You really are getting overcomplicated with this. The standard of proof against an athlete is the balance of probabilities, which is how it works in a civil court. It isn't a criminal matter.
Houlihan tested positive for a banned substance for which she couldn't show legitimate cause. Her attempted defence of accidental contamination was seen as against the balance of probabilities. She couldn't produce convincing evidence to rebut the presumption that she intentionally doped. That's it. That you and others think she might be innocent is only speculation and against the weight of the evidence. If the banned substance in her body wasnt the result of accidental contamination only she could have put it there.
This doesn't seem all that accurate. There was no "weight of the evidence" as such, but rather the "weight of presumption". According to the CAS, it was up to the athlete to convince a panel to overcome two presumptions: 1) that the WADA Lab made the right call (AAF vs. ATF); and 2) that the presence was not intentional.
It doesn't sound like standard civil law to sanction the accused to the fullest extent based on presumptions, and then burden the accused with establishing that some elements do not apply.
It's also not so clear you should rely on civil law comparisons. From a 2006 paper looking at "The Strict Liability Principle and the Human Rights of the Athlete in Doping Cases", it is argued that doping "laws" should be viewed as "quasi-penal" and "pseudo-criminal" laws, as professional athletes cannot "voluntarily" choose to be subject to them, if they want to compete:
"Based on the criterion of voluntariness, disciplinary doping law must be recognised as having more in common with criminal law than with private law. This makes it pseudo-criminal law, which means that although disciplinary doping proceedings cannot be called criminal proceedings as such, criminal law principles should still have a perceptible effect on them."
She wasn't convicted on a presumption; she was convicted on a fact, that she had tested positive for a banned substance for which she had no legitimate excuse. The presumption was that she intentionally took that substance unless she could show otherwise. She couldn't. The evidence she attempted to present, that suggested accidental contamination, was assessed by CAS according to the balance of probabilities. CAS made it clear in its decision that that was the test it applied. The evidence from WA was that the chances of accidental contamination in her case were "close to zero". She couldn't rebut that. So she was convicted of an intentional ADRV. A straightforward decision.
I have some problems with the expert that claimed no contamination pig meat in the American human food chain (the zero thing). ...black marked soya fed boar meat in the burrito wagon (if so all the publicly would have erased every trace of illegal meat long time before any testing of it).
Yes, one has to balance probabilities, pros and cons. But I don’t think this was done impartially. Here is why: I think Wada told CAS that they for a long time had been targeting Houlihan (among other things first and foremost because of a suspicious ABP) and that they now finally had found something concrete -hurrah (don’t screw it up for us now -we know from the blood pass that she is guilty!)
First of all, no expert claimed "no contamination pig meat" - you are making that up.
Second, your conspiracy theories are getting crazier and crazier ("black marked soya fed boar meat in the burrito wagon", Wada targetting Houlihan etc.) from year to year, rekrunner. Give it up dude.
First of all, no expert claimed "no contamination pig meat" - you are making that up.
Second, your conspiracy theories are getting crazier and crazier ("black marked soya fed boar meat in the burrito wagon", Wada targetting Houlihan etc.) from year to year, rekrunner. Give it up dude.
She wasn't convicted on a presumption; she was convicted on a fact, that she had tested positive for a banned substance for which she had no legitimate excuse. The presumption was that she intentionally took that substance unless she could show otherwise. She couldn't. The evidence she attempted to present, that suggested accidental contamination, was assessed by CAS according to the balance of probabilities. CAS made it clear in its decision that that was the test it applied. The evidence from WA was that the chances of accidental contamination in her case were "close to zero". She couldn't rebut that. So she was convicted of an intentional ADRV. A straightforward decision.
The fact of a positive test for a banned substance is not sufficient for conviction as it could have been treated as an ATF, or an AAF.
I only have to go to the CAS report to see she was indeed convicted on a presumption that the WADA Lab correctly followed their rules when reporting the positive test as an AAF.
The CAS Panel did uphold that presumption by majority, but I still find it concerning that the CAS Panel was not unanimous. This means that a minority (one of the three) of the CAS Panel members was persuaded that the postive test was incorrectly reported as an AAF as a result of a deviation from the mandatory guidance. That is concerning however you want to look at it. It has been suggested that that was Houlihan's pick of panelist, but this only raises even bigger concerns that CAS Panelists cannot be fully trusted to be neutral arbitrators, and opens questions of other sources of CAS Panel bias, like familiarity bias from previous arbitrations, which may have been a deciding factor in the majority ruling. The determination of innocence or guilt should never be a factor of the luck of the draw of CAS Panelists.
