Editor's Note: Denver-based attorney Antonio Gallegos is in Malibu, California, this week to observe the Floyd Landis arbitration hearing. Gallegos works for the firm of Holland and Hart, concentrating in commercial litigation and government investigation. He is also an avid cyclist and is developing a sports law practice. At the end of each day Gallegos will be providing VeloNews.com with analysis on what happened and why. Here's his take on the third day of an arbitration hearing that is expected to last up to 10 days.

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Landis’s attorneys spent nearly the entire day cross-examining USADA witness Cynthia Mongongu, a LNDD laboratory analyst. They appeared to have two primary objectives.

First, Landis’s team attacked the legal presumption that, as a WADA-accredited laboratory, LNDD followed proper procedures. Ms. Mongongu testified that she verified the positive test result for one Landis’s samples at 11:20 am, that this verification only took five minutes and that she gave the sample to another lab employee as soon as she finished. However, the chain of custody log (the document where the lab tracks location and possession of the sample) says nothing about the sample changing hands until 12:45. So according to Landis’s team, there is nearly an hour and a half where the location of the sample is not accounted for. Landis’s lawyers pointed to several other time gaps in other lab documents.

The WADA/USADA International Laboratory Standards require the chain of custody log to record all movement of the sample, from preparation through analysis. So the time gaps are the type of evidence the Landis team needs in order to rebut the presumption of proper procedures. If Landis can rebut this presumption, the burden of proof shifts back to USADA to show that failure to follow proper procedures did not cause Landis’s positive test result. Landis’s lawyers also want the arbitrators to be wondering what might have been happening to Landis’ sample during these time gaps.

Second, Landis’s lawyers tried to undermine Ms. Mongongu’s credibility and reliability. Ms. Mongongu testified remembered very specific details about her work on this particular Landis sample, not knowing that it belonged to Landis, but could not remember similar details about any of the hundreds of other analyses she has performed. Presumably, Landis’s team wants the arbitrators to wonder why Ms. Mongongu had cause to remember this specific analysis.

On re-direct examination by USADA, Ms. Mongongu reiterated that she did not know which samples were from Landis. This move appears to address Landis’s implications about what might have been happening to his sample during the undocumented time gaps his counsel pointed out on cross examination. If Ms. Mongongu did not know that the sample was Landis’s, where is the motive to tamper with it? USADA also had Ms. Mongongu account for a few the other time gaps that in the lab documents, saying that they were consistent with the normal process.

One of the arbitrators, Chris Campbell, provided a small surprise by asking a few questions of Ms. Mongongu. Mr. Campbell questioned Ms. Mongongu about the chain of custody log. He also asked Ms. Mongongu if the final results for the sample addressed in that chain of custody log reflect an “adverse analytical finding,” as that term is defined in the USADA code – to which Ms. Mongongu replied, “Yes.”

At this point, it is difficult to say whether Mr. Campbell was looking for clarification, or if he is starting to develop his position on this case. But it is worth noting that Mr. Campbell is the arbitrator selected by Landis’s team and that he wrote the dissenting opinion in the Tyler Hamilton case.