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

Could Paula have gone even faster than 2.15?

Some reckon so:

"Three weeks before the Games in Athens, Radcliffe was considered a virtual shoo-in for marathon gold. Preparation had gone perfectly and, according to her long-time physical therapist Gerard Hartmann, Radcliffe was “about a minute and a half better than when she ran 2:15:25.” That’s not a wild stab in the dark, but an assessment based on cold, hard data."

2.13 would have been awesome!

2005 seems to have been a watershed. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think she ever broke 2.20 after that.

Could Paula have gone even faster than 2.15?

Some reckon so:

"Three weeks before the Games in Athens, Radcliffe was considered a virtual shoo-in for marathon gold. Preparation had gone perfectly and, according to her long-time physical therapist Gerard Hartmann, Radcliffe was “about a minute and a half better than when she ran 2:15:25.” That’s not a wild stab in the dark, but an assessment based on cold, hard data."

2.13 would have been awesome!

2005 seems to have been a watershed. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think she ever broke 2.20 after that.

How much could an autologous blood transfusion help performance?

Let's go back to good old 1987 and a study showing an average 5.9% performance increase after a 1350ml autologous blood transfusion in cross-country skiers:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3623787

And recent work looking at specific methods of detection of autologous blood transfusions. Some other recent research is looking at proteome differences in RBC cell membrane and cytoskeleton in old vs new RBCs as a method of detection:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22890272

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22119492

I think you don't know what "bias" means, or "cover-up". Supporting an opposite conclusion does not constitute bias, assuming you don't mean something like a "bias for truth", or "bias for reason". Refraining from commenting on something outside your mandate is not "cover-up". It is not a responsibility of WADA, or the WADA IC, to settle the matter on Coe's statements (especially those made during an election campaign).I think I responded to all of your comments at least one of the many times you posted them. In any case,- Coe was not attacking but defending, against many statements and accusations of complacency, which we have seen were unwarranted.- The WADA IC said "to my knowledge, no one has questioned the scientific credentials ..." It leaves open the possibility that Coe's "so-called expert" comment, assuming this could be interpreted as a question of "credentials", was not part of the committee's knowledge. None of the committee were British, so were likely not following the story as told by UK journalists. It's not even clear that Coe was interviewed by the committee during the preparation of the report, given that he was not a central figure in the allegations of the Sunday Times being investigated. A search on the report for Coe reveals very little that is interesting.- In any case, Coe did not attack the "scientific credentials" of Ashenden. Ashenden had the credentials, applied a proper methodology, but on data he should have known could vary widely, for the many reasons in many papers he wrote, not to mention missing supplemental documentation necessary to interpret the data. What kind of "expert" with unquestioned scientific credentials, would knowingly allow such misleading conclusions to be published with his name behind it?- I still never got a sense that Seppelt has penetrated any "inner circle" and given us any worthy concrete information to match the level of his allegations and insinuations.- WADA called the Sunday Times journalism irresponsible. It was.- The WADA IC observed that what Ashenden wrote, and what he said later, differed greatly, but that it was not up to the WADA IC to reconcile these differences.

casual obsever wrote:

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P.S. It's getting boring to jump through your hoops, rekrunner. As a last example for WADAs bias, pointed out here for the fourth time, look at how Coe attacked not only Seppelt, but also Ashenden's reputation, later than covered up by the WADA IC - also pointed out here in this thread a few times without response from you and larkimm...

cleans wrote:

Could Paula have gone even faster than 2.15?

Some reckon so:

"Three weeks before the Games in Athens, Radcliffe was considered a virtual shoo-in for marathon gold. Preparation had gone perfectly and, according to her long-time physical therapist Gerard Hartmann, Radcliffe was “about a minute and a half better than when she ran 2:15:25.” That’s not a wild stab in the dark, but an assessment based on cold, hard data."

2.13 would have been awesome!

2005 seems to have been a watershed. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think she ever broke 2.20 after that.

Hartmann, lol. So that would be a 2:12 in Berlin then. He has a history of making her even more suspicious, if that's possible. Remember also that he said that she never dehydrated...

