LRC note. We added in to the title that she trained in Cheptegei's camp as this is much more newsworthy than your average run of the mill doping bust. the same thing was true last year when someone in Kipchoge's camp was banned.
I'm the furthest thing from an expert on doping, but I believe I've read from fairly credible sources that nandrolone is pretty easy to detect. And yet we see athletes get busted all the time for it. I guess for those on the threshold of stardom, the temptation is too great.
Stuff works though. I don't think there's any debate about that.
I'm not going to keep going around your tiresome mulberry bush, in which you keep vomiting up the same repetitious complaints about the "unfairness of the system" you have made on every other thread you comment on.
But it is obvious where your priorities are. Instead of being concerned about the spread of doping in the sport and how can we improve on catching the cheats your constant refrain is how the antidoping system is "unfair to innocent victims". And whose was the case that provoked that lament? Why, none other than that of the Burrito Queen, Miss Nandrolone, Shelby Houlihan herself. What a hill to die on!
But even if - and just for the sake of argument, because it isn't a fact - there were innocent athletes caught in the antidoping crossfire they will be a fraction of the numbers who dope and get away with it. But that is never your concern. You would rather defend those caught cheating than catch them. For one who claims to care about the sport you are a fraud.
Of course you will.
We've only come this far because you obstinantly refuse to accept the plain meanings of the words "presume" and "deem", and you do not understand what it takes to "establish" a fact. Instead you fabricate tortuous doublespeak explanations where not establishing non-intent to a subjective balance of probability standard to a panel of lawyers can only mean intent is an established fact outside the artificial limited scope of WADA-based proceedings.
Regarding my priorities, you are partly right. I expressed before that the gold standard of justice in first world countries avoids convicting innocent athletes at the expense of letting unprovably guilty athletes off.
You say colorful things like "spread of doping in the sport", and "fraction of the numbers" without knowing whether prevalence is increasing, decreasing, or stable, nor what fractions you speak of. The solution to combatting the alleged spread of doping is not lowering the quality of the busts to increase the quantity by catching more dolphins with more tuna, but working on prevention, i.e. educating athletes, coaches, doctors, pharmacists, etc., and working on investigating those providing the drugs. It is an abject failure to persecute innocent athletes, so the process designed to protect innocent athletes should get that part right everytime.
But my priorities aren't connected to false positives over false negatives per se, but rather proven factors of performance, and what can be concluded from established facts and supporting evidence, that is not contradicted by other tangible evidence. My interest in doping is that it is often alleged as a contributing factor of elite performance, while almost completely lacking established facts and supporting evidence, often supported by bad conclusions from science and a number of logical fallacies.
There should be no doubt that the current process will catch and convict many innocent athletes, because it is baked into the design of a "guilty until proven innocent" approach, and the safeguards have been removed. Applying your tortuous standard of establishing facts, your sake of argument concession has been established as fact at least 27 times in the USA alone, since 2015. If we extrapolate that to the world population, that is a lot of innocent athletes being trapped by WADA's new 2015 net. You love Kenyan busts. The increased busts in Kenya are in part a result of lowering the quality of busts, and increasing testing to include more lower caliber athletes.
As far as hills to die on, the totality of the evidence against Houlihan allows us to conclude she ingested a low (WADA's word) amount of nandrolone one night in December 2020 from an unidentified source. Anything more, from both experts and fans, is pure conjecture. Houlihan is not the first example where assumptions and conspiracy far outweighs proven reality. Paula never had a case to answer. After 7 years of heightened scrutiny, no NOP athlete under Salazar was ever charged for doping. Notwithstanding his high profile bust, Jama Aden was cleared by the Spanish courts, and never charged by the IAAF/WA for any rule violation. Not long ago, 43% (or 1 in 2 by your math) of letsrun poll respondents believe El G's records were clean. Even going as far back as Mary Decker Slaney, it is not clear that her T/E ratio indicates high T, or low E. Many Kenyan athetletes are busted for nandrolone, in a country that doesn't routinely castrate its pigs. Athletes like Colvert, Karus, Sommer and Lagat, were questionably convicted by EPO positives from an error prone process that is made purposely difficult for an athlete to defend.
