rumours, etc can't be proof.
Although I certainly agree with him that in the cases of Tyler, Floyd, etc the amazing and astonishing attempts to wriggle-out of the ban do nothing other than illustrate that the rider obviously did dope.