As for 2005, after that - coinciding with the better EPO testing - she never ran under 2:23 again, as far as I recall. Another coincidence, or was she simply a superior responder to EPO?

You mean experts not tainted by IAAF, UKAD, and WADA? How many are left?Keep in mind that Paula was not considered a suspect by these organisations -- the only ones charged with policing here, but only by the Sunday Times doing their own amateur analysis, and a doubting minority of the public burned too many times by the likes of Armstrong. Ashenden/Parisotto didn't want to name names, but their open letter comments were clearly directed at the more excessive "red" "likely doping" athletes, and not the "yellow", "suspicious -- requires further investigation" category athletes (a distinction the Sunday Times misleadingly blurred, with a last minute " ...or at the very least, abnormal" clause).Many experts have seen the complete IAAF data, including the supplementary data points, and documentation package that the Sunday Times/ARD/Ashenden/Parisotto lacked. They all say the same thing: unreliable data, altitude influenced, and plasma concentrated, duly followed up -- no case to answer.After the WADA report part 2, the Paula angle died, even for the UK press, who turned their pens towards Coe. It's only a few here who cling to theories of lack of independence, and cronyism that say this story still isn't closed.Here's an interesting analysis about why you shouldn't draw the conclusions you want from a reluctance of making private data public:http://www.dailyprogress.com/starexponent/opinion/reader-s-views-you-have-nothing-to-fear-if-you/article_b87cbc7a-dbe2-11e2-9c58-001a4bcf6878.html

Boaty McBoatface wrote:

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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?

Fair enough. "Paula set two world records, without any known evidence of EPO or blood doping".We have seen broad evidence even her highest levels of 15.6 and 16.1 are considered by many experts and organisations in the "normal" range, for women at sea level.Keep in mind this in the context of EPO being the only, the best, or even a good, explanation for her world record performance. The unexplained facts are:- No data exists, even counting her "suspicious" values, that Paula ever EPO or blood doped at high enough levels that would exceed what can be achieved with altitude training.- No one else in the history of female marathons, was able to break 2:18; only one women during the EPO hey-days (before the ABP), broke 2:19.EPO or blood transfusions doesn't seem to have been a big factor in any women's marathon time below 2:20, and to say otherwise is "baseless".

preciously jaded wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

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

...

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.

Thanks, rekrunner. The data proves it is very definitive that Radcliffe doped.

I just hope she comes clean before her colleagues rat her out and turn her in. She is being given several chances to come clean with her story, but her cover-up is destroying her health and sanity.

I would not be surprised if Radcliffe doesn't make it to 60 years old. The truth will come out, one way or another.

'Til this day, I love how the sport works and how the running gods proved against her in Athens. She was warned of her blood results, the stress of her being found out caught up to her, and she lay there on the streets of Athens in tears. She really thought she would be exposed that day, and in a way, she was.

No Olympic Gold for Radcliffe, thus a commentator on the BBC for life and not living a life of luxury with her family at home.

rekrunner wrote:

You mean experts not tainted by IAAF, UKAD, and WADA? How many are left?

Many experts have seen the complete IAAF data, including the supplementary data points, and documentation package that the Sunday Times/ARD/Ashenden/Parisotto lacked. They all say the same thing: unreliable data, altitude influenced, and plasma concentrated, duly followed up -- no case to answer.

Many experts? Why do you keep saying that? Which experts? We've only heard of Saugy.

Another funny thing here is that her baseline ("the supplementary data points") never gets mentioned by IAAF or WADA; with her normal 14.0 - 14.5 g/dl, these three points look more damning, in particular the last one.

Also remember that the first expert consulted by IAAF in 2012 did not believe her explanation for her Hb > 16 g/dl with normal ret-%, thereby triggering the 3-person-panel process. And then yes, 1 or 2 of the added one found her explanations plausible for whatever reason. In contrast to other cases, the actual arguments, and names of the three experts, were and still are kept secret.

