LRC “interviews” Shelby about burrito defense and doping

I'm only confused by your mental gymnastics attributing things to me I never said. I did accuse the Mexican food truck owners of seeming to have responded to the best of their ability, based on statements from Houlihan like "she will try and help out with what she can" and "(the wife) was helpful". According to Houlihan, the owners provided a statement and invoices and the names of companies and answered all of the questions.

As I haven't seen these statements or questions or answers, I cannot assume that the scope of the PI's questions included asking for complete ingredient lists. No party spoke of receiving a complete ingredient list. Houlihan didn't write about it in her timeline. The CAS never mentioned such a list in their report.

Of course, assuming Houlihan's timeline is accurate, I would be right about the 7 days and the 14 day requested extension, which was denied on the 8th day, and I did also mention the (non-commital) possibility of supplementing the explanation. They submitted their first response on the 11th day.

On Feb. 18th and 19th, the PI ran into a dead-end as "The office manager was not aware if the pork meat he receives are from castrated or intact pigs. He stated the only way to know this was probably to communicate with the meatpacking facility where the meats are cut and packaged. He did not know where these were located. He said that where the animals are actually slaughtered can be almost anywhere." and "the food truck owner had no label or box from the meat used in December that would have allowed us to trace it back to a specific processing plant. It now seems nearly impossible that we would be able to track down whether the burrito contained meat from an intact pig."

On Feb. 19th, they filed a second submission, and it appears that that is where this line of investigation ended, likely due to the dead-end of not being able to track pork ingredients back to the slaughterhouse. Houlihan never wrote about the PI or the food truck owners after this date.

What is fact is that the claim to the AIU was "a burrito containing pork offal", and the "expert witnesses" provided an incomplete rebuttal to this claim, and nothing documents the evolution of any reductions to this claim. Even lacking a complete ingredient list, the "expert witnesses" failed to address "fat" and any offal in "chorizo (pork sausage)" in their rebuttals.

She did eat a boar burrito! fǔck!

*DIDN'T! double fǔck

The confirmed presence of nandrolone in her urine wasn't an "idea". Your desire to believe nonsense is without limit.

The next question is, do you have any "ideas" what that might mean?

The CAS report uses the word "presumed" and "presumption" no less than 14 times, where the CAS explictly expressed at least 5 unique presumptions in the WADA Code favoring anti-doping organizations over the accused athlete (whether innocent or guilty), that are necessary to "find" an ADRV, and "deem" it intentional. In addition, there are at least a half dozen presumptions and assumptions on the part of the WA/AIU and its "expert witnesses".

My desire is to believe ideas that have been proven, rather than gullibly believing ideas by substituting proofs with presumptions and invalid or unproven assumptions.

Lol. If you say so.

All we really *know*, from Shelby's and witnesses' statements, is that she ordered a beef burrito, and she ate an uncharacteristically greasy burrito from a food truck that serves greasy pork burritos containing pork offal.

typo, you saw that.

All we really know is she said and her friends said she ate a greasy burrito, and she had a banned ped in her body.

Oh what mental gymnastics to defend your undefendable nonsense. Now you claim that the PI didn't ask for all pork ingredients??? Hahahaha.

And again, you are also wrong about the 7, 10, or 14 days time limit for the list. Ironically you yourself are admitting that with your statement that they submitted the list on Feb 19, well over 4 weeks after being notified about the positive test.

And yes, since they obtained the complete list mid February, they never attempted to augment it later (although that had a couple of months to do so). Logic 101.

Last but not least, you continue to ignore that even the ardent Houlihan defender JG just confirmed, right after talking to Houlihan, that it was stomach offal.

Almost. You still need to factor in the size difference (300 - 400 g versus 2/3 of 140 g) and excretion profile: for these smaller amounts, the maximum was reached well before Houlihan's alleged 10 hours (such as 4 hours for the 2.4 ng/ml). And the maturity difference of 3 year old pigs versus 6 - 8 months. So basically, that stomach offal would have to be some 10x as active as the most active regular meat.

And actually it doesn't have to be a speculation. Everyone can invest $1500 for 3 tests and compare how metabolically active the stomach muscle is compared to kidney and butt (castrated or not). In fact, Houlihan had the offal burrito (from January) tested, but never revealed details about its androgen levels other than the concession that no nandrolone was found.

