Earlier this month, when railing against the Russians, Paula proclaimed: "Do we need to say, as well as the tests, that we'll allow our homes to be searched? I'd personally sit there and take a lie detector test."
Paula, do we need to search your home to get the rest of the data to evaluate your off scores? Or maybe you could just provide it?
Why so much misdirection?
ok. look at the blood values of the other competitors in the same race. who else had abnormal readings? if the answer is nobody or only dopers, Houston, we have a problem. I did a partial scan of some data and I definitely see reason to look deeper.
With lie detector tests, off the record, I paid for a young ladies lie detector test to avoid serious criminal charges. the result was that the police dropped the case. some other evidence was dodgy as well. so the lie detector test tipped the balance. however, the cops required that we use their recommeded tester. i was there during testing.
if you are not coached in how to relax during the test and have intregity in the process then the results can help but not prove innocence.
again the operative word here is intregity.
I feel like I've done this post before, but people come and go from threads like these not realizing they shouldn't post without some background info.
Off-scores are not a unit of anything. There is no legal threshold between doping and not doping that can be seen in off-scores.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COkLrVEUsAAQfxF.png
That chart shows how off scores are determined. The egregious off-scores are the possible combinations of ret% and Hgb which could only be obtained through doping.
Combinations with very low ret%, for example, could only be obtained when the body has stopped making new red blood cells, indicating a transfusion. Or, a combinations with a very high ret% could only have been obtained through exogenous EPO causing the body to create huge numbers of new blood cells beyond normal. Same thing with high Hgb; it could only be obtained through doping.
There is a different chart for altitude, because some of the middle values of ret% and Hgb% have been agreed to be obtained naturally, at altitude.
And finally, the 1-1000/1-10,000 thing can be a distraction if you don't know what you're looking at. Those odds represent the certainty that a certain off-score is due to doping. These are most useful in the legal context of results management and sanctions, where there is a concern over false positives. It is not a tool with which to view off scores. It is not a filter through which to decide doping or not, it is a legal heuristic. Deciding that 1-1000 means the athlete is okay but 1-10000 the athlete doped is purely arbitrary, but done in order to translate the science into practicable legal terms.
So I will take a deeper look at what the Daily Mail says, but lets review where we stand so far, knowing only the three data points, and some background info from Paula.
To summarize my post from the third page of this thrad:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=6740196&thread=6739631#6740196
-Pre-race, her off score was 82
-We know from her statements that before that race, she had an Hgb of 12 (from her autobiography:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COmn9jqUkAAROV5.jpg:large
)
- Inferring from the chart, her ret% was about 0.4%
-Paula's Vilamoura Half Marathon post-race blood test is one of the high off scores (114.9). Looking at the chart, that off-score was produced by a ret%0.4 and Hgb of 15.3 g/dL, (Off-score = 115.0).
So we're left wondering whether the conditions that changed her hgb concentration from 12 to 15.3 are possible clean? (Her ret% wouldn't have changed, even with a transfusion, as the body reacts slowly in making that adjustment)
She says that she became dehydrated. That is a normal reaction to hot weather racing, and a normal cause for hgb concentration to increase.
Here's what should be expected though. In a study of hot-weather running, on average, a 4% loss in body mass (water) is 1.6 g/dl of increased hgb concentration. The extreme in the study was 2.2 g/dl. According to the off-score and an assumed unchanged ret%, Paula's changed by 3.3 g/dl. (An elite can expect to lose 2-3 L of water typically, even 5L)
-She said in a statement that her Hgb increased by 2.8 g/dl.
-Even that represents a huge loss in plasma volume (The volume change to get from a concentration of 12 to 14.8 means that her post race volume is 81% of what she started with).
So we're left with Paula being in dire medical straits. But she still won the race, and by the largest winning margin, ever. Her assertion that her off-score was produced by the level of dehydration shown by the numbers is not comparable with the performance she put up that day. She could not have performed as well as she did, while dehydration causes her hgb to change so drastically.
So where did the extra hgb come from, if not by changed concentrations? I wager a transfusion.
This post got long, so I'll post a part two later.
I missed in my explanation of ABP that off-scores are just half the battle. Relative changes are the other half. an Off score of 100 can be perfectly normal, or serious doping, depending on the scores before and after.
(Which is one reason why Paula's previous data-release was frustrating and misdirection, but we can kind of clean up now).
Thanks. Something is not adding up. We need the full data set.
