Sunday Mail Has More Details on Paula's Blood Values and Off Scores + News She'll Put up £1m for an MRI lie detector

Be careful as "rekrunnr" is an imposter.So for you "whole load of Russians" "almost all old (35-40)" is:- one 32-year old in 2002- one 37-year old in 2006- one 28-year old in 2006- and Shobukhova at 33-34 years old between 2010-2011Sorry I can't take this seriously.

Rushkies wrote:

Rekrunner... It's pretty clear that blood doping worked and whilst Psula wS hammering 2.15 there was a whole load of Russians peppering the 2.20/21 area. What was interesting about these (and there were many) is that they were almost all old (35-40) and they also looked nothing like athletes. If you look at the best in the world (Kipchoge is the perfect example) they are so smooth, so effortless they stand out a mile. Anyone who looks horrendous running or very ungainly should not be in the top handful in the world, it doesn't add up. A large number of these women were clearly cheating regularly and going undetected in major marathons. They probably go a long way to explaining the 'high number of high placed finishers in the London marathon with suspect blood results'

What do you make of the fact that a supposedly doped-up Shobukhova, in the prime of her marathon years and supposedly supported by the entire Russian doping machine, could only come within 3 minutes of Paula's record?To me it says that Shobukhova was clean and was framed. To believe otherwise would mean that Paula was doping even heavier and better, and there's no way that could be true.

rekrunner wrote:

So for you "whole load of Russians" "almost all old (35-40)" is:

- one 32-year old in 2002

- one 37-year old in 2006

- one 28-year old in 2006

- and Shobukhova at 33-34 years old between 2010-2011

Sorry I can't take this seriously.

Your logic holds up only if you believe that Paula was a "lone wolf" in her doping--that she didn't have the support of an entire British Doping Machine and that she didn't have connections high within UKAD and IAAF who would cover up her adverse results.And it's easy to believe that state-sponsored doping in the UK would be better than state-sponsored doping in Russia.

Russians are Clean! wrote:

What do you make of the fact that a supposedly doped-up Shobukhova, in the prime of her marathon years and supposedly supported by the entire Russian doping machine, could only come within 3 minutes of Paula's record?

To me it says that Shobukhova was clean and was framed. To believe otherwise would mean that Paula was doping even heavier and better, and there's no way that could be true.

This stuff is all pure speculation and nothing else.

If my wife doped, she still wouldn't run a 3:30 marathon.

Just because Shobukhova doped doesn't mean she automatically had the ability to get near Radcliffe's time (clean or otherwise).

Even if Paula doped (and you know I don't believe that), the gap between her and athletes who are known to a) have been talented and b) doped is phenomenal and difficult to explain.

If it was replicable, someone would have done it already. There is no doubt whatsoever that Paula had got her mind, body and legs into a shape that no woman has got close to, and arguably (with the male vs female usual discrepancy) into a shape that no other person has got close to.

Fair enough, for some of you that is sufficient evidence to suggest that something unnatural has gone on. I get that. Personally I think it likely that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who, with the right training and psychology, could be world record holders - but for one reason or another they don't go into athletics (or any sport) so we never know. And then sometimes someone comes along who can put it all together and get close to the maximum possible for a human. For me, that is how I perceive Paula's performance. The right person, at the right time, with the right training. We should be thankful that Paula was part of our sport as a competitor, rather than sniping at her for few other reasons than her head bobbed a lot and her personality annoys people.

(And before anyone jumps in, I know there are questions which are valid to be asked about some of those blood results, the concerns raised on those matters are a valid challenge and whilst some like me will be content with due process having taken place, I appreciate that not everyone sees it that way!)

I very much respect your opinion--it's easy for me to do because I once held a very similar opinion about Lance. That he was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon who managed to pull it all together and extract every ounce of performance from his body, mind and soul.It felt good to be a believer, to not be cynical, to trust in the magic of motivated humans. I called people who accused him of doping "haters". I wanted to believe.And now, of course I realize that Lance being a doper does not at all mean that Paula is a doper. It's possible I've swung too far in the other direction. It's possible I've become a blind cynic instead of blind believer.But I also subscribe to notion that in science as in the rest of life that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and documentation.And so here's the big decider for me: Paula has provided no proof at all of her innocence. Paula herself holds the keys to clear her name. She can release her full slate of blood value history (including her voluminous private records from private doctors) to team of independent experts.Those independent experts can tell us what they think it means. And I would take their word for it.Simple.But she refuses to do so. And that action speaks volumes. When a suspect refuses to present evidence that could either clear or convict herself, there's no logical reason to believe that she's innocent.The power is all in Paula's hands, and she continues to hide evidence. What other conclusion can we possibly reach?

I still consider Paula to be the GOAT.

Let's say she did take PEDS or avail of ABT's, and it gave her 2.5 minutes extra (arbitrary number).

Without that advantage, she would still be the world record holder and ahead of all other women, including dopers.

