rekrunner wrote:
Correct about a CAS panel. But that's not the point I am making. A judge would note the contradictions in the statements and probably describe Paula as an unreliable witness. Re: the 2 hours - as this timescale will have been established to avoid false positives, I would imagine that they would expect most people's blood to be back to normal 30-60 minutes after vigorous exercise. There's a big difference in going directly to blood control directly after a 10,000 m race, and having a cool-down jog, then an ice bath, and then going, maybe 90-120 minutes later.
It's not a contradiction to say that three points were after lengthy altitude stays, but the primary factor in two of them was something else (e.g. not respecting the 2-hour rule not to mention some combination of other known factors). [/quote]
Er, that might be correct if she HAD been an altitude before the three tests. It was demonstrated that she had been at sea-level for 5-6 weeks before the 2003 test, and her statement was false.
Regarding 2004 Athens Olympics, is there a contradiction? She got hit by a stone around 1st of August, flew to Munich, her leg froze up a week later, and she had many more problems. These aren't mutually exclusive things. And there was no doping suspicion in 2004 -- why are we talking about Athens? [/quote]
No, you are incorrect, they are 100% referring to the same injury. Paula's biography also goes on to talk about flying to Munich. We're talking about this because there are two totally incompatible stories about the same event out there, and somebody, for some reason, has made one of them up. Just because there wasn't a suspicious score (we assume) at Athens (although I guess she wasn't tested post-marathon or post 10.000m as she didn't finish either) doesn't mean the circumstances around it isn't suspicious.
See above - I'm not talking about whether this would pass through CAS, I'm talking about not telling the truth.
The issue here is that Paula says she was injured in Kenya and not training, whereas contemporaneous accounts show that was training hard out there. Maybe she was injured right at the end of the trip? Maybe. We don't know. We also don't know what happened with the suspicious blood test. Here's one scenario - that when the test results come back, the athlete is then asked if they have anything else to add (that they previously hadn't added on the form when the test was taken). Here Paula adds that she has been sleeping in a hypoxic tent, and yes, she was injured at altitude, and therefore wasn't crushing the red blood cells - and gets cleared. Then the issue of whether she WAS injured at altitude becomes relevant. But no-one has questioned her in detail about the circumstances around this so we are none the wiser.
Really? I don't think so. She would sue them for printing that! I trust the integrity of the journalist on this one, big time.
You forgot to mention 29 C in Vilamoura and the dehydration excuse -- both of these also don't matter, as the studies say extreme exertion causes plasma shift to interstitial tissues, again requiring 2 hours to return to normal.
Do us a favour with the sanctimony. To be as well read as you over these topics you are spending plenty of time reading lots of stuff.
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