The lack of CAS Panel unanimity suggests that there is an ambiguity in the guidelines that can sometimes leave the reporting up to the discretion of the WADA Labs, and/or the testing authority, rather than being determinable by clear written guidance governing the labs and testing authorities. I find it of particular concern that it seems that they used a test result (CIR) to determine that the origin of the nandrolone was exogenous, contradicting the written guidance that this CIR result may not be used to determine exogenous origin, if an athlete "invokes" pork offal consumption.
All this subsequent discussion about nandrolone possibly coming from consuming pork in a burrito, presupposing a cascade of low probability factors, is not related to the conviction, but rather the resulting sanction of 4-years, based on another presumption of intent.
Yes, you are right “-the man in the street can easily form a view on whether the offender was probably doping or not” and so can I (I might even agree with the man’s view). But that doesn’t mean we are right! (In some cases we will be right, in others not -that is the consequences of lacking proof.)
It doesn't mean what you say. It means we can form a view that is highly likely to be correct, based on the violation, whereas WADA is only concerned with the violation itself. WADA says to the athlete "you've missed three tests, you've broken the rules, so you will be penalized", while we can say the athlete was therefore probably doping - because the athlete had no legitimate excuse and doping is what the rule is intended to catch or deter. In this context we are dealing with what is probable, not what is certain.
You really are getting overcomplicated with this. The standard of proof against an athlete is the balance of probabilities, which is how it works in a civil court. It isn't a criminal matter.
Houlihan tested positive for a banned substance for which she couldn't show legitimate cause. Her attempted defence of accidental contamination was seen as against the balance of probabilities. She couldn't produce convincing evidence to rebut the presumption that she intentionally doped. That's it. That you and others think she might be innocent is only speculation and against the weight of the evidence. If the banned substance in her body wasnt the result of accidental contamination only she could have put it there.
To your last sentence: No, it could have been spiked, but none of us think so, and I don’t want to raise this as a possibility at all here. But I disagree in the judgement of the balance. And of course you are right there’s a difference between a civil case and a criminal case -despite this the CAS procedure different significantly from a civil case in the normal courts.
I find it more unlikely that Houlihan intentionally ingested nandrolone pills (given the spares information I have since CAS only alludes through one of the Wada brought experts, and doesn’t give arguments and reasoning, contrary to what they did in the two mentioned Norwegian cases.) than a black marked contaminated pig meat (despite the latter also is un probable -I chose this over the first un probability -pills- and secondly I would have Houlihan acquitted because of doubt over which over the two un probabilities to chose).
I think CAS has made a bias decision here between two un probabilities because of potentially false information about Houlihan’s blood pass…
First of all, no expert claimed "no contamination pig meat" - you are making that up.
Second, your conspiracy theories are getting crazier and crazier ("black marked soya fed boar meat in the burrito wagon", Wada targetting Houlihan etc.) from year to year, rekrunner. Give it up dude.
1. I’m not making that expert claim up -you have to reread the CAS papers. And take a look at Armstronglivs’ post -his point is (correctly) that Houlihan’s argument about contaminated pig meat was ruled as un probable!
2. Don’t you know that Wada (rightly IMO) is targeting athletes with additional tests when reasonable cause of suspicion..?
3. I don’t know why you call me rekrunner -as you can see he and I don’t agree in everything. You should even notice the style difference, and that he has English as first language, whereas I obviously hasn’t…
She wasn't convicted on a presumption; she was convicted on a fact, that she had tested positive for a banned substance for which she had no legitimate excuse. The presumption was that she intentionally took that substance unless she could show otherwise. She couldn't. The evidence she attempted to present, that suggested accidental contamination, was assessed by CAS according to the balance of probabilities. CAS made it clear in its decision that that was the test it applied. The evidence from WA was that the chances of accidental contamination in her case were "close to zero". She couldn't rebut that. So she was convicted of an intentional ADRV. A straightforward decision.
The fact of a positive test for a banned substance is not sufficient for conviction as it could have been treated as an ATF, or an AAF.
I only have to go to the CAS report to see she was indeed convicted on a presumption that the WADA Lab correctly followed their rules when reporting the positive test as an AAF.