Also considering how interested Houlihan is in her reputation, she could have gotten all these analyses and more done even after the CAS verdict. It appears she didn't because a) they already learned enough (all negative) from their first test and b) she never believed in the burrito excuse.

This is all quite poorly written, yes.

Even this one here:

"The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis, since the varying diets of migrating wild boars lead to dissimilar d13C values which may range between -15 ‰ and -25 ‰ [9]."

lets people wonder, apparently, whether or not GC/C/IRMS may be used in case of farm-fed boar. CAS decided in a 2 : 1 vote that it may, because the reason for "may not" was given as "
the varying diets of migrating wild boars".

If the other opinion would prevail, it would essentially let all nandrolone dopers get off free, as long as they were under < 10 ng/ml at testing time (because you can't run a useful PK test - the only other mentioned method - weeks or even days after the 1st positive test anymore) and claim to have eaten pork.

CAS:

That sounds logical to me, but there was a dissenting voice on the CAS panel (someone on the panel also disagreed that the 2nd opinion was optional despite the rather clear wording in the TD, see 83 of CAS report (" "if" one is obtained")).

That too could easily be clarified by WADA, either by rephrasing it to:

If wild boar is claimed, the origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis, since the varying diets of migrating wild boars...

OR

If any source of pork is claimed, the origin of the urinary 19-NA cannot be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis

You conveniently left out that the 130ng/ml measurement was 8-1/2 hours after ingestion. There is no evidence that the pig in question was 6 - 8 months old exactly. That's just part of the prosecution speculation. With COVID delays, the pig could have been much older. In addition, the lower 19-NA levels in younger pigs also comes from prosecution speculation. It may be true, but we don't know exactly how much lower. Finally, even the prosecution said that the amount of meat could have been 140-180 grams, but you happened to pick 140 grams in your post. That "10x" figure you threw out is based on selectively choosing data from Ayotte's study and more speculation.

No one can perform a legitimate scientific test in this case for $1,500. Looking at metabolic activity of the stomach muscle is worthless as it really doesn't tell us what we actually need to know about pig stomach from uncastrated boar -- how much nandrolone metabolite can it contain and how much can urinary 19-NA increase upon ingestion. Even WADA wouldn't conduct such a worthless study.

Houlihan didn't nandrolone metabolites in the offal burrito because she tested for it months later and not every pig is an uncastrated boar. Brad Johnson found nandrolone metabolites in one uncastrated boar when looking at a small number of retail pork meat samples, but it was not found in every sample ... obviously.

That is about the extent of what is known -- the rest was presumed. Unfortunately we don't know the most important thing -- the source of the banned PED.

You are selectively quoting the nandrolone technical document. The full quote is as follows:
"Following consumption of the edible parts of non-castrated male pigs, concentrations of excreted 19-NA in urine are usually in the low ng/mL range (< 10 ng/mL), although higher concentrations have been exceptionally reported [3]. The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis, since the varying diets of migrating wild boars lead to dissimilar 13C values which may range between -15 ‰ and -25 ‰ [9]. Therefore, if the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs is invoked by an Athlete as the unlikely origin of a 19-NA finding, this may be established based on the pharmacokinetics of 19-NA excretion." [Emphasis added]

The very first sentence discusses "consumption of the edible parts of non-castrated male pigs." The last sentence refers to the athlete invoking this clause due to "the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs." The only place wild boar is mentioned is to describe one reason why the GC/C/IRMS test would be inaccurate. The clause was appropriately invoked by the athlete's team per this guidance and WADA ignored it and did not perform the pharmacokinetic tests. They could have done so and then argued that it was not wild boar, but that's not what they did.

As I said in my last post, the whole reason WADA added this note was described by them:

"Guidance to discriminate between oral consumption of natural sources of 19-NA and
injection of norsteroid preparations based on the pharmacokinetics of 19-NA excretion...."

Houlihan's team invoked this clause by claiming ingestion of edible parts of intact pigs just as the note stated and this note is guidance to discriminate between oral consumption of natural sources of 19-NA and injection of norsteroid preparations. Once the clause is invoked, the pharmacokinetic test should have been performed.