The sport is damaged by implementing and executing poor quality anti-doping, and such widespread, yet baseless, conspiracies among the fans of the sport.
"The sport is damaged by implementing and executing poor quality anti-doping, and such widespread, yet baseless, conspiracies among the fans of the sport."(quote)
That's plain enough. You think antidoping is the problem in the sport, not doping. Fortunately no one except the dopers and the deniers are on your side. The rules aren't going to be changed to reflect your abysmal views.
"The sport is damaged by implementing and executing poor quality anti-doping, and such widespread, yet baseless, conspiracies among the fans of the sport."(quote)
That's plain enough. You think antidoping is the problem in the sport, not doping. Fortunately no one except the dopers and the deniers are on your side. The rules aren't going to be changed to reflect your abysmal views.
These are not mutually exclusive concerns. Doping is a problem. Getting anti-doping wrong doesn't solve the problem, but makes a bad problem worse.
No one is on my side? How about some supporting quotes from Ross Tucker, Richard McClaren, and Andy Brown in a writeup about a Hajo Seppelt documentary?
Who is on your side, besides a group of anonymous nobodies with no voice in anti-doping?
I agree with letsrun paid consultant Ross Tucker when he said in 2019:
"Speaking broadly on the principle, one of the things we’ve seen over and over and over in anti-doping, is that confidence in the system is at an all time low. ... In that context, the only way to climb up from a position of low trust is to demonstrate, at every possible step, the absolute scientific rigor and evidence-based fairness of what is being done."
Do you consider "presuming and deeming intent" an example of "evidence-based fairness"?
Here is some further reading in a write-up about Germany's top anti-doping watchdog Hajo Seppelt's recent documentary demonstrating with more concrete examples how innocent athletes are caught in the "guilty until proven innocent" net. Anti-doping lawyer Richard McLaren concedes "the system is perhaps more loaded against the athlete ..." and the article explains: "The quote illustrates that those who govern anti-doping are aware that despite anti-doping being billed as protecting athletes, it sometimes doesn’t fulfil this noble aim."
More selected quotes from the conclusions:
"In such an environment, it is far too easy for an ADO to pick off the low hanging fruit. Only very elite athletes at the top of their game have the financial resources to prove contamination. Unless there is a change to the system, innocent athletes will continue to be punished harshly, whilst elite dopers are able to escape justice due to having the funds to bankrupt an ADO in arguing their case."
"It is far too easy for sport to claim that it is taking proactive action against dopers, whilst punishing potentially innocent athletes for breaking trivial anti-doping rules it has created. This is perhaps why it fights to the death any athlete who takes a claim outside of its closed arbitration system – athletes such as Kristen Worley, Claudia Pechstein, or Alex Schwazer. Anti-doping is unfair and incompatible with normal legal principles – and sport knows it."
“I think the system is perhaps more loaded against the athlete, but the entire system would fall apart if you had to put the burden on the doping authority rather than the athlete”. The above quote is from Richard McLaren, th...
I'm the furthest thing from an expert on doping, but I believe I've read from fairly credible sources that nandrolone is pretty easy to detect. And yet we see athletes get busted all the time for it. I guess for those on the threshold of stardom, the temptation is too great.
Stuff works though. I don't think there's any debate about that.
Nandrolone is easy to detect, and we see athletes get busted all the time for it. These two facts together should not be surprising.
The low amount of ingested nandrolone found in one urine sample will not have any effect -- at least according to one study (albeit on men) that found ingesting steroids produced no significant changes or performance benefit.
I would agree that steroids can help women in shorter distance events, but not when ingested in low amounts, and not six months, or years, after records were set.
"The sport is damaged by implementing and executing poor quality anti-doping, and such widespread, yet baseless, conspiracies among the fans of the sport."(quote)
That's plain enough. You think antidoping is the problem in the sport, not doping. Fortunately no one except the dopers and the deniers are on your side. The rules aren't going to be changed to reflect your abysmal views.
These are not mutually exclusive concerns. Doping is a problem. Getting anti-doping wrong doesn't solve the problem, but makes a bad problem worse.