Part two:Here's the new data:- An an off-score of 92 on August 5, 2005 before her previously known 109 off-score, taken after the 10,000 in Helsinki.-102 off score from that marathon 8 days later (presumable after the race).And the new information: - Paula is backtracking from her previous altitude excuse for the Helsinki off-scores. Here what she said before:
Furthermore, they were all conducted following prolonged periods of altitude training, which is today recognised as significantly impacting blood figures, and is therefore taken into account when interpreting blood data.
That's not true. We already knew Radcliffe was not at altitude, as she ran the Great North Run on Sep 21 before the October 4th Half Marathon Championships.
And we see her backtrack after the DM points out that she wasn't at altitude before Helsinki
‘Yes, we had been at altitude and altitude does affect stuff but she never said I had this score, this score and this score and it has been directly affected by altitude,’ said Gary.
Radcliffe said: ‘For me, altitude was only the primary factor in the 2012 off score.’
She was training in Kenya in 2012, before her OOC test in Monte-Carlo, and there are a few interviews with her there all the way through the end of January.
And still most, frustrating, is that she blames the media for incomplete information, when she is the one providing incomplete information. She will spend 1 million on a lie detector but won't release her other scores.
She says she'll do anything to clear her name.
No. She said she would do anything. She said previously said she would release all her data, but hasn't. She said she would release her data, but only release some off-scores (not data). She says she'll pay 1 million for a lie detector but won't provide the data she criticizes the media for not having.
Her and her team takes their own blood data, but she hasn't released that, either. Even when she hid behind "I want them released but its up to the IAAF to release my scores" (not a direct quote, just the pre 2014 story), she could have released that data, but didn't.
She puts faith in the IAAF for clearing her when they are under investigation for corruption, and attributes a machine calibration error for an unfavorable result but not the favorable one.
She deserves the criticism she is getting, because she is purposefully obfuscating and misdirecting.
wejo wrote:
And I am not sure what the offer of the one million for the MRI brain scan entails. I do know that Vicetor Sailer (pro race photographer) who thinks everyone has cheated emailed me probably 6 months ago with a link to MRI lie detectors and said that was our only hope for a clean sport. I have no idea how they work or what they cost, but I'm glad for clean sport Paula says she'd take one.
Do 30 minutes of googling and you'll learn that lie detector tests are a publicity stunt. In other words, those who squawk the loudest about being clean hope to be the last to have the microscope directed at them.
There's also a company (Clean Protocol) that's using them as a form of extortion. They've convinced a number of professional athletes do it as a way of publicizing their company. For these early adopters they're waiving the $100/year fee.
Their business model is to reach a critical mass of athletes in their system, so it will become "suspicious" for anyone not in the system. Which means everyone will have to pay the $100/year fee or be asked why they're not on the Clean Protocol.
Wejo,
Can you reach out to Michael Ashenden for his opinion on this?
The saddest thing is how she's dragging her family into it. Her husband has become a bully, threatening people with lawsuits behind the scenes. He is playing the Lance Armstrong role so Paula can maintain her sweet public persona.
And she keeps play the tear-jerker card regarding her kids. Who in their right mind talks about their kids in the press, unless you're using them to manipulate public opinion.
She has a simple choice to clear her name:
a) drag her kids through the mud; or,
b) release the additional data that would explain the off scores.
Obviously, option b) doesn't exist, so she's become desperate and using her kids as pawns. Pathetic.
So disappointed wrote:
Thanks. Something is not adding up. We need the full data set.
The good news here is Seppelt has the data. Ashenden and Parisotto have an answer that Radcliffe doesn't like.
IAAF has the data too. According to Paula's own biography that she forgot to check before cobbling together half-truths and misdirection, the data is extremely detailed.
Again, if she was even a little clean, this would have been over months ago.
Thank you clerk for the excellent summary.
And yet their silence is deafening.I haven't seen any direct quotes, so someone provide a link if it exists, but Seppelt, Ashenden, and Parisotto have been completely silent about Paula from the beginning. It looks to me like it was only the British tabloids who dragged her name into it, perhaps for their own selfish reasons.It really doesn't matter what Paula tells the public, and most certainly, the public does not need the data, and would anyway lack the expertise to correctly interpret it. The ones who can already have the data.
pop_pop!_v2.1.1 wrote:
So disappointed wrote:Thanks. Something is not adding up. We need the full data set.
The good news here is Seppelt has the data. Ashenden and Parisotto have an answer that Radcliffe doesn't like.
IAAF has the data too. According to Paula's own biography that she forgot to check before cobbling together half-truths and misdirection, the data is extremely detailed.