Any claim that the pharmacokinetic tests are discretionary means that it could be based on a coin flip or on whether or not the lab director hates you because your legal team exposed your false testimony in a previous hearing.

Yes, this clause could be abused by athletes, but as I said, I didn't write it and I didn't leave it active for 4 years even after a CAS arbiter voted with Houlihan in this part of the case.

Oh what a tangled web you weave, with all the things you need to believe. You imagine a complete list exists, and you imagine that all parties received a copy (but didn't talk about it), and you imagine that I stated this imagined list was submitted on Feb. 19?

I claimed I haven't seen the statements or questions or answers, and I wouldn't want to assume things not in evidence, e.g. the ingredient list you imagine exists. You want to blame the Mexican food truck owners for hiding information, but I cannot blame anyone without more information about what information was asked and what information was provided.

The "7 days" and the denial of "14 day extension" came straight from Houlihan. "Lloyd Flandis" also talked about "7 days", but he thought it was 6 months + 7 days. The WADA Results Management (ISRM) foresees an initial explanation after the A-Sample result, within a "short deadline", and a potential supplemental update after the B-Sample result, within a "short deadline". World Athletics Rules also say it is the AIU who will decide the time limit for the athlete explanation -- apparently the first explanation was due in 7 days, and the request for a 14-day extension for the first explanation was denied on the 8th day.

I'm not sure how you think JG confirmed "stomach offal". Houlihan admitted in the interview she didn't really understand the science, so JG talking to Houlihan doesn't seem to me to be quite the strong references you think they are. In any case, in the quote you provided, JG said "But Houlihan's team is arguing that it has some relevance because it shows that organs contain a much higher concentration than regular meat." This was a response to Prof. Ross Tucker speaking about "the possibility that eating other parts of a pig might cause high levels."

But, for the millionth time, a beef burrito doesn't transform into an uncasterated boar burrito just because her friends say it was greasy.

A million time zero is still zero.

But who says she ate a beef burrito? Were they there? The photos show that the beef burrito was not particularly greasy and the pork burritos were particularly greasy.

The TD should be updated to resolve these ambiguities about what the athlete burden is to "invoke pork" during WADA Lab testing, and how the WADA Lab should report the samples in that case. It should not be the WADA Lab, or the CAS, resolving the ambiguity on their own whims.

The CAS are not scientists, so their opinion on the relevance of "wild boars" versus "farmed pigs" is not particularly well informed or relevant.

But we do know the relevance of the varied diet, because the scientific experts told us that soy would produce these "depleted" CIR values, while corn would not. The "diet" of the intact boar was a debated point before the CAS, not the "wildness".

It is clear to any competent scientist that any measure cannot be considered reliable if it is potentially confounded. Here the "exogenous" source cannot be reasonably considered conclusive because 1) the CIR is in the endogenous range, and 2) pork consumption is a known confounder.

That's why it only makes sense for the WADA TD to say the origin may not be established by the GC/C/IRMS analysis, when both "endogenous" and "exogenous with pseudo-endogenous signature" can cause values "dissimilar" to Houlihan's reference compounds.

The CAS made a mistake by trying to decide this ambiguous scientific guidance on their own. They should have consulted WADA for the intent of the new explicit language rather than winging it, and they should rely on their own "neutral" experts, rather than giving more weight to the Director of the very lab being accused of departing from the WADA standards. The CAS relied on the relevance of the GC/C/IRMS interpretation without first establishing it is applicable.

Note that the AIU has the burden of establishing an ADRV occurred to the higher standard of "comfortable satisfaction" (more than "balance of probability" and less than "beyond reasonable doubt"). If an athlete produces less than 10 ng/ml in the endogenous range, and the explictily "endogenous" source of pork has been invoked, the athlete should not be charged with an ADRV because they AIU cannot meet this higher burden before eliminating this confounder to this higher standard.

Note also that if a female nandrolone doping athlete wants to dope as high as 15 ng/ml or even higher, they should take an oral contraceptive with Norethisterone -- this can never be reported as an AAF.

It is an irrelevant question. It doesn't f*cking matter where it came from, since it was in her body and she was unable to show legitimate cause.

Correct, we do know the most important thing: a ped was in her body. The source was some drug company.