It's a very good point about the test for transfusions. The IAAF report does not distinguish between autologous transfusion or homologous transfusions, but leaves the reader to think that the test ruled both these out. If the test that they refer to only covers homolgous transfusions, then that would be interesting.
This is a good old post from Ross Tucker's blog regarding blood transfusions.
http://sportsscientists.com/2011/03/the-biological-passport-legal-scientific-and-performance-views/
. I thought these paragraphs were interesting, particular with regard to the 2003 test score (high off-score, but more importantly made up of a high HGB value but a low ret value).
"On the other hand, the re-infusion of blood (the blue arrows) causes a drop in reticulocytes. Why? Because the cells that are being re-infused are “older†(they’ve been stored in a refrigerator!) and so the new blood, post infusion, has more red blood cells, but fewer of them are immature.
The opposite is true for hemoglobin, incidentally. Here, the withdrawal of blood is characterized by a fall in Hb concentration, while the re-infusion of blood increases Hb levels acutely."
Why were they testing Paula's blood before and then after the race? I've found this odd if they were just checking for EPO use. Surely one test would suffice? Different if they were looking at transfusions though. The data has a pattern that is very indicative of a transfusion it must be said. As usual though, all values need to be compared against other values from the same athlete - the whole idea of the ABP. Without releasing her data nobody can do this!
The weather thing is nonsense and evidently Paula has realised this and does not refer to this in her latest interiew (although the IAAF still did). She is an elite athlete, acutely aware of the effect of being dehydrated has on performance. She was very diligent in her preparation. She would have been (rightly so) calculating what was the optimum fluid loss that she should allow during a race like this, working out how much she should have been drinking on the way round to replace fluids, minerals etc.
As people have acknowledged, I think it is impossible that Paula will ever get sanctioned for any of this historical data, because I don't think there was ever enough to prove anything. More interesting for me (and this will be interesting to see if it comes out in the IC report) is whether there were real suspicions at the time about her - whether she was placed on a 'suspicious red' list due to the blood values that came out. She (and the IAAF) have continuously stressed that there was nothing suspicious ever about her values. I think it's highly likely that some of these values caused big red flags, and that Paula was put on a list of athletes who were then 'rigourously' (or perhaps not.....) tested over the coming years. Certainly the number of tests that were done on her seems to suggest that. I think if this is demonstrated then Paula will be shown to be extremely disingenuous it was she has been saying.
The test in 2012 (if it was suspicious, and without her full profile it is hard to say) would suggest more likely EPO use in Kenya. It would be interesting to know if Paula was ever tested for EPO in Kenya (as they have no testing facilities - what a joke! - that will be a 'no'), Albuquerque or Font Romeu - i.e. genuine 'out of competition' testing when at a training camp. We have no idea.
Finally, what happened to the 'faulty equipment' from the lab in Faro? The Daily Mail article says that they were waiting to hear from the hospital to took the test to ask them about it. Zero follow up. That's the hard thing - either nobody is asking the difficult questions about this issue, or the journalists that are are working for newspapers and are getting their next scoop. So it's hard to keep track to see if someone IS following up on these questions.