Schumacher passionately defends S. Houlihan says we just are witnessing the execution of "someone’s athletic life and dreams"

She shouldve went with the whiskey excuse...

Good thing the TDF didn't have "authentic" Mexican food trucks along the route in 06

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/sports/othersports/30selena.html

Ollie Hoare apparently has it figured -- stick to McDs

jackamo wrote:

What's next? TUE for food trucks? LOL

You make a great point on the obvious 'softening' of the zero-tolerance stance when it hit the bright-eyed, fresh face group powering a lot of the user content and driving internet traffic.

If Rupp had this level of PR no one would've care about what Salazar had him trying.

Nike put out a statement blasting WADA yet? All these regulations are really hurting their brand image and bottom line

rojo is obviously a huge Schumacher/BTC fan and has been extremely anti-Salazar. He's been promoting BTC favorably for years. I think we'd have seen very different coverage were a NOP athlete in the exact same situation. It feels like Shelbo is being given the benefit of the doubt by some people.

Not from the same pig. Science is 100% about repeatability. Getting a sample from a different pig will not help you, even if that pig is from the same farm and raised the same way as the pig that was involved in the burrito.

Again, going back to the source is not helpful. If you honestly believe it was, don't you think they would have done that already? And that would be a key point in their defense?

Liberal fact checker wrote:

jackamo wrote:

What's next? TUE for food trucks? LOL

You make a great point on the obvious 'softening' of the zero-tolerance stance when it hit the bright-eyed, fresh face group powering a lot of the user content and driving internet traffic.

If Rupp had this level of PR no one would've care about what Salazar had him trying.

Nike put out a statement blasting WADA yet? All these regulations are really hurting their brand image and bottom line

rojo is obviously a huge Schumacher/BTC fan and has been extremely anti-Salazar. He's been promoting BTC favorably for years. I think we'd have seen very different coverage were a NOP athlete in the exact same situation. It feels like Shelbo is being given the benefit of the doubt by some people.

I Schumacher and Rojo are friends. As with any friends, Rojo is just in denial right now that his friend would permit such a cheater to exist on his team. It would be the same if this were one of my friends. You just can't believe they would do such a thing. He is in shock and denial right now. He will progress to pain and guilt next.

BTC/Nike has unlimited resources. They would have traced the source of the meat in that burrito and then slaughtered every pig until they found even one with elevated steroid levels. The reason no exculpatory evidence has been presented is because the whole story is made up. Even reporting on their specific efforts to prove the meat was tainted would like engender sympathy. Instead, crickets on this.

The world knows that meat is allowed to be contaminated.

Chris Derricks IG post is a little alarming:

'...but to how well her case can be argued. To what can be proved to a suspicious system and public. To the right turn of phrase or clever invocation of statute. to PR. I dont want you to hear arguments. I want you to know, as i know, that Shelby is innocent."

Really a disconnect in the BTC world. Trying to turn this vaguely into 'lawyers tricks' and 'PR' when simultaneously doing the same things, without a response from the counter party because they are claiming a lack of due process in the matter.

Forget the testing regime they all agreed to, and advocate when they feel it's being used to pull weeds from the sport, no, now we are supposed to simply take their word for it because they 'know'

There was a test. That test came back positive. Now you can argue the test is flawed, but to argue this is just semantics and nomenclature and someones sophism or cleverness is showing a complete lack of respect for fair and intelligent minded people that love the sport of track and field

The world apparently also knows that as long as a banned substance can be vaguely linked to meat, you're off the hook.

You have a really tenuous connection to the principles being discussed here it seems

I am intensely skeptical of her story.

That said, many of the points people are making in response are pretty weak:

1. Receipt: Why are you up in arms about her failure to show us a receipt at the press conference? This isn't court. I presume she offered something, like a Square receipt or credit card record, to substantiate it during her appeals. But who cares if she showed the public a slip of paper (particularly a restaurant receipt, which could be easily faked) yesterday?

2. Roach Coach: It's hardly irresponsible to eat at a food truck these days. They're often gourmet or close to it, particularly in Portland.