The CAS Panel did uphold that presumption by majority, but I still find it concerning that the CAS Panel was not unanimous. This means that a minority (one of the three) of the CAS Panel members was persuaded that the postive test was incorrectly reported as an AAF as a result of a deviation from the mandatory guidance. That is concerning however you want to look at it. It has been suggested that that was Houlihan's pick of panelist, but this only raises even bigger concerns that CAS Panelists cannot be fully trusted to be neutral arbitrators, and opens questions of other sources of CAS Panel bias, like familiarity bias from previous arbitrations, which may have been a deciding factor in the majority ruling. The determination of innocence or guilt should never be a factor of the luck of the draw of CAS Panelists.
The lack of CAS Panel unanimity suggests that there is an ambiguity in the guidelines that can sometimes leave the reporting up to the discretion of the WADA Labs, and/or the testing authority, rather than being determinable by clear written guidance governing the labs and testing authorities. I find it of particular concern that it seems that they used a test result (CIR) to determine that the origin of the nandrolone was exogenous, contradicting the written guidance that this CIR result may not be used to determine exogenous origin, if an athlete "invokes" pork offal consumption.
All this subsequent discussion about nandrolone possibly coming from consuming pork in a burrito, presupposing a cascade of low probability factors, is not related to the conviction, but rather the resulting sanction of 4-years, based on another presumption of intent.
Late to the argument.
Disparate opinions on complex athlete cases are inherent to the system and underscore the rigorous assessment of such decisions. This thoroughness underscores the system's commitment to reaching justifiable conclusions, even within the framework of legitimate disagreements.
CAS adheres to meticulously designed selection protocols to ensure a diverse and neutral panel. Thorough documentation practices and multiple layers of review mitigate the risk of external influence on dissenting opinions.
Let me add that the CAS panelists are not stooges, but fully independent, neutral law experts in various positions (all publicly accessible, easy to find who was on which panel and has what job). They do get chosen of course because of their history and attitude. F. ex. here the doper's team was well advised to pick a panelist who is a stickler for the rules, and thinks any suggestion in a technical document ("should" ask for a 2nd opinion and "should" do more tests) is binding (unless in extreme circumstances). In turn World Athletics would (did?) pick a person who sees a difference between "should" and "must", and prefers logic over a fight over the meaning of "migrating boar".
World 5000m silver medalist and European record holder Mohamed Katir has been suspended for whereabout violations. Full info + Katir statement:https://www.soycorredor.es/atletismo/mo-katir-sancionado-dopaje-saltarse-tres-cont...
First of all, no expert claimed "no contamination pig meat" - you are making that up.
Second, your conspiracy theories are getting crazier and crazier ("black marked soya fed boar meat in the burrito wagon", Wada targetting Houlihan etc.) from year to year, rekrunner. Give it up dude.
I see from the downvotes that neither rekrunner nor I are believed when we deny your claim that we are the same person. When it comes to rekrunner I think you can look into the thread Coevett started about new Kenyan busts -think rekrunner says something there about his educational background and so forth; as far as I remember he seems to be an American…
When it comes to me, justanothercuriousdude, I’m a Norwegian -I could of course write something in Norwegian as proof, but you would probably just claim that I have used Google translate…
Well, I found an old medal (from my racing days) in one of my drawers, and took a photo of it in my hand. -It has the Norwegian flag, and the Norwegian Athletics Federation initials, and the top letters “Norgesmester” means “Norwegian Champion”. Hope this is can be considered as a proof of me being a Norwegian, and not being rekrunner…
Please mods limit the rekbot to x amount of posts per day. It would improve his life too.
If you reckon me as one of the rekbots I’m only here for some English practice/learning, and for some justice (and some sports)…
^^^^ You know it's too obvious with your weird dishonest way of trolling, trying to discuss Houlihan's case in a thread about Katir's missed tests, twisting everything that's in the CAS document without ever quoting a paragraph from there directly, blaiming CAS for doing their job correctly, and so on and so on.
And of course you write more often than not as rekrunner and curiousdude at the same time, playing pingpong with yourself.
I see from the downvotes that neither rekrunner nor I are believed when we deny your claim that we are the same person. When it comes to rekrunner I think you can look into the thread Coevett started about new Kenyan busts -think rekrunner says something there about his educational background and so forth; as far as I remember he seems to be an American…
When it comes to me, justanothercuriousdude, I’m a Norwegian -I could of course write something in Norwegian as proof, but you would probably just claim that I have used Google translate…
Well, I found an old medal (from my racing days) in one of my drawers, and took a photo of it in my hand. -It has the Norwegian flag, and the Norwegian Athletics Federation initials, and the top letters “Norgesmester” means “Norwegian Champion”. Hope this is can be considered as a proof of me being a Norwegian, and not being rekrunner…
Accusing us of being each other is just a form of trolling -- a deflection to avoid a discussion that addresses or contains any merit. I suspect "surprise surprise", among many other anonymous handles over the last year, is "casual obsever", who no longer posts under his registered handle. He should know better. But everyone is still free here to post under any registered or unregistered name, and for the most part post whatever nonsense they want, so long as it is civil.