It's still a fact that the Sunday Times published no Chicago 2002 or London 2003 values. It seems likely that the pre-October 2003 values in the database did not raise suspicion, or else the Sunday Times would have published them.But in response that data for EPO doesn't exist, now your faith in EPO for the elite times in the marathon relies on data points that might exist, but not in the leaked database, or a calculation that even "normal" values are always possible with a doping scenario.Given the tools of EPO, blood transfusions, and IVs, it is always possible to create a doping scenario where these tools can explain any set of numbers, and still cling to an idea that athletes are doping, but masking it. It is this possibility that keeps doping conspiracies alive, and also renders your "hypothetical" calculations meaningless.The next boring hoop for you, is using your EPO hey-day and EPO testing theory now to explain the exact opposite profile of the men.During the EPO wonder years, ending for you around 2004/2005, the men did nothing interesting.But after an improved EPO test in 2005, no less than 29 men ran faster than Tergat's 2:04:55After the ABP, no less than 8 men ran faster than Gebreselassie's 2:03:58.None of these men were caught using EPO.How are so many men able to run up to 2 minutes faster than the dirty-EPO era, while the women find themselves so much constrained by better testing, that only a handful (only 4, with or without doping) can barely match the 2001 world record, and then only after the more stringent ABP was in place, when athletes were forced to micro-dose EPO and Testosterone.Help me make sense from what looks like nonsense.

rekrunner wrote:

It's still a fact that the Sunday Times published no Chicago 2002 or London 2003 values. It seems likely that the pre-October 2003 values in the database did not raise suspicion, or else the Sunday Times would have published them.

You continue to ignore that both IAAF and the WADA IC reported that the database, as leaked to the Sunday Times, was very incomplete.

Thus it is a fact that Paula could have had an off-score of 150 in Chicago 2012 and 175 in London 2013. Speculation, yes, but a more likely one than your speculation that her values did not raise suspicion.

Here is a hoop for you: how can your theory

i) that all female marathoners from 2001 - 2016 (and most likely beyond that) were as clean as Paula (or even dirtier), but much slower

be more likely than the theory

ii) that only all female marathoners from 2001 - 2004 were (almost?) as dirty as Paula, but much slower?

It's statements like that that reveal you being a troll.

How can the men's marathon world record progression puzzle be explained?

1) All sub-2:04 marathoners in history, except for Stanley Biwott, have managers from the Netherlands.

2) It is also very likely that if Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, and Eliud Kipchoge had attacked the marathon world record earlier in their running careers... that one or all of them could have run faster than the current 2:02:57 world record many years ago…and we would now be having a discussion about why there has not been any progression in the men's marathon world record for so many years.

OK?

noone cares about doping. russia will be backat the olympics. african nations dont have any controls to speak of. asian nations do doping by state founded coaches and in europe and us the controls still suck too hard to get any intelligent person

Could Rekrunner give us an example of any other athlete in History who is so far over the horizon in terms of being literally a mile ahead of the rest of the world? Or is Paula so special that she is a 'one off', a planet with almost 10 billion people does not throw up these kind of outliers, take a look at the history of athletics, any such performances have always proven to be aided.

Also regarding men's marathon WR progression:

3) There is also a reliable report that Bekele has already done a "hard tempo" marathon run in 1:57 in training.

This report came from a poster named…Expect great things.

I wasn't thinking about Martial Saugy.The IAAF has an anti-doping organization with their own expertise to evaluate the data.They evaluated the data at the time, in 2003 (did not violate existing thresholds), 2005 (did not violate existing thresholds), and 2012 (routine open and shut case).After the Sunday Times allegations, they re-confirmed their historical actions, which the WADA IC upheld.UKAD is an antidoping organization with their own expertise to evaluate the data.The IAAF shared their data with the UKAD, and the UKAD concluded: "there is no case to answer" ;"The data does not provide any evidence that any anti-doping rule violation proceedings should be brought."The WADA IC also engaged WADA experts to evaluate the data.The IAAF shared their COMPLETE data, up to 2015, with the WADA IC, who upheld the IAAF.Your point about a 14.0-14.5 baseline seems to be something you've convinced yourself is both accurate and important. I think there is a good reason that the IAAF and WADA have never mentioned it.The 2012 value seems to be a routine open and shut case. A sample is flagged as requiring further investigation, and the further investigation reveals that a high altitude of several weeks at 2400m can cause these values (1.4g/dl increase for women), and the case is closed. This point was detailed by the IAAF, above and beyond what is normally required or permitted. That actual arguments, and the names of the experts are secret is the universal status-quo for all athletes and all sports. Tabloid journalism is not a sufficient reason to make this private information public.All of these organizations, with their experts, are in complete agreement with the Ashenden who wrote the papers.