No one is on my side? How about some supporting quotes from Ross Tucker, Richard McClaren, and Andy Brown in a writeup about a Hajo Seppelt documentary?
Who is on your side, besides a group of anonymous nobodies with no voice in anti-doping?
I agree with letsrun paid consultant Ross Tucker when he said in 2019:
"Speaking broadly on the principle, one of the things we’ve seen over and over and over in anti-doping, is that confidence in the system is at an all time low. ... In that context, the only way to climb up from a position of low trust is to demonstrate, at every possible step, the absolute scientific rigor and evidence-based fairness of what is being done."
Do you consider "presuming and deeming intent" an example of "evidence-based fairness"?
Here is some further reading in a write-up about Germany's top anti-doping watchdog Hajo Seppelt's recent documentary demonstrating with more concrete examples how innocent athletes are caught in the "guilty until proven innocent" net. Anti-doping lawyer Richard McLaren concedes "the system is perhaps more loaded against the athlete ..." and the article explains: "The quote illustrates that those who govern anti-doping are aware that despite anti-doping being billed as protecting athletes, it sometimes doesn’t fulfil this noble aim."
More selected quotes from the conclusions:
"In such an environment, it is far too easy for an ADO to pick off the low hanging fruit. Only very elite athletes at the top of their game have the financial resources to prove contamination. Unless there is a change to the system, innocent athletes will continue to be punished harshly, whilst elite dopers are able to escape justice due to having the funds to bankrupt an ADO in arguing their case."
"It is far too easy for sport to claim that it is taking proactive action against dopers, whilst punishing potentially innocent athletes for breaking trivial anti-doping rules it has created. This is perhaps why it fights to the death any athlete who takes a claim outside of its closed arbitration system – athletes such as Kristen Worley, Claudia Pechstein, or Alex Schwazer. Anti-doping is unfair and incompatible with normal legal principles – and sport knows it."
The only problem with anti-doping is that it doesn't catch enough dopers. It doesn't catch "innocent" athletes. It does use "normal legal principles" but they are not the principles of a criminal trial because no one is being charged with a crime and facing a criminal penalty. You and the hand-wringers you quote fail to understand that. If such principles were applied to doping even fewer dopers would be held accountable - probably none - since direct as distinct from inferential evidence of intent would be almost impossible to obtain, short of catching the athlete in the act of doping. None are so caught. But that would suit you.
The only problem with anti-doping is that it doesn't catch enough dopers. It doesn't catch "innocent" athletes. It does use "normal legal principles" but they are not the principles of a criminal trial because no one is being charged with a crime and facing a criminal penalty. You and the hand-wringers you quote fail to understand that. If such principles were applied to doping even fewer dopers would be held accountable - probably none - since direct as distinct from inferential evidence of intent would be almost impossible to obtain, short of catching the athlete in the act of doping. None are so caught. But that would suit you.
It's sheer comedy after each time you are debunked, you simply whack-a-mole yourself to the next hole, much like flat-earth and moan-hoax conspiracy believers after losing every round.
Recall you said, about my "abysmal views", that "no one except the dopers and the deniers are on your side." I guess you think you've won that argument because prominent voices in anti-doping like Tygart, McClaren, and Seppelt are clearly "dopers and deniers". Even WADA issued an official statement about unintentional doping as a result of sabotage: "WADA acknowledges ... this possibility is well known within the anti-doping community." Well known by whom? "Dopers and deniers" have completely infiltrated the anti-doping community. Sure.
You only reveal yourself in your posts, simply swapping in me for you -- the reality is that it is your fantastic imaginary interpretations and conclusions that is shared by no one with a name and voice in anti-doping. No one, not even WADA, says that the Code "doesn't catch "innocent" athletes."
Similarly, no one is talking about criminal courts -- even in civil courts, the claimant has to actually plead and argue intent with supporting evidence in order to seek increased liability and damages. The injustice arises because arbitration doesn't offer the same rights and protections to the accused as real courts of law in first world countries would.
You still misunderstand the role of "intent". A failure to show intent would simply result in sanctioning for unintentional doping, e.g. from negligence -- the athlete is still held accountable for rule violations. This was the standard from 2003 to 2015, when many dopers were caught and sanctioned.
