Shelby's side of the story from wapo

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

The WADA definition below.

"As used in Article 10.2, the term “intentional”

is meant to identify those Athletes or other

Persons who engage in conduct which they knew

constituted an anti-doping rule violation or knew

that there was a significant risk that the conduct

might constitute or result in an anti-doping rule

violation and manifestly disregarded that risk.59"

__________

So "intent" means "intentional" after all, which in plain English means the athlete knew they were doping or taking that risk.

You don't understand the English language let alone how it is applied by WADA.

Now go back and read your previous posts and compare them side by side. Your meaning and WADA's meaning don't match with each other.

An important element is that the athlete "knew" they were committing an ADRV, or "knew" they were risking a possible ADRV and ignored that risk. For example, intentionally eating a greasy burrito wouldn't reasonably match that definition, but could potentially put nandrolone in the burrito eater's system. WADA goes out of their way to explicitly account for that possibility in their TD.

Looking again at your answers, "the drug is in their system", "it was something the athlete intentionally ate", their is no mention of the athlete's "knowledge" of committing, or risking committing, a rule violation and ignoring the risk.

Same result with the AIU and their experts' arguments and the CAS findings -- there was no such conduct identifed where the athlete "knew" they were committing an ADRV, or manifestly ignoring the risk that a potential ADRV could be committed.

Intent is presumed, and was deemed by the CAS, not established as a fact, or as a finding of fact, by any party at any time. It is a baseless presumption that railroads athletes to 4-year bans, who did not know they were at risk of committing an ADRV.

twoggle wrote:

Below is some followup information to my editorial, "Houlihan, Burrito-Gate and the Problems of Sports Drug Testing" at .

Link:twoggle.github.io/DopingFiles/Article....

Early in the year 2000, the LA Times quoted the WADA Director as saying about nandrolone metabolites in urine, "From what I understand, the medical data shows the only way you can go above the two-nanogram level [2 ng/ml of 19-NA] is by ingesting the drug. You can eat boar's testicles all week and not reach that level."

By 2008, WADA knew that these statements were erroneous based on a study they cite in their Technical Document. A single ingestion of boar offal could lead to a measurement of 130 ng/ml of 19-NA (nandrolone metabolite) in the urine -- 65 times more than what the WADA director thought was impossible. A single ingestion of boar meat (without the organs) could lead to 2.4 ng/ml of 19-NA, still more than the limit at that time. This study was only conducted on only three subjects so that the findings of 130 ng/ml for boar offal and 2.4 ng/ml for boar meat may not be even close to the upper limits had the study been conducted on 100 or 1,000 subjects. Houlihan had just 5.2 & 5.8 ng/ml of 19-NA in her urine samples. Somehow WADA convinced CAS arbitors that Houlihan had 2 - 3 times more 19-NA in her urine than ever seen in the scientific literature. It is easily provable with WADA's own citation that 30 times more 19-NA was seen in 1 of 3 subjects than found for Houlihan.

Also in the year 2000, the director of the Montreal laboratory involved in Houlihan's test (Ayotte), testified at a CAS hearing that the ratio of the two nandrolone metabolites, 19-NA and 19-NE showing an "equality of ratios" (similar amounts) was a hallmark of ingestion of a prohibited substance. The amounts of 19-NA and 19-NE for Houlihan were not similar as would have been expected (in the year 2000) for ingesting a prohibited substance. The ratio of 19-NA to 19-NE for Houlihan was 3.9 to 4.5. In the year 2000, this would have indicated that she was not taking a prohibited substance. But WADA had moved on to other problematic tests.

By 2006, Ayotte and others for WADA determined that one cannot use the 19-NA/19-NE ratio (as she testified to before CAS), but could tell the difference between exogenous nandrolone (doping) and endogenous nandrolone (naturally-occurring, including pork ingestion) by looking at the carbon isotope ratios using a GC/IRMS test. Figure 3 of Ayotte's 2006 report shows the exogenous (doping) results clustered between -27‰ and -31‰. The results in the report assumed to be endogenous (non-doping) were clustered between -19‰ and -23.5‰. Houlihan's measurement was -23‰. This would have indicated endogenous (non-doping) nandrolone metabolites. But as in the case of 19-NA and 19-NE ratios, WADA had moved on to other problematic tests.

