NY Times Article on Nike Oregon Project implicates Ritz and Farah

Good Run Gum wrote:

MurphMurph wrote:

Or maybe all these people that continue to join the team (Jenkins, Sifan recently, maybe Murphy and Chez this Summer) are actually good people and know things that we don't know? There is no way people would continue to go there if they believed the things that are talked about on here. And if you believe the stuff on here then that is a bad group of people. I know one and can say from the bottom of my heart they would never have stayed all these years if this stuff was true.

People are saying that a method, is a drug, that a protein is a drug.

IMS, they eventually concluded L-C., didn't work, and discontinued it.[/b{

Then why is the TOTAL amount of IV fluid has a limit of 50ml according to USADA? If it's just plain ole fluids we're talking about such as normal saline then they can drink water and add a little salt to it. There has to be more to just limiting 50ml of IV fluids....

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand this rule.

If my memory serves that rule is to prevent attempt to use IV drips to mask true doping.

doctorj wrote:

FYI, none of the ACTIVE us postal SERVICE RECORD EVER TESTED POSITIVE FOR DOPING (except Floyd Landis who was NOT a part of US Postal services when he was popped, but his sworn statements proved damaging to Lance et.al) . I am sure you already know the results.

And yet several US postal riders, not just Lance, suddenly became top ten grand tour contenders. Sounds eerily familiar to the US winning medals in the 800, 1500(2) Steeple(2), 5000, marathon in 2016? You guys are fools if you think that the only American athletes breaking the rules and taking advantage of stealth technology are cyclists and NOP members.

Thrump wrote:

And yet several US postal riders, not just Lance, suddenly became top ten grand tour contenders. Sounds eerily familiar to the US winning medals in the 800, 1500(2) Steeple(2), 5000, marathon in 2016? You guys are fools if you think that the only American athletes breaking the rules and taking advantage of stealth technology are cyclists and NOP members.

+1

So where are we now? Last time the fanbois claimed that Salazar only doped Magness, and pretended that was ok because Magness - though competing in turkey trots - was not a professional runner.

Now we learned that Ritz and Tara were doped too, and likely Rupp, who evidently lied about his injections (of still unknown volumes). Fanbois are getting a bit quieter, and start claiming that Salazar did not use EPO (without evidence), i.e. may not be as bad as others.

So, why is there no action from USADA?

- they are still trying to get more evidence, to get bigger fish than Ritz and Tara

or

- they are protecting their own, in order to not damage our reputation

Note that we only know about Ritz because of the hackers...

It seems that the most serious part of all this is the FBI investigation. Marion Jones went down for perjury, correct? There appears to be some evidence of falsified records and lying under oath. On the USADA front, no banned substances appear to have been used, but rules seem to have been violated. This probably won't end well for those involved.

The FBI is involved because of Salazar's personal, special pharmacy.

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/march/pharmacy_030309

So, I just got around to reading the Ken Goe articles which the Brojos linked to on the front page.

In that article, Ken Goe says that the USADA appeal to the Texas Medical Board was unsuccessful.

I am not sure how he knows that this was unsuccessful (as opposed to possibly just not yet being successful).

I have asked him. Will see if I get a response.

888990 wrote:

It seems that the most serious part of all this is the FBI investigation. Marion Jones went down for perjury, correct? There appears to be some evidence of falsified records and lying under oath. On the USADA front, no banned substances appear to have been used, but rules seem to have been violated. This probably won't end well for those involved.

I still don't know how much credence to give the story of FBI involvement. I'd likely weight it stronger if it had more than one outlet that had reported it.

Still not 100% sure what they would be investigating. I guess prescription drug abuses. That still seems like a pretty flimsy case for federal involvement to me.

I could be wrong.

Correction posted by the NYT on May 20."An earlier version of this article misstated Tara Welling’s response to an interview request. Welling answered questions via email; she did not decline an interview request. The article also misstated the way Ms. Welling delivered her responses. She responded via email; she did not make a statement through her husband. The article also misstated the conditions of her testimony to the antidoping agency; she was not under oath."

soggyrolls wrote:

Tara welling doesnt seem like the brightest lightbulb

1. This all sounds like a person getting over-excited by a vitamin not on the banned list but then realizing it was worth nothing, which is why it's not banned to begin with. It's not clear if they did the drop wrong.

