We merged two threads on the same subject into 1 and kept the title of the 1st one posted. The 2nd thread title was, “Whether you believe me or not, I’m coming back,” Shelby says. “I’ve served the time.”
One last comment. Shelby was not a diligent athlete. I’ve known athletes going back decades who did not eat out even once during their competitive years. They literally would not put anything in their bodies if they didn’t know where it came from. No eating out. No eating over at friends’ houses. No eating at mom’s house. No eating any food they didn’t prepare themselves. No multi-vitamins even. That’s what diligence looks like. It’s the cost of doing business at the elite level. It’s what clean athletes do to ensure they remain clean. Shelby, on the other hand, is buying food from a taco cart off the street. She was not diligent in the slightest. She is deserving of no sympathy.
This seems like a huge personal sacrifice just to be on the right side of ever changing anti-doping regulations that athletes don't negotiate or thoroughly research through to all its implications, as a pre-condition to competing.
Although you are convinced about the diligence of these athletes you know, I still wonder how diligent your athletes were. Could your diligent athletes prove, with specific and concrete evidence, that they exclusively ate foods they prepared themselves, and never ate at their mom's or at their friend's, or ate out, if they had to? Because that is their burden. It's not enough just to be diligent, but you would have to be able to prove it in a "court".
Even preparing food at home requires buying it at a store or market, unless athletes grow their own crops and raise and feed and slaughter the animals themselves. Even then, athlete pig farmers who raise pigs but don't castrate them, while feeding them C3 plants, while they eat C4 plants, can still test "positive" with dissimilar CIR results. Did the athletes you know diligently research everything they bought at the store or market, back to the farms where crops were grown, and animals raised, including all that they ate, or that they were injected with, and obtain the same batch samples from all the labs where additives were manufactured, for all the labelled and non-labelled ingredients, before they ate it? After all "strict liability" means the athlete is responsible for all of that, and must be in a position to be able to prove all of that, when put on notice weeks or months after a "positive" test result. Where do we reasonably draw the line for the expected level of diligence for clean athletes who just want to compete in something they are good at?
Let's not forget that the primary goal of competition in sports for clean athletes is the competition. Runners just want to run, without all this overhead. Clean athletes have a lot on their plate just to be able to train, and avoid injuries, to maximize their fitness and compete at their maximum potential, to also be asked to diligently predict what hoops need to be jumped through to best avoid false convictions, and put themselves in a position to prove it, in a system that doesn't burden the accusers with proving ambiguous test results with known confounders are correctly interpreted as adverse findings or anti-doping rule violations.
And the primary goal of anti-doping is to protect clean athletes, not convict them, or turn them into hermits, or prevent them from eating USDA approved foods, or prevent them from receiving standard medical care for common ailments.
How diligent are athletes expected to be? Most athletes naively think it is enough not to intentionally dope, to avoid being accused of doping.
The lesson learned from Shelby's case is that diligent athletes should preserve samples of all things consumed, in order to be in a better position to prepare their specific and concrete defense and meet their burden of proving their innocence, which will still cost them 5-figures, a lengthy suspension while they prove their innocence, and still be penalized with one strike against them for their bad fortune. Even then, Asinga's case shows us that this still might not be enough, as anything that is opened might be suspected as adulterated by the athlete -- a suspicion that meets no legal standard.
How long should diligent athletes preserve their meals? The current statute of limitation is 10 years. Is it even possible to preserve food for that long, in order for retests to be valid?
I would appreciate some serious tangible responses from a seasoned civil litigator who has personal knoledge of diligent athletes for decades.
I’m mean, you’ve strayed into absurdities before but this is a whole new level, Mr Science. But that is your MO. Go to the extreme. Vomit up lengthy posts that say nothing. None of what you said is the “lesson learned from Shelby’s case.” The lesson is don’t dope.
Let me show you why your approach to testing (anti-doping agencies must prove intent) is ridiculous:
One day, an athlete and his girlfriend are in a hotel room when there is a knock on the door. Thinking it is the pizza delivery guy, Girlfriend runs to the door and throws it open. Instead, she finds an entire team of anti-doping agents here for an OOC doping tear. The team, which includes a guy recording everything, looks in and sees Athlete laying on the bed with a needle sticking out of his quad. On the nightstand is a vial of some liquid. The team runs in, grabs the needle, grabs the vial, and conducts urine and blood testing on Athlete. They take everything back to the lab and test it. A few weeks later, the results come in and show: 1. The needle contains trace amounts of PED; 2. The vial contains PED; and, 3. Both Athlete’s blood and urine samples contain amounts of PED far in excess of the legal limits, that directly match the amount of PED missing from the vial, and which could have been contained in the needle if full. The agents smile and think “We’ve got him!”
A few days after, the agents meet with Athlete and Girlfriend to present the results. They show all their cards and proudly proclaim “You’re busted! Prepare to be banned.” But just before they can bring down the hammer of justice, Athlete smiles and says, “I didn’t do it.” “Huh!” The agents cry together. Athlete then explains that two hours before the agents arrived, Girlfriend showed up at his hotel room with a needle and a vial of PED arguing that he needed to start taking it in order to be competitive. Athlete refused and the argument ended. Athlete then layed down on the bed and went to sleep. He awoke to the sound of the knocking on the door, and, before he knew it, the agents had rushed in. He then noticed the needle sticking out of his quad, which was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to the agents. Later, after the agents had left, Athlete asks Girlfriend about the needle and she admits that she had injected him with PED. Back at the hearing, as Athlete finishes the story, Girlfriend then testifies confirming everything Athlete has said. The agents are crestfallen. They can’t prove intent. Athlete walks free.
A few weeks later, Athlete competes at Diamond League Meet where he wins the 1,500m in 3:20: a six second WR and a 23 second PR. It’s an unbelievable run! Literally. The agents grab Athlete immediately after the race and test him, the results come back showing PED again in his system. Again they think they have him. Again he later testifies, and Girlfriend again confirms, that Girlfriend once again had injected him with the PED while he was asleep. Once again, the agents can’t prove intent. Once again, Athlete walks free. This pattern repeats itself six more times at the next six meets and seven more times out of competition during the season. Athlete is always found with PED, Girlfriend always admits she did it after an argument where Athlete says he doesn’t want it and then she goes ahead anyway when Athlete is asleep. And the agents can never produce evidence showing intent because they are never present when the events occur.
Now, there are only two possibilities here: either Athlete and Girlfriend are lying or they are telling the truth. In either event, Athlete has just completed the greatest track season in history while consistently testing positive for PED, which indisputably gave him an advantage in performance, one Athlete himself doesn’t deny. Under your system, Athlete is free to continue to compete. How is that fair to his competitors? How is that fair to the integrity of the sport? It’s absurd, just like your arguments.
What you do, what you always do, is take the one in a million scenario, beat it to death talking it up, beat it to death again because you are you, and then complain that because the current system doesn’t account for the one in a million scenario it must be unfair. Yet, your system would flip the odds so now doping bans become the one in a million scenario. You hide your absurdity in word counts, but that doesn’t change anything. Your approach is a joke. The current system is fair.
Ah, now you are finally admitting why you are trolling so hard about "other" ingredients. You had this completely baseless imagination that the ingredient list was not "exhaustive", but they did their best and were not nefarious. Got it. Therefore the experts were nefarious/corrupt/deceptive/.... because they only discussed the presented ingredient list. Got it.
Of course that ignores that the food truck owner got a heads up from the PI "what we were hoping to get from her" prior to the PI visiting her, and also that neither the PI nor Shelby nor the experienced lawyer ever claimed that the ingredient list was not exhaustive. But you are experienced in ignoring the most important facts.
And then you troll me again with your utter lack of knowledge of this case:
"You keep saying nonsense things like "the analysis of the offal did not show kidney or testicles". What analysis?" The analysis done on behalf of Shelby, naturally. Which other one was there?
And then you are trying to redefine the meaning of "offal". This is of course 100% irrelevant for this case. Relevant is only what pork ingredients, if any, were in the burrito Shelby ate.
"novel theory about corn availability" - is not novel, it's public knowledge. But yes, the expert's "concession" regarding the possibility of temporarily more soy was overly generous and baseless indeed.
You and the rest of our team had over four years to find evidence for any substantial deviations from the corn feeding pattern in summer/fall 2020 and couldn't.
You and the rest of our team had over four years to find evidence for any substantial omissions from the pork ingredient list and couldn't. But sure, blame the experts for not discussing that the pork ingredient list was incomplete. It's not like you have any credibility left to lose.
I didn't and don't admit to trolling. That is just predictable rhetoric coming from those who cannot do any better.
These accusations of baselessness are themselves baseless.
The basis for Houlihan's claim of "offal in a burrito" to the AIU can be found in the CAS report (see 8), and in Houlihan's timeline. Surely you must know that as well as I do by now.
The basis that Houlihan ever reduced this claim to exclusively "meat and stomach" can be found ... where? ... anyone? anyone? ... nowhere, except in anonymous posts, possibly all from the same poster.
The basis for limitations in the defense in this case are plenty: The time to prepare a defense starting from nothing, 30 days after the fact when primary evidence is long consumed or discarded, was limited to a few weeks, or at best a few months. The PI's investigation stopped at "Portland Quality Meats" where he learned that the next step would be a "Northwest meat distributor" and the next step would be the "meatpacking facility where the meats are cut and packaged" and the next step would be where "the animals are actually slaughtered (which) can be almost anywhere", and the ultimate step would be where the animals were raised and fed and castrated, or not. The commitment of "the wife of the food truck owner" to get what "we were hoping to get from her" (what did they say they hoped for?) was "she will try and help out with what she can if she gets permission from her husband", resulting in "the names of the companies" and "purchase invoices from the food truck owner for December 2020" (when was the meat/offal/chorizo purchased in her burrito consumed 14 December?)
Even if we wanted to limit the expert rebuttal to the evidence before the CAS, the experts still neglected to account for nandrolone from "fat" (see Prof. McGlone's concession in 107 and witness testimony in 43, 44, 100 and 101), and any nandrolone in chorizo (pork sausage)(see 99).
Honestly, I expect a higher quality and more complete response from "neutral experts" with decades of knowledge and experience.
The basis for your alleged "analysis of the offal", whatever that means, is equally non-existent, not to mention nonsensical. I can't know about something about the case that the CAS didn't refer to, nor Houlihan never mentioned in her timeline, or anywhere else, just because some anonymous poster invents it, but can't explain where it comes from.
I provided an original dictionary definition for "offal". There is no alternative definition. While stomach is offal, offal is many more things than "meat and stomach". This is directly relevant to Houlihan's undisputed claim of "offal in a burrito".
Your alleged "public knowledge" about corn still neglects that "you failed to provide any evidence for any period of increased (corn) feeding".
In these last 4 years, I wasn't looking for evidence for things that have already been settled and were never in dispute. The "evidence for any substantial deviations from the corn feeding pattern" was already in Prof. McGlone's concession in 115: "certain pig farms increasing the amount of soy fed to their pigs". See also 104, where Prof. McGlone tells us "by November 2020, the pandemic had no longer any impact on the usual practices applied in the industry". Looks like the non-standard timeframe was from April to October.
And again, I am not trying to prove the nandrolone was in the burrito -- only that this possibility remains viable because it has not been disproved by the WA/AIU and their experts -- there are still far too many assumptions and unknowns.
I’m mean, you’ve strayed into absurdities before but this is a whole new level, Mr Science. But that is your MO. Go to the extreme. Vomit up lengthy posts that say nothing. None of what you said is the “lesson learned from Shelby’s case.” The lesson is don’t dope.
Let me show you why your approach to testing (anti-doping agencies must prove intent) is ridiculous:
One day, an athlete and his girlfriend are in a hotel room when there is a knock on the door. Thinking it is the pizza delivery guy, Girlfriend runs to the door and throws it open. Instead, she finds an entire team of anti-doping agents here for an OOC doping tear. The team, which includes a guy recording everything, looks in and sees Athlete laying on the bed with a needle sticking out of his quad. On the nightstand is a vial of some liquid. The team runs in, grabs the needle, grabs the vial, and conducts urine and blood testing on Athlete. They take everything back to the lab and test it. A few weeks later, the results come in and show: 1. The needle contains trace amounts of PED; 2. The vial contains PED; and, 3. Both Athlete’s blood and urine samples contain amounts of PED far in excess of the legal limits, that directly match the amount of PED missing from the vial, and which could have been contained in the needle if full. The agents smile and think “We’ve got him!”
A few days after, the agents meet with Athlete and Girlfriend to present the results. They show all their cards and proudly proclaim “You’re busted! Prepare to be banned.” But just before they can bring down the hammer of justice, Athlete smiles and says, “I didn’t do it.” “Huh!” The agents cry together. Athlete then explains that two hours before the agents arrived, Girlfriend showed up at his hotel room with a needle and a vial of PED arguing that he needed to start taking it in order to be competitive. Athlete refused and the argument ended. Athlete then layed down on the bed and went to sleep. He awoke to the sound of the knocking on the door, and, before he knew it, the agents had rushed in. He then noticed the needle sticking out of his quad, which was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to the agents. Later, after the agents had left, Athlete asks Girlfriend about the needle and she admits that she had injected him with PED. Back at the hearing, as Athlete finishes the story, Girlfriend then testifies confirming everything Athlete has said. The agents are crestfallen. They can’t prove intent. Athlete walks free.
A few weeks later, Athlete competes at Diamond League Meet where he wins the 1,500m in 3:20: a six second WR and a 23 second PR. It’s an unbelievable run! Literally. The agents grab Athlete immediately after the race and test him, the results come back showing PED again in his system. Again they think they have him. Again he later testifies, and Girlfriend again confirms, that Girlfriend once again had injected him with the PED while he was asleep. Once again, the agents can’t prove intent. Once again, Athlete walks free. This pattern repeats itself six more times at the next six meets and seven more times out of competition during the season. Athlete is always found with PED, Girlfriend always admits she did it after an argument where Athlete says he doesn’t want it and then she goes ahead anyway when Athlete is asleep. And the agents can never produce evidence showing intent because they are never present when the events occur.
Now, there are only two possibilities here: either Athlete and Girlfriend are lying or they are telling the truth. In either event, Athlete has just completed the greatest track season in history while consistently testing positive for PED, which indisputably gave him an advantage in performance, one Athlete himself doesn’t deny. Under your system, Athlete is free to continue to compete. How is that fair to his competitors? How is that fair to the integrity of the sport? It’s absurd, just like your arguments.
It looks like "you’ve strayed into absurdities before but this is a whole new level, Mr Science" is really just an unwarranted pre-justification for you to stray into absurdity.
Given your previous story about athletes you've known for decades, what is the recommended minimum diligence expected from athletes? Even the strongest diligence is no equal match for strict liability against aggressive prosecutors, as athletes must ultimately depend on others for many things.
In your new story, assuming the arbitrators believe the girlfriend's confession, and it survived all possible appeals, the first offense cannot be considered "no fault or negligence" with an eliminated sanction, since sabotage by a girlfriend is expressly excluded (see WADA Code footnote 65). It is still considered a rule violation and the sanction can be anywhere up to a maximum of 2 years for this unintentional rule violation. In addition, having the PED in the room is already grounds for a second charge of "possession". The girlfriend may also end up being determined a banned personnel for her confessed administration, with consequent restrictions on all WADA-controlled athletes to avoid associating with her professionally.
The next time it happened would be a second offense, with longer sanctions, and perhaps no inclination for this second panel to be lenient. The 3:20 result (assuming a PED exists that can produce such a result) would be annulled in all cases. The third offense would likely result in a lifetime ban, and maybe a breakup with the girlfriend and bringing her to court for damages.
I'm not looking at changing any of that, especially in such cases when the accusors have such solid evidence.
Switching gears from stories back to reality, the fact remains that science, and WADA, says Houlihan's results can be "usual", "low", and "endogenous" (i.e. not "positive", not an "AAF", and not an "ADRV), after consuming the edible parts of intact boar. The arguments against Houlihan before the CAS were not scientific, and not legal, and not based on factors specific to Houlihan, but rather a statistical summary of factors across the USA, not accounting for the large number of opportunities that will eventually produce the rare atypical result for some unlucky athlete.
My approach to interpreting test results would 1) have consulted WADA, rather than the Lab Director whose lab conducted the test, on the intent and applicability of language like the "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis", and 2) not include calling athletes "intentional" dopers for a presence of a substance that could be WADA legal, but athletes cannot establish to a legal standard (because such proof is difficult to provide), without first establishing intent to any legal standard stronger than presumption.
What you do, what you always do, is take the one in a million scenario, beat it to death talking it up, beat it to death again because you are you, and then complain that because the current system doesn’t account for the one in a million scenario it must be unfair. Yet, your system would flip the odds so now doping bans become the one in a million scenario. You hide your absurdity in word counts, but that doesn’t change anything. Your approach is a joke. The current system is fair.
Who said it was a one in a million scenario? Prof. McGlone said "far less than 1 in 10,000". I found that 130,000,000 pigs were slaughtered in 2020. The "far less than 1 in 10,000" was the only figure I saw, and he didn't show his calculations or give estimated errors or confidence intervals, and whether he considered the altered circumstances during the pandemic (not to mention, because he didn't, if he considered other intact boars like immuno-castrated boars slaughtered long past recommended period of the second dose).
From the point of view of the WADA Lab, they are not empowered to consider nationwide statistics before they report the test result. As the CAS said "It is not for the Laboratory to finally decide on the origin/cause of the analytical finding". They have instructions in the TD which foresee a scenario where "the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs is invoked by an Athlete as the unlikely origin of a 19-NA finding". What does that mean, if it doesn't apply here?
Given this ambiguity with an unspecified origin, can the WA/AIU meet their higher burden that an ADRV occurred before charging Houlihan? It is only after she is properly charged, that she is burdened with establishing non-intent.
You also exaggerate the scope and details of my "system". I am only speaking about (the same as USADA Chief Travis Tygart) the small subset of cases from unintentional ingestion where there is a risk of "Non-specified" banned substances in the foods approved for consumption by the appropriate government agencies (e.g. USDA). If the current system does not establish intent, it still foresees a 2-year ban for unintended "doping". Athletes are not getting away scot-free, and there is no extra burden on the ADAs/ADOs to look for a further evidence to sanction the athlete.
But what is the value to the sport of calling athletes "intentional dopers", when it has not been robustly established with supporting evidence, but rather based solely on a presumption that dates from 2015?
I’m mean, you’ve strayed into absurdities before but this is a whole new level, Mr Science. But that is your MO. Go to the extreme. Vomit up lengthy posts that say nothing. None of what you said is the “lesson learned from Shelby’s case.” The lesson is don’t dope.
Let me show you why your approach to testing (anti-doping agencies must prove intent) is ridiculous:
One day, an athlete and his girlfriend are in a hotel room when there is a knock on the door. Thinking it is the pizza delivery guy, Girlfriend runs to the door and throws it open. Instead, she finds an entire team of anti-doping agents here for an OOC doping tear. The team, which includes a guy recording everything, looks in and sees Athlete laying on the bed with a needle sticking out of his quad. On the nightstand is a vial of some liquid. The team runs in, grabs the needle, grabs the vial, and conducts urine and blood testing on Athlete. They take everything back to the lab and test it. A few weeks later, the results come in and show: 1. The needle contains trace amounts of PED; 2. The vial contains PED; and, 3. Both Athlete’s blood and urine samples contain amounts of PED far in excess of the legal limits, that directly match the amount of PED missing from the vial, and which could have been contained in the needle if full. The agents smile and think “We’ve got him!”
A few days after, the agents meet with Athlete and Girlfriend to present the results. They show all their cards and proudly proclaim “You’re busted! Prepare to be banned.” But just before they can bring down the hammer of justice, Athlete smiles and says, “I didn’t do it.” “Huh!” The agents cry together. Athlete then explains that two hours before the agents arrived, Girlfriend showed up at his hotel room with a needle and a vial of PED arguing that he needed to start taking it in order to be competitive. Athlete refused and the argument ended. Athlete then layed down on the bed and went to sleep. He awoke to the sound of the knocking on the door, and, before he knew it, the agents had rushed in. He then noticed the needle sticking out of his quad, which was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to the agents. Later, after the agents had left, Athlete asks Girlfriend about the needle and she admits that she had injected him with PED. Back at the hearing, as Athlete finishes the story, Girlfriend then testifies confirming everything Athlete has said. The agents are crestfallen. They can’t prove intent. Athlete walks free.
A few weeks later, Athlete competes at Diamond League Meet where he wins the 1,500m in 3:20: a six second WR and a 23 second PR. It’s an unbelievable run! Literally. The agents grab Athlete immediately after the race and test him, the results come back showing PED again in his system. Again they think they have him. Again he later testifies, and Girlfriend again confirms, that Girlfriend once again had injected him with the PED while he was asleep. Once again, the agents can’t prove intent. Once again, Athlete walks free. This pattern repeats itself six more times at the next six meets and seven more times out of competition during the season. Athlete is always found with PED, Girlfriend always admits she did it after an argument where Athlete says he doesn’t want it and then she goes ahead anyway when Athlete is asleep. And the agents can never produce evidence showing intent because they are never present when the events occur.
Now, there are only two possibilities here: either Athlete and Girlfriend are lying or they are telling the truth. In either event, Athlete has just completed the greatest track season in history while consistently testing positive for PED, which indisputably gave him an advantage in performance, one Athlete himself doesn’t deny. Under your system, Athlete is free to continue to compete. How is that fair to his competitors? How is that fair to the integrity of the sport? It’s absurd, just like your arguments.
It looks like "you’ve strayed into absurdities before but this is a whole new level, Mr Science" is really just an unwarranted pre-justification for you to stray into absurdity.
Given your previous story about athletes you've known for decades, what is the recommended minimum diligence expected from athletes? Even the strongest diligence is no equal match for strict liability against aggressive prosecutors, as athletes must ultimately depend on others for many things.
In your new story, assuming the arbitrators believe the girlfriend's confession, and it survived all possible appeals, the first offense cannot be considered "no fault or negligence" with an eliminated sanction, since sabotage by a girlfriend is expressly excluded (see WADA Code footnote 65). It is still considered a rule violation and the sanction can be anywhere up to a maximum of 2 years for this unintentional rule violation. In addition, having the PED in the room is already grounds for a second charge of "possession". The girlfriend may also end up being determined a banned personnel for her confessed administration, with consequent restrictions on all WADA-controlled athletes to avoid associating with her professionally.
The next time it happened would be a second offense, with longer sanctions, and perhaps no inclination for this second panel to be lenient. The 3:20 result (assuming a PED exists that can produce such a result) would be annulled in all cases. The third offense would likely result in a lifetime ban, and maybe a breakup with the girlfriend and bringing her to court for damages.
I'm not looking at changing any of that, especially in such cases when the accusors have such solid evidence.
Switching gears from stories back to reality, the fact remains that science, and WADA, says Houlihan's results can be "usual", "low", and "endogenous" (i.e. not "positive", not an "AAF", and not an "ADRV), after consuming the edible parts of intact boar. The arguments against Houlihan before the CAS were not scientific, and not legal, and not based on factors specific to Houlihan, but rather a statistical summary of factors across the USA, not accounting for the large number of opportunities that will eventually produce the rare atypical result for some unlucky athlete.
My approach to interpreting test results would 1) have consulted WADA, rather than the Lab Director whose lab conducted the test, on the intent and applicability of language like the "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis", and 2) not include calling athletes "intentional" dopers for a presence of a substance that could be WADA legal, but athletes cannot establish to a legal standard (because such proof is difficult to provide), without first establishing intent to any legal standard stronger than presumption.
Oh so now you’ve abandoned the intent issue? But how’s your new approach fair to the innocent athlete? I thought fighting to protect the innocent athlete from unfair bans was the whole point of your vendetta. You’d still ban Athlete in my scenario even though he did nothing wrong, even after the first incident? What if in every single instance of doping, Athlete had a hidden camera filming that showed he was telling the truth. What if every instance involved a different person injecting Athlete? You still think there is convincing evidencing to prove intent and to justify a ban? I don’t buy one bit that all this, every single thing you’ve done on this website to defend dopers day in and day out for years now, is simply because you don’t want to hurt the athlete’s feelings by calling them bad names like intentional dopers. This might be your most absurd claim yet.
You’re absolutely doubling down on the one in a million scenario. The argument against Shelby, scientific, legal, factual, and otherwise, is that she was found with a banned substance in her system at a level higher than the allowable limit. It is the main fact, the elephant in the room, that you constantly overlook in favor of your pie in the sky claims. An inconvenient truth for you if there ever was one. Focus on that Mr. Science, and not on your hide the pickle antics. Not even Shelby has gone as far as you have.
The level of diligence required is whatever is necessary for the athlete to accept responsibility for everything that goes into their bodies. The same diligence that has always been required. The same diligence that brings the likelihood of a positive test down to statistical zero. That’s what you are once again overlooking. This approach is not designed to help the athlete amount a defense to a positive test. It is designed to avoid a positive test altogether. That is what clean athletes do. Statistical anomalies aside. You need to change your way of thinking if you are serious about a clean sport. Don’t focus on the defense. Focus on the avoidance.
This post was edited 11 minutes after it was posted.
What you do, what you always do, is take the one in a million scenario, beat it to death talking it up, beat it to death again because you are you, and then complain that because the current system doesn’t account for the one in a million scenario it must be unfair. Yet, your system would flip the odds so now doping bans become the one in a million scenario. You hide your absurdity in word counts, but that doesn’t change anything. Your approach is a joke. The current system is fair.
Who said it was a one in a million scenario? Prof. McGlone said "far less than 1 in 10,000". I found that 130,000,000 pigs were slaughtered in 2020. The "far less than 1 in 10,000" was the only figure I saw, and he didn't show his calculations or give estimated errors or confidence intervals, and whether he considered the altered circumstances during the pandemic (not to mention, because he didn't, if he considered other intact boars like immuno-castrated boars slaughtered long past recommended period of the second dose).
From the point of view of the WADA Lab, they are not empowered to consider nationwide statistics before they report the test result. As the CAS said "It is not for the Laboratory to finally decide on the origin/cause of the analytical finding". They have instructions in the TD which foresee a scenario where "the consumption of edible parts of intact pigs is invoked by an Athlete as the unlikely origin of a 19-NA finding". What does that mean, if it doesn't apply here?
Given this ambiguity with an unspecified origin, can the WA/AIU meet their higher burden that an ADRV occurred before charging Houlihan? It is only after she is properly charged, that she is burdened with establishing non-intent.
You also exaggerate the scope and details of my "system". I am only speaking about (the same as USADA Chief Travis Tygart) the small subset of cases from unintentional ingestion where there is a risk of "Non-specified" banned substances in the foods approved for consumption by the appropriate government agencies (e.g. USDA). If the current system does not establish intent, it still foresees a 2-year ban for unintended "doping". Athletes are not getting away scot-free, and there is no extra burden on the ADAs/ADOs to look for a further evidence to sanction the athlete.
But what is the value to the sport of calling athletes "intentional dopers", when it has not been robustly established with supporting evidence, but rather based solely on a presumption that dates from 2015?
You’re not arguing the same point as McGlone. He’s talking solely about the pigs. You, and Shelby, are adding factors; not only is it possible that a pig could be could be the source, but the 1 in 10,000 pig ended up in Oregon, in Portland (or wherever she was), in the public food supply, in the burrito cart, in that specific burrito, on that specific day, that was purchased by a professional athlete who was subject to doping controls, who happened to be a highly suspect athlete already, and who was tested soon enough after consumption that she would test positive. One in a million is being generous.
Who said it was a one in a million scenario? Prof. McGlone said "far less than 1 in 10,000". I found that 130,000,000 pigs were slaughtered in 2020. The "far less than 1 in 10,000" was the only figure I saw
It's kind of funny how you have such a big mouth here, yet are so wrong about literally everything, and "forget" everything quickly that you don't like.
^This is a good example. You quickly "forgot" that McGlone also said "1 in 5,000,000", in an interview with Runner's World. How long ago was it that you falsely claimed that "1 in 5,000,000" differs from "far less than 1 in 10,000" by a factor of 500?? So much for your "who said" and "the only figure I saw".
You also "forgot" that Houlihan had the offal analyzed etc etc etc.
Didn't you say you don't troll? Now your new lies got me to respond to you again. Damn.
Oh so now you’ve abandoned the intent issue? But how’s your new approach fair to the innocent athlete? I thought fighting to protect the innocent athlete from unfair bans was the whole point of your vendetta. You’d still ban Athlete in my scenario even though he did nothing wrong, even after the first incident? What if in every single instance of doping, Athlete had a hidden camera filming that showed he was telling the truth. What if every instance involved a different person injecting Athlete? You still think there is convincing evidencing to prove intent and to justify a ban? I don’t buy one bit that all this, every single thing you’ve done on this website to defend dopers day in and day out for years now, is simply because you don’t want to hurt the athlete’s feelings by calling them bad names like intentional dopers. This might be your most absurd claim yet.
You’re absolutely doubling down on the one in a million scenario. The argument against Shelby, scientific, legal, factual, and otherwise, is that she was found with a banned substance in her system at a level higher than the allowable limit. It is the main fact, the elephant in the room, that you constantly overlook in favor of your pie in the sky claims. An inconvenient truth for you if there ever was one. Focus on that Mr. Science, and not on your hide the pickle antics. Not even Shelby has gone as far as you have.
The level of diligence required is whatever is necessary for the athlete to accept responsibility for everything that goes into their bodies. The same diligence that has always been required. The same diligence that brings the likelihood of a positive test down to statistical zero. That’s what you are once again overlooking. This approach is not designed to help the athlete amount a defense to a positive test. It is designed to avoid a positive test altogether. That is what clean athletes do. Statistical anomalies aside. You need to change your way of thinking if you are serious about a clean sport.
I said "2) not include calling athletes "intentional" dopers" and you ask if I abandoned intent?
I don't have a new approach beyond saying that the current system, in some cases, is less fair to innocent athletes than the previous system before 2015.
In your fabricated scenario, there is no ambiguity whether what happened could have been WADA legal. But you are right, there are still issues of fairness to consider, and what the appropriate length of the ban should be, or if it could be eliminated for a first offense. At the very minimum, any doped performances should be annulled.
In Houlihan's case, your main fact elephant in the room is scientifically ambiguous, as eating pork is WADA legal and according to the science, can produce values much much higher than the legal limit of 2 ng/ml. Prof. Ayotte published 130 ng/ml and 160 ng/ml in "the literature". Outside of the artificial context created by WADA rules, to rule that out "scientifically" requires a much stronger argument than the CAS heard.
What could change my mind?
I think if the AIU found something tangible, like a receipt from Amazon, or pills in the bathroom, or bottles in the fridge, or in her trash, that would be enough to establish likely intent.
I think if the CIR was -27 or less, that would be enough to remove the ambiguity of a WADA legal scenario. That was recently removed from the WADA TD, increasing the risk of conviction for athletes.
I think if the level was much much higher than the 130 and 160 ng/ml in Prof. Ayotte's literature for offal, that would be enough to remove the ambiguity.
In this case, Houlihan "invoked pork". This has an intended meaning in the WADA TD, and its not clear to me at all that this was respected as intended by the WADA Lab. I would be interested in the reasons behind the minority dissent, but the CAS did not publish that.
My whole point of my vendetta is making robust conclusions based on unambiguous data, regardless of topic. That is what I've done for years on this website -- challenging popular beliefs that I see are not robust, but rather products of faith and rumors and possibly substandard science.
I don't defend dopers for doping, or athletes for whereabouts failures, but I do question many of the popular myths that surround these violations that are not supported by the evidence.
Your dream of athletes being diligent enough to avoid positives is not realistic. Travis Tygart reported 27 no-fault contamination cases in the USA since 2015. Diligence in the extreme means athletes should become vegetarians or vegans. Simon Getzmann tested positive for legally prescribed WADA legal painkillers. Hard for me to see that as a failure of diligence. I don't see any justification increase the burdens on athletes if the labs can still make errors in testing, and interpretation, and can make false convictions on the strength of presumptions. I don't see how the sport is cleaner by just changing the rules to increase the number of false positives based on non-robust presumed convictions.
Oh so now you’ve abandoned the intent issue? But how’s your new approach fair to the innocent athlete? I thought fighting to protect the innocent athlete from unfair bans was the whole point of your vendetta. You’d still ban Athlete in my scenario even though he did nothing wrong, even after the first incident? What if in every single instance of doping, Athlete had a hidden camera filming that showed he was telling the truth. What if every instance involved a different person injecting Athlete? You still think there is convincing evidencing to prove intent and to justify a ban? I don’t buy one bit that all this, every single thing you’ve done on this website to defend dopers day in and day out for years now, is simply because you don’t want to hurt the athlete’s feelings by calling them bad names like intentional dopers. This might be your most absurd claim yet.
You’re absolutely doubling down on the one in a million scenario. The argument against Shelby, scientific, legal, factual, and otherwise, is that she was found with a banned substance in her system at a level higher than the allowable limit. It is the main fact, the elephant in the room, that you constantly overlook in favor of your pie in the sky claims. An inconvenient truth for you if there ever was one. Focus on that Mr. Science, and not on your hide the pickle antics. Not even Shelby has gone as far as you have.
The level of diligence required is whatever is necessary for the athlete to accept responsibility for everything that goes into their bodies. The same diligence that has always been required. The same diligence that brings the likelihood of a positive test down to statistical zero. That’s what you are once again overlooking. This approach is not designed to help the athlete amount a defense to a positive test. It is designed to avoid a positive test altogether. That is what clean athletes do. Statistical anomalies aside. You need to change your way of thinking if you are serious about a clean sport.
I said "2) not include calling athletes "intentional" dopers" and you ask if I abandoned intent?
I don't have a new approach beyond saying that the current system, in some cases, is less fair to innocent athletes than the previous system before 2015.
In your fabricated scenario, there is no ambiguity whether what happened could have been WADA legal. But you are right, there are still issues of fairness to consider, and what the appropriate length of the ban should be, or if it could be eliminated for a first offense. At the very minimum, any doped performances should be annulled.
In Houlihan's case, your main fact elephant in the room is scientifically ambiguous, as eating pork is WADA legal and according to the science, can produce values much much higher than the legal limit of 2 ng/ml. Prof. Ayotte published 130 ng/ml and 160 ng/ml in "the literature". Outside of the artificial context created by WADA rules, to rule that out "scientifically" requires a much stronger argument than the CAS heard.
What could change my mind?
I think if the AIU found something tangible, like a receipt from Amazon, or pills in the bathroom, or bottles in the fridge, or in her trash, that would be enough to establish likely intent.
I think if the CIR was -27 or less, that would be enough to remove the ambiguity of a WADA legal scenario. That was recently removed from the WADA TD, increasing the risk of conviction for athletes.
I think if the level was much much higher than the 130 and 160 ng/ml in Prof. Ayotte's literature for offal, that would be enough to remove the ambiguity.
In this case, Houlihan "invoked pork". This has an intended meaning in the WADA TD, and its not clear to me at all that this was respected as intended by the WADA Lab. I would be interested in the reasons behind the minority dissent, but the CAS did not publish that.
My whole point of my vendetta is making robust conclusions based on unambiguous data, regardless of topic. That is what I've done for years on this website -- challenging popular beliefs that I see are not robust, but rather products of faith and rumors and possibly substandard science.
I don't defend dopers for doping, or athletes for whereabouts failures, but I do question many of the popular myths that surround these violations that are not supported by the evidence.
Your dream of athletes being diligent enough to avoid positives is not realistic. Travis Tygart reported 27 no-fault contamination cases in the USA since 2015. Diligence in the extreme means athletes should become vegetarians or vegans. Simon Getzmann tested positive for legally prescribed WADA legal painkillers. Hard for me to see that as a failure of diligence. I don't see any justification increase the burdens on athletes if the labs can still make errors in testing, and interpretation, and can make false convictions on the strength of presumptions. I don't see how the sport is cleaner by just changing the rules to increase the number of false positives based on non-robust presumed convictions.
I am NOT right in raising issues of fairness in my scenario. I presented a completely absurd scenario and got you (eventually) to defend it. You swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. You proved my point on how ridiculous your position is. Of course Athlete should be suspended. He’s competing unfairly. He deserves a lifetime ban.
No ambiguity on what happened with the main fact for Shelby. She tested positive. That is not disputed.
What you see as not robust is a failure of your ability to understand legal proceedings. It is not a failure of the system. The examples you used to suggest evidence that could help agents meet their burden of proving “likely” intent don’t actually add anything of value. A half-decent attorney could pick apart your examples in a heartbeat (e.g., my girlfriend used my Amazon account to buy it for herself and she’s willing to testify of that). Again, this shows that you don’t understand how legal proceedings work or why the presumption is necessary.
My “dream” as you claim is reality (pun intended). Tens of thousands of diligent athletes have gone through the current anti-doping system without a problem. They literally do it every single day. Every counter argument for what could go wrong are all things athletes have the ability to present evidence on. That’s what happens in legal proceedings. Both sides get their shot. It’s not unfair to say either party loses if they fail to meet their burdens.
”I don’t have a new approach….” That, right there, is all that needs to be said about every argument you have ever made. If you are unable to come up with a different approach, you don’t really understand what, if anything is wrong with the current system. Your entire position comes down to “it’s not fair, but I can’t explain why or how to fix it.” You’re just throwing crap at the wall.
It's kind of funny how you have such a big mouth here, yet are so wrong about literally everything, and "forget" everything quickly that you don't like.
^This is a good example. You quickly "forgot" that McGlone also said "1 in 5,000,000", in an interview with Runner's World. How long ago was it that you falsely claimed that "1 in 5,000,000" differs from "far less than 1 in 10,000" by a factor of 500?? So much for your "who said" and "the only figure I saw".
You also "forgot" that Houlihan had the offal analyzed etc etc etc.
Didn't you say you don't troll? Now your new lies got me to respond to you again. Damn.
I guess "literally wrong about everything" and "troll" is one opinion.
But now that you mention it, I do recall someone mentioning a Runner's World interview and asking at this time about this unexplained factor of 500.
I guess one reason it didn't stick is because I have always said that this estimate is not relevant to determining the likelihood of pork being the source. It's not that "I don't like it", but that it clearly calculates an answer to another question not before the CAS.
I still don't know what "Houlihan had the offal analyzed" even means. They did buy burritos one month later and had the burritos analyzed. But since the event is so rare, no one should expect lightning to strike twice in the same place, especially if supply chains had recovered by January 2021.
I still don't know what "Houlihan had the offal analyzed" even means. They did buy burritos one month later and had the burritos analyzed. But since the event is so rare, no one should expect lightning to strike twice in the same place, especially if supply chains had recovered by January 2021.
You keep contradicting yourself. First your response was this, pretending there was no analysis:
You keep saying nonsense things like "the analysis of the offal did not show kidney or testicles". What analysis?
Now you are admitting that Houlihan had the offal in the burrito analyzed, but then try to deflect with "since the event is so rare". Huh? Is your new claim now that them Mexicans only so rarely added "kidney or testicles" (and forgot about although they did their best, as you conceded earlier)?
But you are actually finally saying something useful in the end:
"no one should expect lightning to strike twice in the same place"
Agreed!
Strike 1: Intact boar made it into Houlihan's burrito. Far less than 1 in 10,000, or 1 in 5,000,000.* Explaining the nandro but neither the amount nor the CIR.
Strike 2: The restaurant owner added kidney once into their offal, AND forgot about it (strike 3?), AND couldn't find it on the invoice (strike 4?), AND that very offal was the one from the intact boar that Houlihan ate. Explaining the over 5 ng/ml nandro.
Strike 3 - 5: A farmer fed soy to his hogs for an extended period of time before the slaughter, changing his pork's CIR to -23 0/00 - though no one could find such a farmer, and corn even became cheaper and more available during the pandemic. AND one of those hogs was the one that wasn't castrated and the one from which the restaurant owner also ordered kidney and cooked it and forgot about it AND that made it into Houlihan's burrito. Explaining the -23 0/00.
Ya I don't expect those 3 - 5 strikes to have happened all at once at the same time at the same place. She doped intentionally, clearly.
Wait. I didn't mention that she ordered beef... so now we are talking about three lightning strikes despite a sunny sky.
*: Since you have trouble with Logic 101, I explain this to you in detail:
There is only an "unexplained factor of 500" IF a) "far less than" equals 0, making "far less than 1 in 10,000" equal to "1 in 10,000", which would redefine the meaning of far less, and b) if we are comparing oranges with oranges, see OED's explanations.
I am NOT right in raising issues of fairness in my scenario. I presented a completely absurd scenario and got you (eventually) to defend it. You swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. You proved my point on how ridiculous your position is. Of course Athlete should be suspended. He’s competing unfairly. He deserves a lifetime ban.
No ambiguity on what happened with the main fact for Shelby. She tested positive. That is not disputed.
What you see as not robust is a failure of your ability to understand legal proceedings. It is not a failure of the system. The examples you used to suggest evidence that could help agents meet their burden of proving “likely” intent don’t actually add anything of value. A half-decent attorney could pick apart your examples in a heartbeat (e.g., my girlfriend used my Amazon account to buy it for herself and she’s willing to testify of that). Again, this shows that you don’t understand how legal proceedings work or why the presumption is necessary.
My “dream” as you claim is reality (pun intended). Tens of thousands of diligent athletes have gone through the current anti-doping system without a problem. They literally do it every single day. Every counter argument for what could go wrong are all things athletes have the ability to present evidence on. That’s what happens in legal proceedings. Both sides get their shot. It’s not unfair to say either party loses if they fail to meet their burdens.
”I don’t have a new approach….” That, right there, is all that needs to be said about every argument you have ever made. If you are unable to come up with a different approach, you don’t really understand what, if anything is wrong with the current system. Your entire position comes down to “it’s not fair, but I can’t explain why or how to fix it.” You’re just throwing crap at the wall.
Wait, what? Somehow I (eventually) "defended" your scenario by telling you he wouldn't be free to compete as you predicted, but would still be banned, at least for unintentional doping, and possibly for possession, and his girlfriend would be banned, and he would be banned even longer for second and third offenses? Then you asked me how my "new approach is fair to the innocent athlete", answering that what you think is really fair "to the innocent athlete" is "a lifetime ban"? Maybe I am in the minority, but I don't think it is fair to this innocent athlete to ban them for life, nor does it further the interest of clean sport.
If an adjudicating panel has all this evidence before them, I think it is appropriate for that panel to weigh that evidence, and decide whether the circumstances merit eliminating the ban, up to a lifetime ban for mulltiple offenses -- based on all that evidence you said was collected. That's my vendetta -- make decisions based on evidence.
Contrast this to Houlihan's case, where there is no such comparable evidence, and she is not blaming a boyfriend for such sabotage without her knowledge or consent. These are not comparable scenarios.
You described the consequences of my alleged "new approach", but I didn't describe any new approach to you. In fact I said "I'm not looking at changing any of that, especially in such cases when the accusors have such solid evidence."
By me saying the new system is worse than the old one, my "new approach" is not a new one, but rolling back to the old one. Back then intent wasn't a specific issue that needed to be resolved, but was an option under a broader umbrella of "aggravating circumstances". What happened is that WADA saw that intent was a hot potato too hard to prove, and quietly gave this hot potato to accused athletes, knowing beforehand that that was also too hard for innocent athletes to prove.
Getting back to Houlihan, interpreting Houlihan's test results as "positive" (i.e. as an AAF) was one of the disputes, and the CAS Panel's rulings were actually split on that point. What more evidence do you need that the test results were ambiguous than the different positions among the CAS Panel, who saw the results, the relevant WADA TD, and all the arguments?
I'm sure an attorney could play games and pick apart my new evidence, but I was telling you what tangible pieces of evidence could change my mind in Houlihan's case. In Houlihan's case this kind of tangible evidence of intent is completely absent -- the CAS made their findings solely on findings of insufficient evidence, apart from the scientifically ambiguous test results, backstopped by a set of presumptions -- as the CAS clearly explained. If an attorney could pick apart my tangible evidence, does the lack of such tangible evidence defeat the half-decent attorney? You think the half-decent attorney could fool a panel of lawyers and judges?
Your dream is a nightmare for some innocent athletes, despite the success of tens of thousands of athletes. It's fantasy to think that "(e)very counter argument for what could go wrong are all things athletes have the ability to present evidence on." I just think again of the case of Simon Getzmann. The success of his case hinged on the fact that he had some remaining painkillers to test. If he had consumed them all, or threw them out, he would have no ability to present that evidence, and would have been convicted for intentional doping. He is surely not a single exception. And his victory still cost him 5-figures, a 1+year suspension, and In order for Houlihan to replicate that success, she would have had to have preserved the remaining uneaten burrito, and hope that prosecutors don't suggest without basis that she adulterated them.
Ya I don't expect those 3 - 5 strikes to have happened all at once at the same time at the same place. She doped intentionally, clearly.
Wait. I didn't mention that she ordered beef... so now we are talking about three lightning strikes despite a sunny sky.
This is really what it all comes down to on the defense side: 3-5 lightening strikes at the same, exact place on a sunny day. How having to prove this actually happened after you alleged that it did is unfair is beyond me. Pro tip for future athletes trying to get out of a positive test: don’t make completely outlandish claims as a defense if you can’t actually prove them.
I am NOT right in raising issues of fairness in my scenario. I presented a completely absurd scenario and got you (eventually) to defend it. You swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. You proved my point on how ridiculous your position is. Of course Athlete should be suspended. He’s competing unfairly. He deserves a lifetime ban.
No ambiguity on what happened with the main fact for Shelby. She tested positive. That is not disputed.
What you see as not robust is a failure of your ability to understand legal proceedings. It is not a failure of the system. The examples you used to suggest evidence that could help agents meet their burden of proving “likely” intent don’t actually add anything of value. A half-decent attorney could pick apart your examples in a heartbeat (e.g., my girlfriend used my Amazon account to buy it for herself and she’s willing to testify of that). Again, this shows that you don’t understand how legal proceedings work or why the presumption is necessary.
My “dream” as you claim is reality (pun intended). Tens of thousands of diligent athletes have gone through the current anti-doping system without a problem. They literally do it every single day. Every counter argument for what could go wrong are all things athletes have the ability to present evidence on. That’s what happens in legal proceedings. Both sides get their shot. It’s not unfair to say either party loses if they fail to meet their burdens.
”I don’t have a new approach….” That, right there, is all that needs to be said about every argument you have ever made. If you are unable to come up with a different approach, you don’t really understand what, if anything is wrong with the current system. Your entire position comes down to “it’s not fair, but I can’t explain why or how to fix it.” You’re just throwing crap at the wall.
Wait, what? Somehow I (eventually) "defended" your scenario by telling you he wouldn't be free to compete as you predicted, but would still be banned, at least for unintentional doping, and possibly for possession, and his girlfriend would be banned, and he would be banned even longer for second and third offenses? Then you asked me how my "new approach is fair to the innocent athlete", answering that what you think is really fair "to the innocent athlete" is "a lifetime ban"? Maybe I am in the minority, but I don't think it is fair to this innocent athlete to ban them for life, nor does it further the interest of clean sport.
If an adjudicating panel has all this evidence before them, I think it is appropriate for that panel to weigh that evidence, and decide whether the circumstances merit eliminating the ban, up to a lifetime ban for mulltiple offenses -- based on all that evidence you said was collected. That's my vendetta -- make decisions based on evidence.
Contrast this to Houlihan's case, where there is no such comparable evidence, and she is not blaming a boyfriend for such sabotage without her knowledge or consent. These are not comparable scenarios.
You described the consequences of my alleged "new approach", but I didn't describe any new approach to you. In fact I said "I'm not looking at changing any of that, especially in such cases when the accusors have such solid evidence."
By me saying the new system is worse than the old one, my "new approach" is not a new one, but rolling back to the old one. Back then intent wasn't a specific issue that needed to be resolved, but was an option under a broader umbrella of "aggravating circumstances". What happened is that WADA saw that intent was a hot potato too hard to prove, and quietly gave this hot potato to accused athletes, knowing beforehand that that was also too hard for innocent athletes to prove.
Getting back to Houlihan, interpreting Houlihan's test results as "positive" (i.e. as an AAF) was one of the disputes, and the CAS Panel's rulings were actually split on that point. What more evidence do you need that the test results were ambiguous than the different positions among the CAS Panel, who saw the results, the relevant WADA TD, and all the arguments?
I'm sure an attorney could play games and pick apart my new evidence, but I was telling you what tangible pieces of evidence could change my mind in Houlihan's case. In Houlihan's case this kind of tangible evidence of intent is completely absent -- the CAS made their findings solely on findings of insufficient evidence, apart from the scientifically ambiguous test results, backstopped by a set of presumptions -- as the CAS clearly explained. If an attorney could pick apart my tangible evidence, does the lack of such tangible evidence defeat the half-decent attorney? You think the half-decent attorney could fool a panel of lawyers and judges?
Your dream is a nightmare for some innocent athletes, despite the success of tens of thousands of athletes. It's fantasy to think that "(e)very counter argument for what could go wrong are all things athletes have the ability to present evidence on." I just think again of the case of Simon Getzmann. The success of his case hinged on the fact that he had some remaining painkillers to test. If he had consumed them all, or threw them out, he would have no ability to present that evidence, and would have been convicted for intentional doping. He is surely not a single exception. And his victory still cost him 5-figures, a 1+year suspension, and In order for Houlihan to replicate that success, she would have had to have preserved the remaining uneaten burrito, and hope that prosecutors don't suggest without basis that she adulterated them.
You acknowledged under my scenario that the possibility existed for Athlete to make any argument to mitigate or even do away with punishment. That is the absurdity of it.
Maybe you are in the minority? At this stage, you are the minority.
You are under the mistaken assumption that the additional evidence you highlighted will move the needle significantly. This is where your lack of legal understanding comes into play because they don’t. What moves the needle is the positive test. And it moves the needle so far that the others things you mention only nudge it forward a few ticks, if at all. They certainly don’t fundamentally change the nature of the process in any significant way. For you to say these things are difference makers is nonsensical and in no way justifies the thousands of posts you have written over the last four years. You’ve wasted your time if this really is your position because in a legal proceeding it wouldn’t play out how you think. You’re just wrong. That you’ve based your arguments on this belief is sad.
You’re so unwillingly to concede any point that you can’t even keep your position straight. Of course forcing WADA to prove intent would be a hot potato. That’s literally my argument. A positive doping test has always and will always put the accused behind the eight ball. That’s not unfair. It establishes a violation with allowance for evidence in defense. That’s fair.
A split panel is not proof of ambiguity. That literally isn’t how legal proceedings work. Rather, the majority opinion established clarity. That is how legal proceedings work.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
I still don't know what "Houlihan had the offal analyzed" even means. They did buy burritos one month later and had the burritos analyzed. But since the event is so rare, no one should expect lightning to strike twice in the same place, especially if supply chains had recovered by January 2021.
You keep contradicting yourself. First your response was this, pretending there was no analysis:
You keep saying nonsense things like "the analysis of the offal did not show kidney or testicles". What analysis?
Now you are admitting that Houlihan had the offal in the burrito analyzed, but then try to deflect with "since the event is so rare". Huh? Is your new claim now that them Mexicans only so rarely added "kidney or testicles" (and forgot about although they did their best, as you conceded earlier)?
But you are actually finally saying something useful in the end:
"no one should expect lightning to strike twice in the same place"
Agreed!
Strike 1: Intact boar made it into Houlihan's burrito. Far less than 1 in 10,000, or 1 in 5,000,000.* Explaining the nandro but neither the amount nor the CIR.
Strike 2: The restaurant owner added kidney once into their offal, AND forgot about it (strike 3?), AND couldn't find it on the invoice (strike 4?), AND that very offal was the one from the intact boar that Houlihan ate. Explaining the over 5 ng/ml nandro.
Strike 3 - 5: A farmer fed soy to his hogs for an extended period of time before the slaughter, changing his pork's CIR to -23 0/00 - though no one could find such a farmer, and corn even became cheaper and more available during the pandemic. AND one of those hogs was the one that wasn't castrated and the one from which the restaurant owner also ordered kidney and cooked it and forgot about it AND that made it into Houlihan's burrito. Explaining the -23 0/00.
Ya I don't expect those 3 - 5 strikes to have happened all at once at the same time at the same place. She doped intentionally, clearly.
Wait. I didn't mention that she ordered beef... so now we are talking about three lightning strikes despite a sunny sky.
*: Since you have trouble with Logic 101, I explain this to you in detail:
There is only an "unexplained factor of 500" IF a) "far less than" equals 0, making "far less than 1 in 10,000" equal to "1 in 10,000", which would redefine the meaning of far less, and b) if we are comparing oranges with oranges, see OED's explanations.
So after several iterations of me telling your statements makes no sense, are you finally confirming that you were talking, not about offal as you said, but about burritos she purchased in January and had tested?
Now tell me, since that has been clarified (right?), where did you see that "the analysis of the offal (sic) did not show kidney or testicles"? Any burrito analysis in December or January would not show individual organs, but would show nandrolone concentration. Nandrolone concentrations would be expected to be low from all offal if the pig was female, or castrated, but higher from non-castrated male pigs. The Mexican food truck cooks didn't forget in January something they would have done in December. It has nothing to do with the Mexican cooks or truck owners.