Several years ago, WADA decided the way to differentiate exogenous nandrolone (doping) and endogenous nandrolone (non-doping) was to conduct the GC/IRMS test as mentioned above, but compare the results to a reference compound. However, like all of their other speculations, they did little testing as to the number of false positives that could be generated. As I pointed out in another post, one small study showed a 40% false positive rate and another more recent small study showed at least a 12.5% false positive rate when subjects ingested pork from uncastrated (farm-raised or wild) pigs.

Each time, WADA is so certain that their testing procedures are infallible and will testify to CAS as if they are. While there is no mention of pig diets in the WADA technical document, their experts relied on Houlihan's GC/IRMS test showing a result of -23‰ while pigs fed a diet of corn to soy ratio of 4 to 1 (and 10 to 1 for a finishing diet) will lead to human subjects with a GC/IRMS result of around -19‰. Any significant increase in the percentage of soy or addition wheat or barley or sorghum in the pig feed or any foraging by the pig can drastically change the result of the GC/IRMS test. Other grains like wheat are sometimes substituted to avoid the need for lysine and other supplements. The soy industry has been pushing farmers to use a higher percentage of soy meal. Soy carbon ratio: -27‰ ; Wheat: -25‰ to -27‰; Barley: -27‰ to -29‰. A pig feed with 4 to 1 corn to soy ratio will have a crude protein level of ~15% and a finishing feed with a ratio of 10 to 1 will have a crude protein level of ~7%. While the ingredient percentages are not listed on the label, one can see it is common for pig feed to have a much higher crude protein percentage (probably due to more soy or added wheat), especially finishing feed. The assumption by the WADA expert that all pigs are fed an imaginary average of 4 to 1 corn to soy (without any wheat, barley, sorghum, other ingredients or foraging) doesn't match with many products for sale and many recipies/articles available online.

Then there is the issue of meat contamination that wasn't mentioned. In 2021, Ireland found 10% of the pig samples with nandrolone, in Spain it was over 14% of the samples. In Austria it was only 0.66% and Poland only 1% of the pig samples with nandrolone. Malta had >18% of the pig samples with nandrolone in 2020. In 2017, WADA presented issues with meat contamination. They claimed that the chances of an adverse analytical finding was small in the EU and higher in certain hot spots. However, when tens of thousands of tests are conducted every year, it is likely there will be some cases of contamination leading to adverse analytical findings.

Finally, there is the issue that the WADA Technical Document that provided an alternate testing strategy for Houlihan's exact case. Houlihan's team asked that this testing strategy be followed as spelled out in WADA's own technical document, but the Athletics Integrity Unit ignored the request. I think that it is absurd for WADA to identify a problem, design an alternate testing strategy to address the problem, put all of that in their testing Technical Document and then have no way to trigger that strategy and then deny the need to use that strategy at a hearing. Was WADA's comments in their Technical Document just "random musings" rather than addressing a problem they identified? It appears so as those musings are still in their Technical Document with no mechanism for them being triggered.

no shame eh wrote:

twoggle wrote:

Tucker believed WADA witnesses when he thought that no research showed urine 19-NA above 2 ng/ml from pork ingestion. Had he read WADA’s own cited research he would have seen 130 ng/ml with pig offal and 2.4 ng/ml for pork meat without any organs. It’s a problem when automatically believing WADA witnesses (especially in this case with proven history of false testimony).

Houlihan’s team can’t be expected to find nandrolone in burritos from different pigs weeks after the original purchase. Houlihan’s team brought a number of scientific experts. They didn’t bring an expert in pig feed clearly because that issue isn’t spelled out in the WADA Technical Document. Tucker is just speculating that they “couldn’t find” a pig expert to testify for them.