Downvotes are also a measure of popularity. I'm sure I get downvoted just for putting "rekrunner" in the "Username". I have a long reputation of saying unpopular things because the data speaks to me differently I guess.
Note there is no "black market of soya fed boar meat". There is nothing illegal about feeding pigs with soy and not castrating them. Some farmers use chemical castration (which wears off after a few weeks). The USDA will even put this meat legally on the market if it appears on their line and passes the sniff test, without breaking any laws in the US or any USDA regulations. There were several factors that combined during the pandemic, because of global supply issues (not only corn, but castration vaccines, and pigs), that would have increased the probability of such big piggies going to market, at least during a short timeframe before supply chains recovered.
If you reckon me as one of the rekbots I’m only here for some English practice/learning, and for some justice (and some sports)…
^^^^ You know it's too obvious with your weird dishonest way of trolling, trying to discuss Houlihan's case in a thread about Katir's missed tests, twisting everything that's in the CAS document without ever quoting a paragraph from there directly, blaiming CAS for doing their job correctly, and so on and so on.
And of course you write more often than not as rekrunner and curiousdude at the same time, playing pingpong with yourself.
This is the kind of dishonesty I've come to expect.
You don't give a sh*t about doping, only about the number of posts. So what have you offered on the thread subject?
Your friend tried to convince the mods to reduce the no. of posts for rek. You post almost 4 times as often as him.
Why does he care about rek and not about you?
Even your friend himself posts more often than rek. Strange people both of you.
Rekrunner posts mainly on doping threads, with one or two exceptions. My interests are wider. However there is no rule restricting the numbers of posts. If there was there would be no discussion about that point. But what is apparent is that you are more interested in the number of my posts than the subject of the thread. It seems you have nothing to offer on the latter.
She wasn't convicted on a presumption; she was convicted on a fact, that she had tested positive for a banned substance for which she had no legitimate excuse. The presumption was that she intentionally took that substance unless she could show otherwise. She couldn't. The evidence she attempted to present, that suggested accidental contamination, was assessed by CAS according to the balance of probabilities. CAS made it clear in its decision that that was the test it applied. The evidence from WA was that the chances of accidental contamination in her case were "close to zero". She couldn't rebut that. So she was convicted of an intentional ADRV. A straightforward decision.
The fact of a positive test for a banned substance is not sufficient for conviction as it could have been treated as an ATF, or an AAF.
I only have to go to the CAS report to see she was indeed convicted on a presumption that the WADA Lab correctly followed their rules when reporting the positive test as an AAF.
The CAS Panel did uphold that presumption by majority, but I still find it concerning that the CAS Panel was not unanimous. This means that a minority (one of the three) of the CAS Panel members was persuaded that the postive test was incorrectly reported as an AAF as a result of a deviation from the mandatory guidance. That is concerning however you want to look at it. It has been suggested that that was Houlihan's pick of panelist, but this only raises even bigger concerns that CAS Panelists cannot be fully trusted to be neutral arbitrators, and opens questions of other sources of CAS Panel bias, like familiarity bias from previous arbitrations, which may have been a deciding factor in the majority ruling. The determination of innocence or guilt should never be a factor of the luck of the draw of CAS Panelists.
The lack of CAS Panel unanimity suggests that there is an ambiguity in the guidelines that can sometimes leave the reporting up to the discretion of the WADA Labs, and/or the testing authority, rather than being determinable by clear written guidance governing the labs and testing authorities. I find it of particular concern that it seems that they used a test result (CIR) to determine that the origin of the nandrolone was exogenous, contradicting the written guidance that this CIR result may not be used to determine exogenous origin, if an athlete "invokes" pork offal consumption.
All this subsequent discussion about nandrolone possibly coming from consuming pork in a burrito, presupposing a cascade of low probability factors, is not related to the conviction, but rather the resulting sanction of 4-years, based on another presumption of intent.
The low probability was her excuse relating to allegedly consuming a contaminated pork burrito. By contrast, what was indisputable was the presence of a banned drug in her system. Hence the violation for which she had no accepted defence.
We also see that in courts with more than one judge/panellist a decision does not have to be unanimous but only of a majority. The CAS decision isn't any less credible because it wasn't unanimous on all points before it. That is how courts work.
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