Again, if she was even a little clean, this would have been over months ago.
Thank you clerk for the excellent summary.
rekrunner wrote:
And yet their silence is deafening.
I haven't seen any direct quotes, so someone provide a link if it exists, but Seppelt, Ashenden, and Parisotto have been completely silent about Paula from the beginning. It looks to me like it was only the British tabloids who dragged her name into it, perhaps for their own selfish reasons.
It really doesn't matter what Paula tells the public, and most certainly, the public does not need the data, and would anyway lack the expertise to correctly interpret it. The ones who can already have the data.
pop_pop!_v2.1.1 wrote:The good news here is Seppelt has the data. Ashenden and Parisotto have an answer that Radcliffe doesn't like.
IAAF has the data too. According to Paula's own biography that she forgot to check before cobbling together half-truths and misdirection, the data is extremely detailed.
Again, if she was even a little clean, this would have been over months ago.
Thank you clerk for the excellent summary.
They are not interested in Radliffe. They looked at all the data, and saw many issues. Their concern is bigger than one athlete. Their concern is that the IAAF called their perspective a deceleration of war. Their concern is that the system they created is not being implemented properly. Their concern is that they saw many cheats, and the IAAF failed to act.
Further, while talk of a super-injunction from Paula Radcliffe prevent discussion seem to not be true, this was
The paper (Sunday Times) quoted the athlete, now known to be Radcliffe, as denying any cheating, threatening legal action and telling it: “You print it and I sue you [and] you won’t be getting any money back in future like Lance Armstrong, I promise you that.â€
Their silence is deafening? Why? Because they're not constantly writing on the UK's golden girl? No surprise given that the facts speak for themselves, she is a ticking bomb, and they have bigger fish to fry. Get your head out of Radcliffe's ass. They've been the loudest voice against the IAAF since these stories broke.
rekrunner wrote:
And yet their silence is deafening.
I haven't seen any direct quotes, so someone provide a link if it exists, but Seppelt, Ashenden, and Parisotto have been completely silent about Paula from the beginning.
Why would they want to be drawn into endless, expensive litigation that ends up being a PR battle they would lose?
Do they pay much for Internet Community Coordinators posting your nonsense?
We all know how this story ends.
Good post Clerk. On slightly off-topic, I find it peculiar that in this interview Gerard Hartman gives a timeline and reason for her pre-Athens injury which is TOTALLY different to the one she gives in her autobiography. Yes, it was a long time ago. But it still smells fishy. And Paula's injuries/illnesses are many and varied - and potentially cover for awkward questions many years later, or reasons to visit Healing Hans.....
Clerk wrote:
Their concern is bigger than one athlete. Their concern is that the IAAF called their perspective a deceleration of war.
If only we could all call for a deceleration of war.
The thing about a lie detector is that if the person being questioned is delusional and doesn't believe they did anything wrong (even though they did), it will not show up as a lie. Also pathological liars can pass if they are so used to telling lies that they never feel guilty about them. Perhaps Paula doesn't believe she's in the wrong if she doped because a lot of others were doing it and didn't get caught either.
DHT123 wrote:
Good post Clerk. On slightly off-topic, I find it peculiar that in this interview Gerard Hartman gives a timeline and reason for her pre-Athens injury which is TOTALLY different to the one she gives in her autobiography. Yes, it was a long time ago. But it still smells fishy. And Paula's injuries/illnesses are many and varied - and potentially cover for awkward questions many years later, or reasons to visit Healing Hans.....
http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-web-exclusive/gerard-hartmanns-front-row-seat-to-paula-radcliffes-career
Don't even get me started on Hartmann. The guy is a charlatan.
Free training advice for letsrun: any member of your team who makes you dependent on them is not working in your interest. His goal should be to be play as minimal role as possible.
His practice is obtuse. The aggressive style of massage, 3-hours of work so deep his hands are sore is not beneficial. He has been called out as a quack in PT circles because what he does is contrary to best practice.
And to then create the psycological dependance on him is the opposite of the world's toughest athlete. How can all of these injuries come up if he was actually doing his job and teaching/working Paula towards prevention?
Anyway... I said don't get me atarted, but I want people to realize the "best team ever" is ridicoulus.
Luckily most people already know that about Hans Mueller Wolfhart.