Here is another article questioning the existence of intent to violate rules in 7 out of 36 sanctions, just in the week ending 4-August, and as a bonus, another article describing the issues with the whereabouts systems -- also subject to the strict liability principle for the athletes -- just in the week ending 21-July.
• 36 athletes from 12 countries, competing in 12 sports, were involved in anti-doping proceedings that came to light in the week ended 4 August 2023. A central tenet of anti-doping is that an athlete charged with an anti-dopi...
• Twenty eight athletes from 12 countries, competing in ten sports, were involved in anti-doping proceedings that came to light during the week ending 21 July 2023. Of the 28 doping cases that came to light in the past week,...
The only problem with anti-doping is that it doesn't catch enough dopers. It doesn't catch "innocent" athletes. It does use "normal legal principles" but they are not the principles of a criminal trial because no one is being charged with a crime and facing a criminal penalty. You and the hand-wringers you quote fail to understand that. If such principles were applied to doping even fewer dopers would be held accountable - probably none - since direct as distinct from inferential evidence of intent would be almost impossible to obtain, short of catching the athlete in the act of doping. None are so caught. But that would suit you.
It's sheer comedy after each time you are debunked, you simply whack-a-mole yourself to the next hole, much like flat-earth and moan-hoax conspiracy believers after losing every round.
Recall you said, about my "abysmal views", that "no one except the dopers and the deniers are on your side." I guess you think you've won that argument because prominent voices in anti-doping like Tygart, McClaren, and Seppelt are clearly "dopers and deniers". Even WADA issued an official statement about unintentional doping as a result of sabotage: "WADA acknowledges ... this possibility is well known within the anti-doping community." Well known by whom? "Dopers and deniers" have completely infiltrated the anti-doping community. Sure.
You only reveal yourself in your posts, simply swapping in me for you -- the reality is that it is your fantastic imaginary interpretations and conclusions that is shared by no one with a name and voice in anti-doping. No one, not even WADA, says that the Code "doesn't catch "innocent" athletes."
Similarly, no one is talking about criminal courts -- even in civil courts, the claimant has to actually plead and argue intent with supporting evidence in order to seek increased liability and damages. The injustice arises because arbitration doesn't offer the same rights and protections to the accused as real courts of law in first world countries would.
You still misunderstand the role of "intent". A failure to show intent would simply result in sanctioning for unintentional doping, e.g. from negligence -- the athlete is still held accountable for rule violations. This was the standard from 2003 to 2015, when many dopers were caught and sanctioned.
Here is another article questioning the existence of intent to violate rules in 7 out of 36 sanctions, just in the week ending 4-August, and as a bonus, another article describing the issues with the whereabouts systems -- also subject to the strict liability principle for the athletes -- just in the week ending 21-July.
The dopers in the sport have never had a better champion. But not that it will do them much good. Let us know when the antidoping procedures change to reflect your complaints that "innocent athletes" (athletes who have tested positive for a banned substance, failed the whereabouts rules, or shown serious ABP irregularities) are being treated "unjustly".
All top elites dope. They're better at evading testing and bribing, than the testers are at finding dopers and turning down bribes, 99% of the time. For this reason, they should just rip the band-aid off and let them dope. Let the WRs lurch forward, then plateau.
After that we can enjoy the sport without all this phony speculation about "who is, who isn't?" We can then all assume they all are, rather than some assuming they all are, and others being naive.
Choose:
1- A world where they all dope, and we continue kidding ourselves, or
2- A world where they all dope, and we stop kidding ourselves.
All top elites dope. They're better at evading testing and bribing, than the testers are at finding dopers and turning down bribes, 99% of the time. For this reason, they should just rip the band-aid off and let them dope. Let the WRs lurch forward, then plateau.
After that we can enjoy the sport without all this phony speculation about "who is, who isn't?" We can then all assume they all are, rather than some assuming they all are, and others being naive.
Choose:
1- A world where they all dope, and we continue kidding ourselves, or
2- A world where they all dope, and we stop kidding ourselves.
I thought EPO didn't work on Ugandans!!!! [Where Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu at?]
The dopers in the sport have never had a better champion. But not that it will do them much good. Let us know when the antidoping procedures change to reflect your complaints that "innocent athletes" (athletes who have tested positive for a banned substance, failed the whereabouts rules, or shown serious ABP irregularities) are being treated "unjustly".
I see you've predictably abandoned your "criminal trial" red-herring, and your failed "nobody in anti-doping shares my abysmal views" claim, and have whack-a-moled back to pretending I don't want ADAs and ADOs to punish intentional dopers.
By all means, sanction the dopers, but just the dopers. This does not require accusing, suspending, or sanctioning innocent athletes. Create a process that can reliably tell which is which, without causing reputational, financial, or occupational harm to innocent athletes.
I will let you know here if Tygart succeeds in lobbying for WADA reform, with the help of online sites like Sports Integrity Initiative, and any further documentaries by Hajo Seppelt, or others. In my opinion, the athletes themselves need to form a union and have a stronger voice in rewriting the contract intended to protect the athletes, and perhaps even a way to provide resources for innocent athletes to defend themselves against a process biased against them.
The dopers in the sport have never had a better champion. But not that it will do them much good. Let us know when the antidoping procedures change to reflect your complaints that "innocent athletes" (athletes who have tested positive for a banned substance, failed the whereabouts rules, or shown serious ABP irregularities) are being treated "unjustly".
I see you've predictably abandoned your "criminal trial" red-herring, and your failed "nobody in anti-doping shares my abysmal views" claim, and have whack-a-moled back to pretending I don't want ADAs and ADOs to punish intentional dopers.
By all means, sanction the dopers, but just the dopers. This does not require accusing, suspending, or sanctioning innocent athletes. Create a process that can reliably tell which is which, without causing reputational, financial, or occupational harm to innocent athletes.
I will let you know here if Tygart succeeds in lobbying for WADA reform, with the help of online sites like Sports Integrity Initiative, and any further documentaries by Hajo Seppelt, or others. In my opinion, the athletes themselves need to form a union and have a stronger voice in rewriting the contract intended to protect the athletes, and perhaps even a way to provide resources for innocent athletes to defend themselves against a process biased against them.
I don't bother arguing with the details of your posts. That would mean acknowledging your arguments could be taken seriously. I don't. It would be as helpful as debating conspiracy theories with a cultist - which you are.
Whatever you think Tygart says, antidoping is not going to make it easier for dopers to get off.
I see you've predictably abandoned your "criminal trial" red-herring, and your failed "nobody in anti-doping shares my abysmal views" claim, and have whack-a-moled back to pretending I don't want ADAs and ADOs to punish intentional dopers.
By all means, sanction the dopers, but just the dopers. This does not require accusing, suspending, or sanctioning innocent athletes. Create a process that can reliably tell which is which, without causing reputational, financial, or occupational harm to innocent athletes.
I will let you know here if Tygart succeeds in lobbying for WADA reform, with the help of online sites like Sports Integrity Initiative, and any further documentaries by Hajo Seppelt, or others. In my opinion, the athletes themselves need to form a union and have a stronger voice in rewriting the contract intended to protect the athletes, and perhaps even a way to provide resources for innocent athletes to defend themselves against a process biased against them.
I don't bother arguing with the details of your posts. That would mean acknowledging my ignorance.
I don't bother arguing with the details of your posts. That would mean acknowledging your arguments could be taken seriously. I don't. It would be as helpful as debating conspiracy theories with a cultist - which you are.
Whatever you think Tygart says, antidoping is not going to make it easier for dopers to get off.
But you do bother to argue quite a lot in my direction with details found nowhere in my posts.
Now you've popped out another one of your holes, where you pretend you have a choice. You don't bother arguing with details period, because you simply cannot, lacking the capacity, knowledge, arguments, and facts to do so. Otherwise, you could have addressed the arguments of the many experts in the field of anti-doping who squarely contradict your creative but naive imagination. Between these experts and you, it's a no-brainer to not choose the no-brainer.