So she's the GOAT.

Right on Boaty.

There is no certain conclusion that can be reached regarding Paula's 2:15 world record. She has already previously stated she wanted her blood tests from the London marathon released to the public. She has refused to actually do it.

The obvious fact that nobody has recently even mentioned is that her 2:15 was achieved in 2003. There was no ABP in 2003 and therefore there was no way to catch and sanction a cheater that was using autologous blood transfusions at all in any way. Period.

The urine test for EPO in the year 2003 was also very poor at EPO detection and the test was not improved until 2005. It still has poor sensitivity at EPO detection today in 2016.

And we also have the possible coverup of suspicious blood test results of many athletes from different countries by the IAAF, which was under the leadership of Lamine Diack since around the year 1999.

It is obvious that runners can no longer dope to the same extent that they could in the good old "pre-ABP" days before 2009.

To say that other runners would have replicated Paula's achievement after the year 2009 if they could of is an absolutely FALSE statement by anyone who makes that statement.

Nobody post-ABP can replicate the achievement because they can't dope as heavy or cheat as much as in the good old "pre-ABP" days.

This is a simple and easy explanation for Paula's 2:15 world record marathon which has stood for 13 years so far up to today.

Paula can also get anxiety sometimes as well. If she had a panic attack when her nose tape got loose during a race, you can just try to imagine the severity of her anxiety when her suspicious blood test results got loose as well.

Oh my!!!...I would imagine that could trigger some high-level "elite" anxiety.

from Wiki:

Radcliffe was then selected for the 2000 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Mexico.[63] Radcliffe won her first World title, despite suffering a panic attack when her nose tape, designed to help her breathe, fell off half way round.[64]

Since the 1999 European Cup, Radcliffe wears a red ribbon when competing to show her support for blood testing as a method of catching drugs cheats.[108][111]

She has previously asked for the results of a blood test taken at the London Marathon to be made public, saying that she had "absolutely no objection to my test being released".[115]

In 2015, in the wake of revelations of widespread doping in athletics,[116] Radcliffe said that, unlike some other prominent British athletes, she would not be releasing her blood-test history, and discouraged other athletes from doing so.[117] She was later indirectly identified as a suspected doper by MP Jesse Norman during a parliamentary inquiry into blood doping.[118][119] In response, Radcliffe issued a statement in which she "categorically denied" cheating in any form and said she has "nothing to hide".[120] Shortly afterwards, her three suspect test results were leaked, though Radcliffe still refused to release her complete blood-test history.[121] In late November 2015, the IAAF declared that the accusation were ‘based on the gross misinterpretation of incomplete data’. The UK Anti Doping Agency, having received Radcleffe's blood test history via the IAAF, stated that "Ukad has come to the same conclusion as the IAAF review that there is no case to answer".[122]

Have you considered wrote:

Your logic holds up only if you believe that Paula was a "lone wolf" in her doping--that she didn't have the support of an entire British Doping Machine and that she didn't have connections high within UKAD and IAAF who would cover up her adverse results.

And it's easy to believe that state-sponsored doping in the UK would be better than state-sponsored doping in Russia.

^ This. Again compare their performances at the last Olympics.

Boaty McBoatface wrote:

And so here's the big decider for me: Paula has provided no proof at all of her innocence. Paula herself holds the keys to clear her name. She can release her full slate of blood value history (including her voluminous private records from private doctors) to team of independent experts.

Those independent experts can tell us what they think it means. And I would take their word for it.

Simple.

But she refuses to do so. And that action speaks volumes. When a suspect refuses to present evidence that could either clear or convict herself, there's no logical reason to believe that she's innocent.

The power is all in Paula's hands, and she continues to hide evidence. What other conclusion can we possibly reach?

^ And this. This gets really telling when contrasting her earlier pro-transparency statements with her recent anti-transparency statements.

cleans wrote:

I still consider Paula to be the GOAT.

Let's say she did take PEDS or avail of ABT's, and it gave her 2.5 minutes extra (arbitrary number).

Without that advantage, she would still be the world record holder and ahead of all other women, including dopers.

So she's the GOAT.

You are most likely correct (I've assumed the same at the beginning of this thread), but she could also have been a particularly good responder to e.g. EPO.

And this. Well put! I bolded the most telling parts.

Also, as pointed out before, after 2005 Paula never performed even close to her 2003 level. Also quite telling in the context of the improved EPO tests.

Wait, there's more; I'll need to respond to larkimm. ;-)

True, and without here doping, it is even more difficult if not outright impossible to explain.

Not anymore. Discussed several times in this thread, and repeated by rjm today: ABP and improved EPO tests stopped a reproduction, the latter beginning in 2004/5.

Indeed. Note that many of these phenomena were drug cheats, if not all of them (unknown at this point), and she is the most outstanding one of them all. Statistics and history are against her being clean.

