It was supposed to be the case against American cyclist Floyd Landis, but from opening statements through early testimony it was also the case against a controversial Paris lab.
And the challenge is likely to continue throughout the public hearings that opened Monday in Malibu into allegations that Landis used performance-enhancing drugs to win the 2006 Tour de France.
A Cornell University scientist said he was "very favorably impressed" by the Paris lab, which he strongly defended.
But later, under cross-examination, nutritional science professor J. Thomas Brenna acknowledged receiving a $1.3-million grant last year from the same organization that is prosecuting the charges against Landis -- the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
Questions about the Paris lab's proficiency are at the heart of the Landis defense. He faces a possible two-year suspension and loss of the Tour de France title if convicted of drug use. The Paris lab declared one of his urine samples positive for illicit testosterone use at the end of the race.
Defense lawyer Maurice Suh launched the Landis attack on the lab from his opening remarks, blaming what he called faulty readings on shoddy handling, analysis and interpretation of test samples. The charges against Landis, he said, were the result of "an intersection of incompetence" by USADA and the lab.
Lead USADA lawyer Richard Young argued in his opening statement that levels of testosterone found in the racer's samples defied "natural explanations."
An international press corps is witnessing the hearings in a moot-court auditorium at Pepperdine University School of Law.
Also among spectators at the start were Landis' parents, his wife, Amber, and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who said he was a friend of the racer and often shared rides with him in the hills overlooking the city.
The public hearing is unique; every other USADA arbitration has been held behind closed doors. Thanks to Landis' prominence in the sports world and his determination to reverse roles -- putting lab tests and anti-doping procedures on trial -- it has become the most intensely contested case of its kind.
The witness list is among the lengthiest of any such hearing, with the heads of five WADA-accredited international doping labs scheduled to give testimony against the racer, including Don H. Catlin, who recently announced his retirement from the Olympic anti-doping lab at UCLA.