You are clouding the issue again. 2.4 ng/ml for pork meat (from a larger amount of meat, and from older mature pigs). Shelby had 5.5 ng/ml. That is the important part here. Actually that's only one of the important points, because then you'd still have to argue that the isotope ratio is irrelevant and that it really was noncastrated boar. Recall that CAS rules 3 : 0 against all of that.

Yes, they can't be expected to find nandrolone, but if that "offal" really included other organs, as rekrunner claims without evidence and you seem to believe, then they should have found out, e.g. by the receipt (unless your new claim is now that the food truck owners lied) or by the analysis (unless your next new claim is now that the PI and the lab were incompetent), and then brought it to CAS. They did no such thing...

The experienced Greene knew better to not bring in a pork expert. That pork expert he brought in last time helped him tremendously in the Lawson case, essentially by canceling out the AIU's pork expert. That Greene decided to not go down that route this time, speaks volumes.

twoggle wrote:

Below is some followup information to my editorial, "Houlihan, Burrito-Gate and the Problems of Sports Drug Testing" at .

Link:twoggle.github.io/DopingFiles/Article....

Early in the year 2000, the LA Times quoted the WADA Director as saying about nandrolone metabolites in urine, "From what I understand, the medical data shows the only way you can go above the two-nanogram level [2 ng/ml of 19-NA] is by ingesting the drug. You can eat boar's testicles all week and not reach that level."

By 2008, WADA knew that these statements were erroneous based on a study they cite in their Technical Document. A single ingestion of boar offal could lead to a measurement of 130 ng/ml of 19-NA (nandrolone metabolite) in the urine -- 65 times more than what the WADA director thought was impossible. A single ingestion of boar meat (without the organs) could lead to 2.4 ng/ml of 19-NA, still more than the limit at that time. This study was only conducted on only three subjects so that the findings of 130 ng/ml for boar offal and 2.4 ng/ml for boar meat may not be even close to the upper limits had the study been conducted on 100 or 1,000 subjects. Houlihan had just 5.2 & 5.8 ng/ml of 19-NA in her urine samples. Somehow WADA convinced CAS arbitors that Houlihan had 2 - 3 times more 19-NA in her urine than ever seen in the scientific literature. It is easily provable with WADA's own citation that 30 times more 19-NA was seen in 1 of 3 subjects than found for Houlihan.

Also in the year 2000, the director of the Montreal laboratory involved in Houlihan's test (Ayotte), testified at a CAS hearing that the ratio of the two nandrolone metabolites, 19-NA and 19-NE showing an "equality of ratios" (similar amounts) was a hallmark of ingestion of a prohibited substance. The amounts of 19-NA and 19-NE for Houlihan were not similar as would have been expected (in the year 2000) for ingesting a prohibited substance. The ratio of 19-NA to 19-NE for Houlihan was 3.9 to 4.5. In the year 2000, this would have indicated that she was not taking a prohibited substance. But WADA had moved on to other problematic tests.

By 2006, Ayotte and others for WADA determined that one cannot use the 19-NA/19-NE ratio (as she testified to before CAS), but could tell the difference between exogenous nandrolone (doping) and endogenous nandrolone (naturally-occurring, including pork ingestion) by looking at the carbon isotope ratios using a GC/IRMS test. Figure 3 of Ayotte's 2006 report shows the exogenous (doping) results clustered between -27‰ and -31‰. The results in the report assumed to be endogenous (non-doping) were clustered between -19‰ and -23.5‰. Houlihan's measurement was -23‰. This would have indicated endogenous (non-doping) nandrolone metabolites. But as in the case of 19-NA and 19-NE ratios, WADA had moved on to other problematic tests.

Several years ago, WADA decided the way to differentiate exogenous nandrolone (doping) and endogenous nandrolone (non-doping) was to conduct the GC/IRMS test as mentioned above, but compare the results to a reference compound. However, like all of their other speculations, they did little testing as to the number of false positives that could be generated. As I pointed out in another post, one small study showed a 40% false positive rate and another more recent small study showed at least a 12.5% false positive rate when subjects ingested pork from uncastrated (farm-raised or wild) pigs.

Each time, WADA is so certain that their testing procedures are infallible and will testify to CAS as if they are. While there is no mention of pig diets in the WADA technical document, their experts relied on Houlihan's GC/IRMS test showing a result of -23‰ while pigs fed a diet of corn to soy ratio of 4 to 1 (and 10 to 1 for a finishing diet) will lead to human subjects with a GC/IRMS result of around -19‰. Any significant increase in the percentage of soy or addition wheat or barley or sorghum in the pig feed or any foraging by the pig can drastically change the result of the GC/IRMS test. Other grains like wheat are sometimes substituted to avoid the need for lysine and other supplements. The soy industry has been pushing farmers to use a higher percentage of soy meal. Soy carbon ratio: -27‰ ; Wheat: -25‰ to -27‰; Barley: -27‰ to -29‰. A pig feed with 4 to 1 corn to soy ratio will have a crude protein level of ~15% and a finishing feed with a ratio of 10 to 1 will have a crude protein level of ~7%. While the ingredient percentages are not listed on the label, one can see it is common for pig feed to have a much higher crude protein percentage (probably due to more soy or added wheat), especially finishing feed. The assumption by the WADA expert that all pigs are fed an imaginary average of 4 to 1 corn to soy (without any wheat, barley, sorghum, other ingredients or foraging) doesn't match with many products for sale and many recipies/articles available online.

Then there is the issue of meat contamination that wasn't mentioned. In 2021, Ireland found 10% of the pig samples with nandrolone, in Spain it was over 14% of the samples. In Austria it was only 0.66% and Poland only 1% of the pig samples with nandrolone. Malta had >18% of the pig samples with nandrolone in 2020. In 2017, WADA presented issues with meat contamination. They claimed that the chances of an adverse analytical finding was small in the EU and higher in certain hot spots. However, when tens of thousands of tests are conducted every year, it is likely there will be some cases of contamination leading to adverse analytical findings.

Finally, there is the issue that the WADA Technical Document that provided an alternate testing strategy for Houlihan's exact case. Houlihan's team asked that this testing strategy be followed as spelled out in WADA's own technical document, but the Athletics Integrity Unit ignored the request. I think that it is absurd for WADA to identify a problem, design an alternate testing strategy to address the problem, put all of that in their testing Technical Document and then have no way to trigger that strategy and then deny the need to use that strategy at a hearing. Was WADA's comments in their Technical Document just "random musings" rather than addressing a problem they identified? It appears so as those musings are still in their Technical Document with no mechanism for them being triggered.

no shame eh wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

WADA's TD for nandrolone reads pretty much like that. Pork ingestion is considered "endogenous" by WADA, and the low amounts (less than 10 ng/ml) usually coming from pork would not be a violation. In the footnotes, if an athlete "invokes pork", then the carbon-isotope test cannot be used to determine the origin (exogenous or endogenous). I would say the TD needs to be cleaned up as the CAS panelists were split 2-1 that the WADA Labs reported the violation correctly, according to their guidelines.

Incorrect. The TD does not say that "the carbon-isotope test cannot be used to determine the origin". Inform yourself better. Then read Professor Tucker's explanations, for example:

Not in the analytical results, no. The concentration in her urine wasn’t ridiculously high, but it needn’t be (there’s a published paper that explains how the level of 19-NA is not a good way to evaluate doping vs contamination). It was almost three times higher than the highest levels measured in those two studies where people ate much larger pork meals. More tellingly, the isotope signature didn’t meet the requirements for an “ambiguous case” that might require further testing. The WADA Technical Document sets up the criteria to rule on a sample being an Adverse Finding, and Houlihan’s meets that, pretty clearly. Her 19-NA looks quite different from her other endogenous (self-produced) steroids and also from the 19-NA that would be expected from boar parts. If it was only the concentration, or only the isotope signature, I think one could probe for a weakness. But taken together, that science looks pretty watertight.

no shame eh wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

That was one of the slight of hand deceptions from the scientific experts whom the CAS relied on and sided with. For some reason, these experts made a statement about pork meat, rather than nandrolone-rich pork offal.

More lies from you. The experts talked about pork meat because the receipt introduced by Houlihan (the Respondent) to CAS was about stomach, apparently outer stomach muscle.

Inform yourself. See CAS for example:

The Respondent did convincingly establish that the pork stomach meat from the food truck in December 2020 was from a frozen batch that had been purchased in September 2020

And Professor Tucker:

Importantly, Houlihan’s claim is that she ate pig stomach (see points 40 and 99). McGlone explains that the only part of the stomach that is sold to the food industry is the outer stomach, which is metabolically inactive and has a very low steroid concentration compared to the whole stomach. This comes up again in point 114, which is the CAS panel finding and which says that McGlone’s evidence is not disputed, and that pork stomach does contain one of the lowest androgen levels of any organ.

rekrunner wrote:

There is the cherry-picked dishonesty combined with a backhanded personal attack I've come to expect.

This information comes straight from WADA: "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis". Under which condition? "if the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs is invoked by an Athlete as the unlikely origin of a 19-NA finding." Note this is the WADA Lab reporting guideline, long before the time that the athlete has to "prove" anything to any standard.

I'm not all that interested in what Prof. Tucker has to say, as he is not speaking as an established expert in any of the relevant domains. You are appealing to a false authority, and I am not persuaded by the non-expert opinions of outsiders. Ross was effectively paid by letsrun to parrot what was already in the CAS report, adding no informative value.

After reading the decision, we still had many questions about the decision, the case, and the scientific concepts underpinning it, especially since Houlihan continues to express her innocence.
To get answers, we turned to a man who knows running, science, the global anti-doping system, and most importantly, how to explain scientific concepts to the masses — Ross Tucker of Sportsscientists.com and the Real Science of Sport podcast — and asked him to analyze the ruling.

Tucker: “The contaminated food explanation doesn’t stand up to basically any level of scrutiny.”

The Norway Way wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

There is the cherry-picked dishonesty combined with a backhanded personal attack I've come to expect.

This information comes straight from WADA: "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis". Under which condition? "if the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs is invoked by an Athlete as the unlikely origin of a 19-NA finding." Note this is the WADA Lab reporting guideline, long before the time that the athlete has to "prove" anything to any standard.

Did you really just cut the 2nd half of that sentence off? Hahaha, what a loser. Really no shame whatsoever.

Here is the full quote which explains why that part does not really apply here:

"The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis, since the varying diet of migrating wild boars lead to dissimilar 13C values which may range between -15 ‰ and -25 ‰ [9]."

Obviously the pigs used by the Iowa slaughterhouse weren't migrating (or wild, or boars).

no shame eh wrote:

twoggle wrote:

Unfortunately Tucker just transcribed some of what the CAS was told by WADA witnesses.

For crying out loud - again? The whole discussion is based on the receipt for the stomach meat from that Iowa plant. There was no other receipt. They also hired a PI and analyzed the burritos, and found neither nandrolone nor liver nor testicles.

You can neither blame CAS nor WADA nor AIU for that. Further neither Shelby nor her experienced lawyer Greene nor anyone else but rekrunner ever claimed the burrito contained testicles or liver, not then, not now, not in front of the Supreme Court, not ever. It should also tell you a lot that Prof. McGlone's statements remained uncontested.

Consider another good point that Prof. Tucker, among others here, has brought up: Shelby could not find a single pork expert that would argue in her favor, whether about the chance of uncastrated boar during the pandemic or the chance of liver in stomach meat etc. Also quite telling.

And Tygart, in the podcast that rekrunner to his credit referenced, stated very clearly that CAS did nothing wrong and that AIU did nothing wrong (that is all solely in rekrunner's baseless phantasies/smear campaign, don't fall for it):

The Athletics Integrity Unit that handled it did exactly what they were supposed to do under the rules

The CAS decision I think in the Houlihan case does a really good job of analyzing the facts and the data and the evidence