Retention Time

The arbitration panel has awarded its ruling on the USADA versus Floyd Landis case. In its 2 to 1 decision in favor of the USADA, my mental cogs are still churning and the spurious rationale of the majority decision is emerging.

In the determination of the T/E ratio by the Gas Chromatography (GC), the panel found that the Lab failed to follow the procedure outlined by WADA TD2003IDCR. Therefore no adverse analytical finding could be rendered. Whoo hoo! That charged was dismissed.

It is on the second test the CIR or the GC/C/IRMS that is of issue. WADA TD2003IDCR states the difference in retention times will be 1% or plus/minus .02 minutes whichever is smaller.

The majority decision states the retention times of the two machines are different 25 minutes and 45 minutes. OK. Two machines -- absolute retention times won't be used. Clear enough. A logical conclusion is that the relative retention times of 1% should be applied. Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein calculated the difference in the LNDD relative retention times at 7%. Um, 7% is outside of the 1% range in this universe. Clearly an exception to the International Standard of Laboratories or an ISL has occurred. But the majority says oh no, the TD2003IDCR does not apply since there are two machines involved.

What the? TD2003IDCR is a mere five page document. No where in the document does it say it applies to only one machine. No where in the document does it say if there are two machines then eyeballing it is ok. So either the relative retention times applies to what the LNDD does with its equipment, or the entire process of using the two machines is out of spec or "not fit for purpose" and is an exception to the ISL standard.

Clear to me. This decision is not based on science or process, merely politics.