I wrote this on Paula and Hartmann for another thread a while ago:Clerk Wrote:First part is going to be a little off-topic, but I want to make this point right away: Who the **** is he to say Paula is "an athlete who wanted it badder and was willing to dig deeper and prepare harder and more meticulously than anyone else." I'll come back to this in a bit...Some more context: I that I think he is a tool. I don't want to assume that Radcliffe employs him as part of her a media juggernaut, and won't take that arrogance he displays as a reflection of her character. But he is a joke.So first, here is his academic background : http://www.hartmann-international.com/Articles/1/The-Irish-Midas.aspx
The blend of physical talent and intelligence earned him a scholarship to the University of Arkansas, where he studied business. On his return to Ireland he got himself a National Certificate in Exercise and Fitness at the University of Limerick, much to Patrick ' s [his father's] anger.
In 1989 he returned to the United States and completed his post-graduate course at the Florida Institute of Natural Health where he qualified as a physical therapist. He did his practical experience at the University of Florida in Gainesville
And one perspective on that background:
In this interview this ‘physio’, and I use the term ‘physio’ carefully as I understand that he is not a fully qualified physiotherapist, and has not been trained on any recognised or accredited course.
I fact the best I can find on Mr Hartmann qualifications is a soft tissue masseuse course he did in the USA back in the 90’s. But apparently this doesn’t stop him calling himself a physio due to a legal loop hole in Ireland where he currently works.
Anyway, this ‘Physio’ goes on to describe a daily routine of hours and hours of soft tissue massage for Paula, claiming to realign joints and bones, fix and correct muscle imbalances and imperfections, and a pre race routine of acupuncture and joint adjustments, and how this is “no stress for me, no stress for the athleteâ€
As I read this article I feel myself becoming more and more agitated. All I think about is how this ill educated poorly trained, so called therapist masquerading as a healthcare professional can and probably does adversely affect this elite level, highly talented and hard working athlete he has the honour and privilege to work with.
The blog is some rando with a type writer, but let's go down that path.
Building dependence is a big marketing strategy, in anything. But a lot of best health and wellness practices are the opposite of marketing: an effective intervention should decrease dependence. But look at some athlete's testimonials:
She [Radliffe] revelled with very intensive deep tissue massage—three hours a day of very deep tissue work
It was often between three to four hours. Five would be extreme if something was acting up, broken into two treatments, and I can’t think of any other athlete who required that amount. It was driven by Paula saying “this is what I need; this is what works for me,â€
I [the journalist] asked Reilly, a former 29:15 10km runner, what Hartmann ' s secret was. Surely he would know? But he merely sighed and said: " You know, I honestly can ' t put my finger on it. "
Douglas Wakiihuri, the Kenyan who won world and London Marathon titles in the late 1980s, once sent a thank you message to his daktari, which read: " I will always run to your healing hands. "
Here's what that blog has to say on building dependance: "Yes healthcare professionals are there to assit and help athletes, but their primary responsibility is to instill a sense of robustness, toughness, and strength, both mentally and physcially with all they they work with. Simply put they should be making these hard working, dedicated, talented people feel invincible, impregnable, indestructible, basically like f**king superheroes,"
I don't know who that blogger is, but the message is still true. It is a very similar situation to Dr. Hans-Muller. It's not science if no one else can do it..
Hartmann drove me to the airport (the only thing he seems to do at less than 100 miles per hour), and on the plane home I asked myself if I had solved this medical mystery.
The answer was: probably not. Gerard Hartmann remains an enigma
It's not science if no one else can do it.
I'm going to skips the research articles, because those won't be helpful to us (the research doesn't have a full understanding of the mechanisms of why massage works, but of course many findings linking it to improved recovery/performance). A practitioner, Patrick Ward, is a good resource for distilling science into practice. Here's what he has to say:
http://optimumsportsperformance.com/blog/soft-tissue-techniques-for-athletic-recovery/Unfortunately, most therapists have a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy and, no matter what your complaint or need is, you are going to come in, lie on the table and get a deep tissue massage
(Sounds like Hartmann)
And his reference chart for different interventions:
http://optimumsportsperformance.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Screen-Shot-2014-10-18-at-8.07.11-AM.pngIn the first group, we are dealing with athletes who have a high level of fatigue and exhaustion. This may come from a period of overreaching or overtraining. Additionally, within this bucket are athletes that have a high level of anxiety (and perhaps may show a higher amount of sympathetic dominance). For the athletes with these complaints our treatment options are to help them attain a more relaxed state. For this, I favor longer massage sessions (60-90min) with a lot of slow compression and long holds of skin stretching. These techniques tend to be very relaxing and provide a therapeutic effect. The suggestion of placing the athlete prone is to decrease the amount of visual input (as well as the urge to talk or speak) and to attempt to get them to shut down for a moment and maybe even fall asleep on the table. Additionally, working on the neck and paraspinals in this prone position seems to evoke a sense of relaxation and have a calming effect on the system.