I don't ever ask for anti-doping to make it easier for dopers -- this is one of your many fabricated imaginary fantasies -- but to make it easier for innocent athletes to avoid guilty verdicts and sanctions and reputational, financial, and occupational harm. For some reason, you are not capable of comprehending the subject of my concerns are innocent athletes, and for some unfathomable reasons, you think this is synonymous to letting other subjects get away with doping.
For all your red-herrings, fantasies, and whack-a-mole holes you keep popping out of, the original point was that it was the CAS panel, subservient to the rules and guidelines of the current WADA Code, who argued and concluded that "intent" was "presumed" then "deemed" without any specific supporting evidence -- a historical fact that you cannot argue against, so you go round and round and round pretending facts are on your side while failing to address the original point.
I don't bother arguing with the details of your posts. That would mean acknowledging your arguments could be taken seriously. I don't. It would be as helpful as debating conspiracy theories with a cultist - which you are.
Whatever you think Tygart says, antidoping is not going to make it easier for dopers to get off.
But you do bother to argue quite a lot in my direction with details found nowhere in my posts.
Now you've popped out another one of your holes, where you pretend you have a choice. You don't bother arguing with details period, because you simply cannot, lacking the capacity, knowledge, arguments, and facts to do so. Otherwise, you could have addressed the arguments of the many experts in the field of anti-doping who squarely contradict your creative but naive imagination. Between these experts and you, it's a no-brainer to not choose the no-brainer.
I don't ever ask for anti-doping to make it easier for dopers -- this is one of your many fabricated imaginary fantasies -- but to make it easier for innocent athletes to avoid guilty verdicts and sanctions and reputational, financial, and occupational harm. For some reason, you are not capable of comprehending the subject of my concerns are innocent athletes, and for some unfathomable reasons, you think this is synonymous to letting other subjects get away with doping.
For all your red-herrings, fantasies, and whack-a-mole holes you keep popping out of, the original point was that it was the CAS panel, subservient to the rules and guidelines of the current WADA Code, who argued and concluded that "intent" was "presumed" then "deemed" without any specific supporting evidence -- a historical fact that you cannot argue against, so you go round and round and round pretending facts are on your side while failing to address the original point.
As I said, I don't bother to engage with the case that a cultist like yourself thinks he has assembled - you don't have one - only to point out that they are the unending ramblings of a cultist. Nothing you say will change how anti-doping is exercised. Your opinions remain utterly irrelevant as well as deluded.
As I said, I don't bother to engage with the case that a cultist like yourself thinks he has assembled - you don't have one - only to point out that they are the unending ramblings of a cultist. Nothing you say will change how anti-doping is exercised. Your opinions remain utterly irrelevant as well as deluded.
You do bother quite a lot, but you frankly cannot engage. You have repeatedly confirmed this post after post, year after year. You can only insult with false arrogance while you propogate your own naive beliefs without evidence -- much like the ramblings of a cultist.
If anti-doping does reform, it will surely not be because of me -- I have no delusions of grandeur -- but because of prominent critical voices like Tygart, or perhaps from the athletes themselves, or voices from sports media journalists like Seppelt or Andy Brown.
The truly ignorant is here, every day, around 15 hours. When he woke up, the board immediately is full of all his wrong interpretations, his denying of any arguments without actually saying why, his spaming the board for the 10000th time that anybody faster than his big heroes from the late 50s/early 60s is a doper.
The truly ignorant is here, every day, around 15 hours. When he woke up, the board immediately is full of all his wrong interpretations, his denying of any arguments without actually saying why, his spaming the board for the 10000th time that anybody faster than his big heroes from the late 50s/early 60s is a doper.
Than it's Armstrong-time.
Yet you read everything I write. So what does that say about you?
The truly ignorant is here, every day, around 15 hours. When he woke up, the board immediately is full of all his wrong interpretations, his denying of any arguments without actually saying why, his spaming the board for the 10000th time that anybody faster than his big heroes from the late 50s/early 60s is a doper.
Than it's Armstrong-time.
Yet you read everything I write. So what does that say about you?
You are like the dog turds in the streets of Paris. No matter how hard one tries, it's impossible to avoid you and your stench.
