Shelby Houlihan Ban Upheld -- Loses Appeal

There's a reason she has a hairline Niyonsaba, and it's not because she doesn't know how the nadrolone got in her system.

Yes, irony! You might admit she may be the one who doesn’t need to dope? What’s worse, a doped Hassan winning or a non doped Niyonsaba? I ask this to you in all sincerity. I know you feel the former is doped.

Jonathan Gault has an article out on the matter which includes some quotes from Shelby.

letsrun.com

Shelby Houlihan Announces Her Appeal to the Supreme Court of Switzerland Has Failed

Jonathan Gault

Houlihan's Hail Mary prayer fell short and her nandrolone ban was upheld. She won't be able to compete again until January 14, 2025 but she tells LetsRun.com she's not done as a runner. "I do plan on being back in 2025 and re...

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PS. Has anyone started a petition to get all bans from August 2020 to Jujly 2021 knocked down to 3 years so you only miss 1 Olympics? A first time drug ban was never meant to cause you to miss 2 Olympics.

PPS. I mainly just put the PS to get the Shelby haters into a frenzy.

Ok, I laughed at your PPS as I was about to post "HELL NO" in response to your PS.

It wasn't necessary to present evidence of intent as the case, revolving on a positive test, did not require it. However intent was presumed (and included as a finding) because in the absence of an acceptable excuse she could not show that she wasn't the author of the offence. The elimination of the alternative - a contaminated burrito - left her as the cause. She couldn't show otherwise.

No. But where did you get the info that the 4 year drug ban was related to the Olympic cycle?

P.S. Has anyone started a petition to exclude her (secret) provisional suspension from her 4 year ban? She continued to practice with the team during that "suspension".

P.P.S. Maybe I shall contact AIU with that question.

It's good that the saga is finally over. I'm firmly in the camp that believes she deserves a ban. At the very least, she was careless and every athlete lives by the same rules about being responsible for what you put in your body.

That said, I hope now she can move on and find something to motivate her. Running TTs, training for events that will never happen for her, it's all a little pointless and not good for her mental state. She's probably grieving for a the career she wanted but it's not coming back and three years is a long time to be stuck in a moment. If the people around her, and her supporters, really have Houlihan's best interests at heart, they will help her to move on.

They are two separate issues. I am opposed to athletes doping but I am also opposed to biological males (such as DSD and trans athletes) competing in women's sport. Which is worse? Well, dopers know they are cheating, but athletes like Nyonsaba compete within the rules - even though, in my view, the rules are absurd.

But to take your point - there may not be a lot to choose, in every sense, between Nyonsaba and Hassan fighting it out in the 5k home straight. Whoever wins, the sport loses.

The AIU and the CAS did what the WADA rules permitted them to do.

Short of WADA reform for these potential accidental ingestion cases, there was little chance of winning on appeal, especially after she essentially gave up one iteration of appeals.

Unfortunately the whole process doesn't give us enough information to determine the real source of the nandrolone, and whether it was truly intentional.

I get that intent is presumed if you cannot show why you tested positive. The flaw in the system is the assumption that the athlete knows or can pinpoint how they tested positive. I don't know a better mechanism to deal with it, but it leaves athletes open to being wrongly convicted. In team sports with collective bargaining, athletes at least have a mechanism to combat this. In track and field, they do not.

Rojo has all sorts of ideas in his head that he's kind of inferred without substance. E.g. he always equates Houlihan's case with Lawson's and Wilson's but both of those were sure the source of the PED was tainted meat and could substantiate it. Houlihan was just shooting. Her case is actually more like Asbel Kiprop's in terms of the facts they present. He also thinks "East African genetics" makes them better distance runners when there is not a shred of evidence for this and most studies rule it out completely.

Burrito story is garbage, but this is what I never understood: if she knowingly took Nandrolone, why would she submit a test? Instead, pull a Christian Coleman or whatever you need to do and suffer much milder consequences.

To me, this points to the use of some sketchy supplements. She thought she’d be good on the testing front, and won’t bring up because it would be an admission of some sort of cheating.

She doesn't even have the guts to allow comments on her IG post. GTFOH doper!

I'm happy to see that most are treating her exactly as she should be treated, which is just like any other adjudicated doper would be with no favoritism because she's a white, American.

What I find implausible is the prevailing attitude that doping is a rarity at the top of the sport. Athletes who get caught - like Houlihan - thereby become a scapegoat so that we can believe there are few others like her. In truth, she is likely to be indicative of the practice of doping in elite sport, not the exception. So she is pilloried while athletes whose doping has thus far evaded detection are celebrated without a whiff of reservation or even scepticism. Heroes must remain heroes - untainted. Until they fall.

Every system has the possibility of a wrongful outcome. However, when athletes are advised what they can take and what they can't, and can show they took due care, I believe the risk of the wrong outcome is low. The onus on the athlete - as it should be. But if intent were needed to be proven to confirm a violation no one would be convicted.

The system assumes only the facts of the case. Which are the athlete tested positive for a banned substance that provides performance enhancement qualities or masks other substances that do the same. IF the athlete wants to appeal that--THEN the burden of proof comes upon them to explain how 1) either the test is flawed and therefore inaccurate or 2) and honestly in a more shaky way--that the substance came to be there without their knowledge, but so what? It's still there, and they still benefitted so they better have a good defense for that as well. You are putting it in kind of a flipped way, because WADA and CAS must provide the burden of PROOF that the athlete did indeed test positive and that eliminate any other options based on evidence to the contrary--which in fact they did do here. It sounds like they had a strong case and SH had a silly one that did not provide strong evidence. It isn't a flaw in the system to back up your case with evidence. Don't be weird.

Something tricky that SH is trying to put forth here is some idea that this type of "wrongful accusation" happens "a lot."

Like how in the legal system there is high proportion of wrongful convictions--but I actually haven't heard any evidence or examples of WADA actually wrongfully accusing and convicting someone or if it's happened it's surely very rare in comparison to the number of accurate results they have.

I’d like to see a system in which if the athlete admits to the doping and explains the details and they are corroborated, then the ban is reduced to 2 years from 4. Yes, we would be letting people off easy so to speak, but we would have it on the record that they doped, and the information might prove invaluable in preventing doing going forward. Anyway, just a thought. I haven’t gamed out all the scenarios, but I think people should be incentivized to tell the truth and in the long run the sport would benefit from it.

Once her attempted excuse was disposed of "the real source" of the nandrolone was irrelevant. It was enough that she tested positive and had no excuse that was accepted. Because she couldn't show otherwise, she was responsible for its presence in her system - and that presumes intent, as CAS found. The word "truly" doesn't enter into it. The balance of probabilities is good enough.

So some of you have moved to tainted burrito was possible to now tainted supplements, huh. Pray tell what will you try next?