oooh do come on wrote:

Could Rekrunner give us an example of any other athlete in History who is so far over the horizon in terms of being literally a mile ahead of the rest of the world? Or is Paula so special that she is a 'one off', a planet with almost 10 billion people does not throw up these kind of outliers, take a look at the history of athletics, any such performances have always proven to be aided.

Well, Paula's progression stands against that. See previous page; until age 26, her success was comparable, arguably below, Rupp's at the same age. Now imagine Rupp running a 1:59 soon, while at the same improving his 5000 m PR by 15 seconds.

2003: formally correct, but this ignores the 3.6 g/dl increase within 2 - 3 days. Tucker for example couldn't explain a 2.8 increase, and in the meantime we learned it was 3.6. You for example explained it with extreme dyhdration and extreme machine error/bias + typo, all of which coincidentally in Paula's favor. The IAAF chose not to mention that, to nobody's surprise.

2005: formally correct (because the threshold then was even lower than now).

2012: incorrect. You might have missed this discussion from about two weeks ago.

Look up the rules, if (lol) you don't believe me. In such a case, IAAF is supposed to consult with one expert, who will then decide whether or not the athlete's arguments are plausible. If this expert agreed with Paula, it would have been a "routine open and shut case". As you recall, this expert did not agree, thereby necessitating the addition of two more experts to form the three-people committee deliberating the case. Unfortunately for anti-dopers, fortunately for Paula, one dissenting expert is enough to dismiss the case. Case dismissed, yes, but evidently ever so barely.

Indeed there is a good reason. Tee hee.

On the other side, IAAF and WADA criticized Ashenden for evaluating the data with access to only an incomplete data base, i.e. a possibly poorly established baseline. I consider it quite telling that then both IAAF and WADA decided to not look at Paula's baseline in their investigation. Coincidentally Paula chose - against her earlier announcement - to not reveal her baseline, but alas it is mentioned several times in contemporary reports as well as her bio. So yes, it is accurate and important.

Evidently not, or the first expert consulted would have concluded that too.

Why not, one wonders? Well because

a) it is an unprecedented 1.7 - 2.2 g/dl increase from her normal values,

b) the ret-% was in the normal range but is expected to be well below that after an altitude-triggered increase in Hb,

c) we know Paula normally has a ret-% well below normal after altitude,

d) we know that Paula reached "only" 15.6 g/dl after altitude + dehydration.

So yes, again if one considers previous values, this 2012 one is even more damning than as a stand-alone. Weird, isn't it, that neither IAAF nor WADA included Paula's past in their argumentations. In fact, that is against their own guidelines. Surprise surprise.

I think my argument for 100+ pages is that the published data doesn't support your doping conclusion. You seem to confirm this by appealing to data that might possibly exist, but is maliciously kept secret from the public.The WADA IC had both the incomplete "leaked" database, up to 2012, and the COMPLETE IAAF database, up to 2015. That's how they know the "leaked" database was incomplete.I don't share your faith that the WADA IC would have overlooked off-scores of 150 and 175, and nothing beforehand would suggest such large, post-2012 off-scores.I noticed you ignored the opposite case of the men's marathon, which seems to completely contradict your "EPO heyday" explanation (although rjm33 stepped in to help you with his Dutch-conspiracy angle).My theory suggests:1) There are more clean runners that can run, as fast or faster than Nderaba, and even Paula, under the same conditions.2) All of their races have been slow races for many reasons unique to the women's marathon.3) Paula ran fast thanks to male escorts, and favorable race day conditions -- something rarely duplicated for other women, before or since Paula's world records4) Clean or dirty is a separate issue. EPO and blood transfusions and steroids do not target what limits elite athlete performance in the marathon. Dirty might even cause worse performance, by giving a false sense of security.5) For drug response, the marathon cannot be compared to cycling, cross-country skiing, or the 5K.