On top of that, again as discussed before, her youth and early career did not point to any extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime talent, although she went into athletics at age 8. Yeah I know, still great, but far from an once-in-a-lifetime talent.

Best results of her earlier adult career on the world level:

1995, age 21: 4th in WC over 5000 m

1996, age 22: 5th in Olympics over 5000 m

1997, age 23: 4th in WC over 5000 m

1999, age 25: 2nd in WC over 10000 m

2000, age 26: 4th in Olympics over 10000 m

If you compare that to the successes of e.g., Tergat or Haile or Bekele, who never had such an outstanding world record, i.e. are not quite such a talent as you claim Paula to be, it looks rather weak.

And then what? At age 27, she starts to kick butt like crazy (like Baumann and Farah and no one else I think), improved everywhere from 5000 to the marathon, and then goes rapidly backwards with the new enhanced EPO test starting in 2004/5.

Add to that her inconsistent stories, her newly-found aversion to transparency, and an IAAF document full of questionable comments as discussed ad infinitum here. This includes:

- them preferring her claim of 29 C over the weather reports of 21 - 24 C

- them preferring her claim of having being tested right after the race over the witnesses' reports of a 60 - 90 minutes delay

- them not mentioning the increase in Hb of 3.6 g/dL within two days

- them ignoring that the huge increase of 1.9 g/dL to 16.2 g/dL "due to altitude" never happened to Paula before, and was accompanied by a normal ret-% in contrast to their own references.

For more details refer to the first 40 - 60 pages of this thread - dinner is ready. Too bad, now I can't go into Saugy and Healing Hans and Nike and Albuquerque. I leave that for another time, or for cleans or rjm.

What do I make of it? These contradictory facts would force me to re-evaluate my faith in EPO for the marathon.Let's add one more fact: all of Paula's blood samples before Chicago 2002 and London 2003, where she set two world records, did not exceed the Sunday Times threshold of publication. If she was doping, it was in quantities so small, her off-score never exceeded the sea-level threshold of suspicion.Fact: Paula set two world records 2:17 and 2:15, with normal blood levels, that wouldn't even raise a yellow flag with today's ABP.Fact: Shobukhova could only surpass Ndereba's 2001 world record with near death blood levels.I'm not finding a very strong argument that EPO or blood doping was a significant contributing factor in Paula's world record times.You'd think if EPO worked, someone else in the pre-ABP era from 2001 until 2009 could have at least beaten Nderaba's 2001 world record.But in the good old pre-ABP days, where EPO and blood transfusions were undetectable, since Nderaba, no other woman even broke 2:19.

Russians are Clean! wrote:

What do you make of the fact that a supposedly doped-up Shobukhova, in the prime of her marathon years and supposedly supported by the entire Russian doping machine, could only come within 3 minutes of Paula's record?

...

That is not a fact because the leaked database was incomplete; so incomplete that the WADA IC claimed that Ashenden and Parisotto might not have had enough data to establish a proper baseline (see their report part 2).

Not true. Even if the database were complete: She could have used blood transfusion to bump Hb + EPO to bump Hb a bit more, thereby keeping the ret-% up, e.g. getting Hb = 16 g/dl and ret-% = 1.1 for an off-score of 97. But we know the database was incomplete, so you don't have any argument about her 2:15/2:17 blood data. In fact, as just repeated here two days ago, she promised to make those data public a while ago, but - coincidentally, lol - decided against it.

Why? Paula was the best, and Nderaba the second best in that dirty era, which ended with respect to EPO sometime around 2004/5.

You'd think if EPO didn't work or if Paula was clean, that her world record wouldn't last more than a few years, or at the very least people would come close to it some 10 - 15 years later...

Obviously it is much easier to understand why a world record lasted two (dirty) years than why it lasted twelve years!

rekrunner wrote:

Fact: Paula set two world records 2:17 and 2:15, with normal blood levels,

...

[/quote]

Unless you have access to all of PR's blood levels, this is only your personal assumption. You do not know whether or not this is a fact.

A quote from the Guardian article:

Pound’s comments were supported by the women’s world-record holder for the marathon, Paula Radcliffe, who said she remains “very suspicious” of Russian claims it has solved its doping problems.

And many people also remain "very suspicious" of similar claims by Paula Radcliffe.

Oh boy.

This page, page 102 of the thread, should be bookmarked and stickied to the top of the forum as a clear and concise synopsis of why Paula Radcliffe is a doper and cheater.

Does she ever stop yapping?

And let's not forget that the possible use of IV saline infusions or the use of plasma volume expanders can dilute the "actual" hemoglobin value for the blood test. So an "actual" hemoglobin value of 17.0 g/dl after an autologous blood transfusion of RBCs could be diluted down to a value of 15.6 g/dl for the blood test. These methods and other methods have been known by cycling doctors and some "other" doctors with knowledge in this area of medicine for over 30 years.

There have been "members of professional cycling teams" that have also used artificial blood substitutes such as PFBOCs.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1306272/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute