GDS has left BTC, cites Houlihan explicitly

Link didn't embed properly so go here: https://usatf.sport80.com/public/widget/2

That's really disingenuous, Rojo. You know the issue isn't that she continues to train, and the poster you replied to didn't say that. The issue is that she's still being coached by the head coach of a pro team sponsored by Nike, and by all accounts, she's de facto still a member of BTC. That's the issue. They're operating in a gray zone in a way that you would hammer Salazar for if he was doing it. You guys used to be better than this, you asked hard questions of coaches and athletes, now you look for ways to give Jerry and BTC a free pass.

Sorry but I thought I read in this fast moving thread that Bowerman had lapsed.

If not then I can’t see how joining training sessions where both the coach and other athletes of the club are there is not a breach.

But then, I can’t see how SH can have received legal advice and advice from AIU that she could carry on with joint sessions in the manner that now seems evident.

Still some significant bits of the jigsaw missing.

Non of the above should mean that it is not unreasonable for concerned and confused athletes to leave.

Just read the LRC interview and, wow, these quotes stand out:

“Furthermore, my and the group’s suggestions on boundaries to avoid any potential grey areas in the absence of those clarifying guidelines were rejected."

“When that suggestion for different workout days was rejected, I asked for morning/afternoon, and when that was rejected I asked for a 30min to 1 hour window between when Shelby finished her cool down and when we arrived at the track,” DeBues-Stafford said. “Still, that suggestion was dismissed.”

First, it looks like it's not just GDS, other members of the team wanted separation from Houlihan. Second, the very reasonable suggestions but forward by GDS getting rejected indicates that Jerry was determined to keep Houlihan as part of the group. Also, if Houlihan is not even working out 30 minutes apart from the main group, then she is pretty obviously working out with the team. My guess is she's starting and finishing the sessions on the other side of the track to technically provide separation. At this point, I think the only way Jerry and Shalane will stop this arrangement is if there's a mass walk out. This is why athletes need a union

Yeah the irony of having union in the name but no unions allowed in the company is wild. Also, GDS made the right move. Had to wildly annoying to just have logical suggestions to at least take some suspicion off the team completely stiff armed.

Seems like real poor management, whether that's on the coaching staff itself or further up the chain.

At the end of the day facilities and slightly improved contracts aren't going to hold a team together. It's been pretty well proven that those aren't huge factors in running performance anyways.

Feeling confident with your coaches and those you train with matters magnitudes more. Whilst not being constantly frustrated with your work environment daily. Again just the right decision.

Rojo, please stop trolling your own website.

100% she learned that the entire outfit is dirty.

I'm a big fan of the Brojos, but my respect for them has gone down significantly through this Houlihan ordeal.

I was not a big fan of GDS, but my respect for her has gone up significantly through this Houlihan ordeal.

Strange world we live in. Go Jim Walmsley.

But she explicitly said the opposite; 100%

So she's implying that she can somehow be contaminated by training with a suspended athlete? That's absurd, which is probably why there is nothing about it in the regulations.

Guilt by association is only a thing on Letsrun.com.

There is not?

For example, 10.14.3 states at the end:

Where an Athlete Support Person or other Person assists a Person in violating the prohibition against participation during Ineligibility or a Provisional Suspension, an Anti-Doping Organization with authority over such Athlete Support Person or other Person shall impose sanctions for a violation of Article 2.9 for such assistance.

That may very well be why she asked for clarification and boundaries. Obviously doing a workout with a banned doper helps both; does warming up while the doper cools down "assist"?

"Guilt by association", nice. Obviously that used to be a thing for Flanagan too, for example.

A few comments that may be obvious to some:
First, it is a credit to Jonathan G (and, indirectly,
to the Jo Bros, but NOT every one of the posters on this site) that GDS chose to
tell her reasonable, measured and (apparently) accurate explanation for her
departure to LRC. This sport needs fewer Sha’carris and more GDSs.
Just one correction to JG’s story, but an important one, in this context. Shelby Houlihan was not suspended “in June 2021” but rather in January 2021. The suspension was announced in June because Nike / BTC had tried to sneak SH into the US Olympic Trials and managed to get her registered when USATF was warned that it would be in violation of the WADA
Anti-Doping Code if SH were allowed to run. SH withdrew.
Now, what about that six-month silence (go ahead, call it a cover-up) January – June 2021, that GDS said affected her performance(s) when she found out about it? During their six months of silence, where was Schumaker, Flannagan and Houlihan’s sense of responsibility for teammates, and possibly other athletes, who might eat at the burrito truck? IF Houlihan’s story was correct, not warning “stay away. Their burrito raised my nandrolone and now I’m in trouble” could have put others at risk. So a very selfish move by the BTC
trio, all in an effort to sneak SH into the Olympic Trials.
And, let’s leave aside for a moment the lawyers’ readings of the USATF rules on banned athletes and club group training. As GDS says, it is at best a grey area, and at worst some self-contradictory babble designed to please everybody. If Her Majesty the Burrito Queen chooses to work out, on her own, in Portland parks, that’s her business. But training with
the BTC, under Jerry and Shalane’s direction, along with the team for altitude training at Flagstaff, posting time trial results to show how her training is going, is the equivalent of saying to the T&F world “yeah, I’m doing all this, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, because I’ve got Nike on my side, and they pay the bills, suckers! They almost got me into the nationals when I had been banned for six months!”
And, who paces those time trials that SH brags about on Instagram? Is it Shalane? Are some team members pressured to do pacing? Does BTC hire an outside athlete(s) as pacer (a clear violation of USATF rules – no grey area)?
Finally, Bill Bowerman would be horrified by this spectacle / scandal at the club that bears
his name. Starting with AlSal and continuing through Jerry Schu’s (very) bad judgement.
It’s not just that no one is paying attention over at Nike, it is that all of this affects a very, very small part of their business. Nike is now a lifestyle company, and super shoes and Olympic athletes are now a “nice to have” element, not part of the company’s core business model. Nike can’t be bothered to think that some of this dirt might rub off on them, and very probably, it won’t.

Honest question: Is SH tested periodically? Or free to eat burritos until she comes back to
competition in 2025?

Ah, the Puritan Ethic.. 'So complicated in Western societies.

Answer: yes, she is tested periodically.

But, regarding her provisional suspension: as pointed out here before, this really should not have counted towards her four year ban, because she kept training with the team and used the team's facility and went with the team to their training camp in early 2021.

I have no particular emotional investment in Shelby's case so I'd like to think I have a relatively unbiased view of the whole debacle but every time a new piece of information comes out, it just makes BTC look worse and worse.

I don't believe Shelby's burrito defence for a second but I had been relatively open to the possibility that it could have been unintentionally ingested in some other manner (of course that doesn't negate the ban, the burden was on her to prove otherwise and she failed miserably). But then you get the world class coach going 'awwww shucks, what is this Nandrolone stuff you speak of', a drug that even I as a total hobby jogger know of and you go hmmmm.

Now it comes out that BTC are at best openly exploiting what they perceive to be a loophole or technicality in relation to training a banned athlete and at worst, totally ignoring the rules altogether, it just makes your organisation look downright shady and the benefit of any doubt re: the Nandrolone issue pretty much evaporates.

If you give a crap about the rest of your athletes, any reasonable person would go 'hey Shelby, you know I believe you and will support you in any way in your quest to prove your innocence, but I can't have you training with the group because 1, it's legally questionable and 2, it's likely to be a distraction to the other girls. I'll keep coaching you in a private capacity, it will just have to be an hour before or after the team trains to maintain some separation'.

The fact that this hasn't happened makes me think the only possible reason is that they are as dirty as hell and Shelby, as the only banned athlete, has a huge amount of leverage and could destroy dozens of careers if she decided to blow the whistle. So they are doing everything to accommodate her during her appeals process. Of course GDS is going to say she's never seen evidence of doping, it may be that's it's true that she never saw anything but come on, her career is finished and legacy gone if she comes out and says yeah, Jerry had us all shooting up in the locker rooms.

I get that we don't want to believe that our athletic heroes are dopers, I'm as guilty of that as anyone (albeit not from the US) but it astounds me that anyone can possibly believe that BTC aren't as shady as hell.

This. We now have first hand evidence that BTC athletes weren't told about SH's ban and therefore presumably weren't made aware of the risk of contamination that the argued so vehemently was the cause of SH being popped. So we can now deduce that the burrito defence was total BS, and BTC and Nike also knew it was BS. They clearly know how it got in her system.

Everyone, look at Rojo, throwing shade at GDS, a clean athlete, in order to protect Houlihan, a dirty athlete