And many of them claim to use hormone-free meat, which would reassure me as an athlete. It's easy to say "be responsible for what goes in your body" on a message board. But I don't think that's realistic in practice. Athletes are people. They go out with friends and eat delicious things. It's silly to blame someone for taking part in a commonplace activity like that (if you even believe her story about the truck, which...).

3. She should've tested the meat: no. No way did she know about the positive test until all of that day's meat was long gone. Any follow up wouldn't be relevant enough to be useful.

Again, I have trouble believing her story. But none of the above points are convincing.

Right, you're presuming.

Claims are being made and they claim to have the 'facts' on their side.

No one is 'up in arms', but elementary questions are usually asked, especially when your cover story is 'oh, i ate this burrito at a Mexican restaurant 10 hours before a sanctioned doping test that ultimately came back positive'

So, no, whether or not one fact convinces you is a little silly. You're trying to corroborate a number of facts if you're assessing someone's guilt -- that's one brick in that wall. If she can fake it fine. She can also simply lie at no cost as well.

And to your second point, totally accurate "athletes are people" -- driven by incentives -financial, status and otherwise -- to potentially do banned/illegal things.

And to your third point, that's why this story is more 'neat' than 'i drank whiskey' or 'had sex'. As you can see, all the evidence for the corroboration simply blew away in the wind.

So, yes, whatever she can verify on her end does speak to her veracity more so than powerful denials and condemnations of a system that wasnt instituted yesterday to govern world atheltics.

You would think the angle would be, if innocent, ok WADA, release the findings. Release all the information. Where the test was done, what time the test was done, proof of evidence handling and chain of custody for the smaple, what these samples show, potentially the methodology if its not giving away secrets.

But so far, haven't seen that call from BTC to the WADA. Anyone else?

Are you kidding? This isn't the first time this has happened. So yes, as an athlete, they are completely responsible for making sure their meat is coming from a good source before eating it. Just as much as they need to make sure they show up to the line on time and in the correct uniform.

How many times has this supposedly happened before to other athletes? This has potentially ruined her life/career. She should not have been so casual (if the meat excuse is really the case). We can't be soft on this.

She put something into her body that blew a drug test out of the water. That's her FAULT whether is was the PED or the tainted meat. No excuses she is done and possibly taking BTC down with her.

I think reporters should go around to other top athletes and ask how common it really is that they eat from food trucks.

Schumacher is a coach with some of the highest profile athletes and the most resources in the sport across the entire world.

Dieter Baumann was effectively the greatest European distance runner of his time, and an Olympic Gold Medalist in the 5000m who tested positive for Nandrolone. You think Schumacher doesn't know about the 1992 Gold Medalist and 1988 Silver Medalist in the primary event that he coaches??? That's one step below being a distance coach and not knowing about Haile Gebrselassie.

He even has multiple athletes on the "suspected doping" list from the leak years ago.

If he's that ignorant, he is bluntly one of the WORST coaches on the planet. You would have to be an imbecile to both know nothing about the recent history of your sport, AND not be aware of what your own athletes need to watch out for. ESPECIALLY when several of them are already under suspicion.

+1 it seems Schumacher is in denial. He should absolutely know what nandrolone is and what the effects are on distance runners and the ramifications of ingesting it. Is Shelby guilty or innocent? I’m still on the fence on that one even though all the evidence seems to point out that she did do something irregular. If she did she cheat though, it is heartbreaking because she really did not need to do that and the benefits of nandrolone appear to absolutely not be worth it for elite distance runners. If she really did want to dope, EPO would have been the product of choice, surely ?

This is heartbreaking, and I hope she receives the support that she needs at this challenging time. She is a human being, and fallible like most of us. Heart wrenching. No one has a bad word to say about this girl at least up till now.

If the ban sits and she’s 28 years old now, she could come back conceivably at the age of 32 and that is still ok for distance runners, but the damages from this incident, guilty or not, would make it very difficult for a come back to take place.

Fortunately, she has good family support including six siblings and a very large extended family. Irish Americans, family power and strength. Houlihan, Flanagan, Quigley, and many others.

Donotbelieve wrote:

I think reporters should go around to other top athletes and ask how common it really is that they eat from food trucks.

Makes no difference re food truck: all meat is contaminated.