n the second group we see one of the most common reasons why athletes seek out massage – soreness. The massage technique suggestions for this complaint come from some of the research discussed on my last article as well as the research I discussed in an article two years ago from Crane et al. Both articles explained a massage approach for muscle damage dealing with 5-10min of gliding strokes to the affected muscle region. I also put into this section things like contract relax stretching or pin and stretch modalities as method to engage the athlete, get them to move around a little bit, and, in the process of creating movement with human touch, allow them to perceive themselves as “less soreâ€.
The final group is one of mobility or “tightness†as well as treatments geared towards maintenance of mobility and tissue quality. The aim of dealing with the athletes in this group is to have a good understanding of where their movement system is currently (what is their baseline) and then determining when they are below their norm (oftentimes, following intense competition or training, the individual may tighten up or stiffen up and lose some of their normal movement). Also, knowing what is normal for the athlete in the sense of tissue quality (tone) and what is abnormal, for that individual, can be extremely important and helpful in guiding your treatment approach. Within this group the modalities selected are more active, engaging the athlete to move and be a participant in the treatment. Thus, things like pin and stretch techniques or active stretching/mobility techniques can be very valuable. Additionally, Dr. Andreo Spina’s work, Functional Range Release, can be extremely helpful for engaging the resistance barrier, applying tension to the tissue, and using things such as PAILs and RAILs to actively engage the athlete with movements into and out of their limited range
Hartmann describes a single intervention: digging in. But for a daily routine, it is clear that digging in is the opposite of what an athlete needs. Relaxation would help so much more. Certainly, an injury or cramped muscle needs it, and the injured athletes that fly in for a special session get what they are looking for. But this comment on the first blog post sums up the issue best:
It would seem Paula has unfortunately surrounded herself with a poor pit crew. But on the other hand maybe she chooses them. Smacks a bit of the Tiger Woods displaced sacrum saga and the idiots he had “helping†him. Not having ever met the woman I can’t comment on her personality, nature etc. Paula is obviously a phenomenal athlete. I liken her 2.15 marathon to a male sub 2hr marathon. But her psyche is something I’m not aware of. Even though her treatment protocol is maddening, maybe she wants that safety net even though I’m sure it has a negative impact. I was reading an article yesterday about Paula’s final marathon preparation for London and her pathway back. There was a period it said of training in Kenya where she got some Achilles soreness. Now blind Freddie would have just calmed her down, looked at the current training volume, adjusted things a little, eased her back in. But no, they threw everything bar the kitchen sink at her from all over Europe.
and even better:
Well said Adam and something that needs saying! It’s seems I spend most of my time trying to undo the mess left behind by this so called care. No one seems to be able to see the negative effects this has on athletes, IMO Paula would of won an Olympic medal but her perceived fragility couldn’t handle the pressure and she ‘broke’, her magnets and other voodoo providing no help when things really mattered.
And stemming off the first comment about Paula's pit crew, here it is (From the Hartmann interview):
"working with a dietitian, a homeopath, an exercise physiologist, physical therapist, osteopath, and collaborating all of that with her husband, Gary, and her coach. "
(I'm going to let the homeopathy angle speak for it self...)
That is a dependent athlete. That is a fragile athlete. She is not the toughest personality in the sport, she is the most delicate personality in the sport. She needs these people. And they couldn't come through for her when it actually mattered. Paula can punish herself, and is willing to suffer, doping or not. Pain tolerance does not fix doubt. Pain tolerance does not fix ineffective supporting personnel. Pain tolerance doesn't keep you healthy. But that this "pain tolerance" somehow translates into an effective athlete is a myth that is repeated over and over and over.
It has to stop.[/quote]
I do know how they work (= related to my day job), and they are not worth taking seriously. Yes, given a large number of trials/people it's possible to classify truth/lies with better-than-chance accuracy. But what we care about here is strong confidence about an individual statement. Ain't gonna happen.
And I am not sure what the offer of the one million for the MRI brain scan entails. I do know that Vicetor Sailer (pro race photographer) who thinks everyone has cheated emailed me probably 6 months ago with a link to MRI lie detectors and said that was our only hope for a clean sport. I have no idea how they work or what they cost, but I'm glad for clean sport Paula says she'd take one.
