Fans of the Tour de France and professional cycling have a chance to hear a forensic analytical chemist talk about the Floyd Landis doping scandal when the Nashville section of the American Chemical Society hosts its November meeting at Tennessee Tech.
 
Robert D. Blackledge, a retired NCIS senior chemist, will evaluate the case in a talk at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 16, in TTU’s Foster Hall, Room 233.
 
Landis, a professional bicycle racer from Murrieta, Calif., won the 2006 Tour de France. However, not many days after the race's conclusion, information was leaked to the press from the Laboratoire National de Dépistage du Dopage (LNDD) that a urine sample obtained from Landis after stage 17 had been found to be positive for a form of synthetic testosterone.
 
An upheld finding would mean Landis would be stripped of his title and also banned from participation in the sport. Landis denied any sports doping, and his strategy in fighting these charges has been to try to generate public support and to make all of the documentation of the tests available to the public.
 
Blackledge will address the issue from the standpoint of a forensic analytical chemist with experience in forensic laboratory accreditation standards. His presentation will examine the analytical data and correspondence from the Landis case in terms of chain of custody requirements, World Anti-Doping Association guidelines and LNDD standard operating proceedures, and reasonable standards of good laboratory practice.
 
The public is invited to have dinner with the speaker at 5:30 p.m. at Logan’s Roadhouse, 1395 Interstate Drive., Cookeville. Reservations must be made for dinner by noon on Monday.
 
To make dinner reservations or for more information, contact David Crouse at dcrouse@tntech.edu.