2. I don't follow the abused athletes and coaches theme. Some people portray this as if athletes or coaches who had no choice. This would be more convincing if these were college kids faced with either trying something or losing a scholarship. In this case, these are adults. They are college graduates most of whom probably have no student loan debt and were NCAA champs or very high caliber runners. Some trained with other top pro coaches before and/ or after and made Olympic teams. All of them have the ability to say no and go to another coach and keep getting paid. It seems odd for some of themto act like a victim after going along with this. It sounds like they knew t was borderline and said Ok. Later, often after they stop being paid by Nike, they make all these statements.

This all sounds like a silly pursuit followed by self preservation.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

So, I just got around to reading the Ken Goe articles which the Brojos linked to on the front page.

In that article, Ken Goe says that the USADA appeal to the Texas Medical Board was unsuccessful.

I am not sure how he knows that this was unsuccessful (as opposed to possibly just not yet being successful).

I have asked him. Will see if I get a response.

Goe is a Nike insider. He will print whatever makes the company come across in a good light.

The Ritz statements to USADA were made in 2015 while he was still a Nike athlete. No sour grapes here.

If Murphy goes there, I'll never cheer for him again. #GoBoris

casual obsever wrote:

So, why is there no action from USADA?

- they are still trying to get more evidence, to get bigger fish than Ritz and Tara

or

- they are protecting their own, in order to not damage our reputation

The second seems unlikely. After all, this memo was written to convince the Texas Medical Board to give Dr. Brown's records to the USADA. The only reason to go after Dr. Brown is to expose his high profile clients.

Here's another possibility: USADA has not gone after Ritz or Welling because it worries that the evidence that these infusions broke the rules won't hold up, especially on appeal. It is not unheard of for prosecutors to exaggerate the strength of their case, especially to third parties such as the Texas Medical Board. After all, these are the same guys who argued last year that they were entitled to depose Dr. Brown under Texas Rule 202. Their briefs made their approach seem obvious, but their claims were rejected out of hand by the Texas Court.

I agree with the first point, but not the second. Once one signs a contract, signs other endorsement deals, moves one's family (including children, say), etc., the matter becomes more complicated.But what strikes me most is that L-c does not appear to be a PDF no matter how much of it or how it is consumed. I'm I wrong about this.And about the issue of strict liability that I brought up earlier in the thread--if a trucking firm is transporting "ultra-hazardous" materials and through no fault whatsover of the firm or the firm's employees there is an accident and these materials are released causing injuries or property damage, the firm should still be found liable for those damages: that's strict liability. However, if a runner consumes a PED and tests positive, while that runner is prima facie at fault--that is, there is an assumption of guilt--nevertheless, if the runner can demonstrate that, for example, another runner or country tampered with the runner's food or liquids without that runner's knowledge, then the runner would not be guilty of violating any PEDs policy.

PDF--good heavens, what an idiot I am. PED!!! I'm doing too much work.

Montesquieu wrote:

And about the issue of strict liability that I brought up earlier in the thread--if a trucking firm is transporting "ultra-hazardous" materials and through no fault whatsover of the firm or the firm's employees there is an accident and these materials are released causing injuries or property damage, the firm should still be found liable for those damages: that's strict liability. However, if a runner consumes a PED and tests positive, while that runner is prima facie at fault--that is, there is an assumption of guilt--nevertheless, if the runner can demonstrate that, for example, another runner or country tampered with the runner's food or liquids without that runner's knowledge, then the runner would not be guilty of violating any PEDs policy.

Do you have language from the code or decisions from WADA or CAS that would support this contention?

If what you are saying is true, it seems maybe the appropriate legal language would be that a positive sample carries a rebuttal presupposition that the athlete is guilty.

OlddPollarBear wrote:

Just curious, is there any real (peer reviewed, random clinical trial) science that any of Salazar's dyi doping is actually effective?

crickets...

5 years into a USADA investigation with the help of the FBI. We have gone from accusing NOP of giving testosterone to a 16 yr old kid to now trying to prove they took more that 50ml of an amino acid...meanwhile the NOP continues to win and athletes continue to join the team. Either they are paying off USADA/FBI or we might have to come to grips with the fact that they just aren't cheating...