The way to understand this "near zero" improbability of presupposed factors argument, combined with 130,000,000 opportunities per year across the USA, even a low probability event will eventually occur sooner or later, to some athlete, somewhere, sometime, more often than one would be led to believe without considering the opportunities. But once you have selected a specific athlete on the criteria that they have already tested positive consistent with the predicted pork ingestion, this "near zero" probability no longer applies in the case of this specific athlete because they were not chosen at random.
In any case, I would not expect this rare event, predicted to happen eventually somewhere sometime to someone, to occur in Portland in December and then again in Portland in January, at the same food truck, from a different batch of pork sources. Recall Ross would launch a 6-figure nationwide study for 6 months, to try and recreate this rare event, conceding that it still might not succeed. Even Nike stars cannot afford that.
Your weird analysis of strikes, even if it didn't have the compound problems it does, doesn't mean Houlihan doped intentionally. This is a kind of false process of elimination. As you keep telling me, Tygart says the most likely alternative is supplement contamination -- another possibility which has never been ruled out. But you say it's impossible because she ruled that out? She also ruled out intentional doping, so that must be impossible too.
Your Logic 101 explanation isn't all that logical. It doesn't make any sense to tell the CAS something relative to "1 in 10,000", and Runner's World "1 in 5,000,000". You think he meant, by "far less than", to say "about 500x less than 1 in 10,000"? Why not tell the CAS "far less than 1 in 100,000" or "far less than 1 in 500,000", or simply "1 in 5,000,000" or "something less than 1 in a million"? Why give some anchor to the CAS that is not even close to the "real" estimate within 2 orders of magnitude? He's an expert, right? Note the witnesses in the CAS proceeding have a "duty to tell the truth, subject to the sanctions of perjury under Swiss law". That must be why Prof. McGlone conceded so many things. What is the duty for telling the truth, and penalty for not telling the truth, to Runner's World?
As you keep telling me, Tygart says the most likely alternative is supplement contamination?
I have never ever said that. So much for you wanting to stop lying.
And what are even talking about with the offal test? Houlihan had not "the offal in the burrito" tested as I said, but the burrito, not the offal? You are the weirdest poster ever. You are also wrong again - she had only "the meats" analyzed, not the whole burrito.
All your other questions are obvious nonsense. And you still have not understood that "far less than 1 in 10,000" does not equal ZERO less than 1 in 10,000. Stop deflecting and start thinking.
You acknowledged under my scenario that the possibility existed for Athlete to make any argument to mitigate or even do away with punishment. That is the absurdity of it.
Maybe you are in the minority? At this stage, you are the minority.
You are under the mistaken assumption that the additional evidence you highlighted will move the needle significantly. This is where your lack of legal understanding comes into play because they don’t. What moves the needle is the positive test. And it moves the needle so far that the others things you mention only nudge it forward a few ticks, if at all. They certainly don’t fundamentally change the nature of the process in any significant way. For you to say these things are difference makers is nonsensical and in no way justifies the thousands of posts you have written over the last four years. You’ve wasted your time if this really is your position because in a legal proceeding it wouldn’t play out how you think. You’re just wrong. That you’ve based your arguments on this belief is sad.
You’re so unwillingly to concede any point that you can’t even keep your position straight. Of course forcing WADA to prove intent would be a hot potato. That’s literally my argument. A positive doping test has always and will always put the accused behind the eight ball. That’s not unfair. It establishes a violation with allowance for evidence in defense. That’s fair.
A split panel is not proof of ambiguity. That literally isn’t how legal proceedings work. Rather, the majority opinion established clarity. That is how legal proceedings work.
Of course any athlete can make any argument they want. You don't acknowledge that?
Not sure what mistaken assumption you think I'm making. I told you what would move the needle for me -- either less ambiguous test results, or something tangible supporting an alternative. Since you are arguing with me, those are the sticking points that would sway me. I tend to prefer tangible evidence over presumptions without evidence. Maybe science is different on that point.
You keep saying "positive test", but that is the first point that is not so clear. Interpreting the results as an "AAF", I agree should put the athlete on defense, while interpreting it as an "ATF" should not. That is the first dispute, and that is what the CAS Panel did not agree on. Just like the CAS Panel, you should not be surprised if there is not unanimous agreement here in the forum.
As far as the split decision, the WADA TD should already provide clear and unambiguous and predictable guidance when interpreting the test results. There should be no reason or need or room for a majority legal opinion to add clarity -- that isn't how science works. Their should be no room for interpretation whether the WADA Lab followed a clear and unambiguous standard, or not. The WADA Lab should be like mindless robots.
And if this CAS Panel was split, it is not hard to envision another CAS Panel split the other way, when the legal standard is "probably" or "probably not".
The problem regarding intent is that forcing anyone to prove or disprove intent is a hot potato. This wasn't reallly an issue before 2015. Innocent athletes were not convicted of intentional doping. I don't think it is so important for the sake of clean sport to enable that possibility of treating innocent athletes the same as intentional cheats.
You acknowledged under my scenario that the possibility existed for Athlete to make any argument to mitigate or even do away with punishment. That is the absurdity of it.
Maybe you are in the minority? At this stage, you are the minority.
You are under the mistaken assumption that the additional evidence you highlighted will move the needle significantly. This is where your lack of legal understanding comes into play because they don’t. What moves the needle is the positive test. And it moves the needle so far that the others things you mention only nudge it forward a few ticks, if at all. They certainly don’t fundamentally change the nature of the process in any significant way. For you to say these things are difference makers is nonsensical and in no way justifies the thousands of posts you have written over the last four years. You’ve wasted your time if this really is your position because in a legal proceeding it wouldn’t play out how you think. You’re just wrong. That you’ve based your arguments on this belief is sad.
You’re so unwillingly to concede any point that you can’t even keep your position straight. Of course forcing WADA to prove intent would be a hot potato. That’s literally my argument. A positive doping test has always and will always put the accused behind the eight ball. That’s not unfair. It establishes a violation with allowance for evidence in defense. That’s fair.
A split panel is not proof of ambiguity. That literally isn’t how legal proceedings work. Rather, the majority opinion established clarity. That is how legal proceedings work.
Of course any athlete can make any argument they want. You don't acknowledge that?
Not sure what mistaken assumption you think I'm making. I told you what would move the needle for me -- either less ambiguous test results, or something tangible supporting an alternative. Since you are arguing with me, those are the sticking points that would sway me. I tend to prefer tangible evidence over presumptions without evidence. Maybe science is different on that point.
You keep saying "positive test", but that is the first point that is not so clear. Interpreting the results as an "AAF", I agree should put the athlete on defense, while interpreting it as an "ATF" should not. That is the first dispute, and that is what the CAS Panel did not agree on. Just like the CAS Panel, you should not be surprised if there is not unanimous agreement here in the forum.
As far as the split decision, the WADA TD should already provide clear and unambiguous and predictable guidance when interpreting the test results. There should be no reason or need or room for a majority legal opinion to add clarity -- that isn't how science works. Their should be no room for interpretation whether the WADA Lab followed a clear and unambiguous standard, or not. The WADA Lab should be like mindless robots.
And if this CAS Panel was split, it is not hard to envision another CAS Panel split the other way, when the legal standard is "probably" or "probably not".
The problem regarding intent is that forcing anyone to prove or disprove intent is a hot potato. This wasn't reallly an issue before 2015. Innocent athletes were not convicted of intentional doping. I don't think it is so important for the sake of clean sport to enable that possibility of treating innocent athletes the same as intentional cheats.
Moving the needle for you wouldn’t move the needle for the court. What matters to you, therefore, is irrelevant.
If you don’t think panels argue over “science” you don’t live in the real world. If you don’t think panels argue over legal standards, you don’t live in the real world You seem to think it is possible to attain some degree of absolute certainty with this process. It isn’t. You can imagine one panel splitting differently all you want. That isn’t what happened. It is more likely that future CAS panels will be unanimous because of this decision than that they would decide the other way. But you keep hoping.