Sunday Mail Has More Details on Paula's Blood Values and Off Scores + News She'll Put up £1m for an MRI lie detector

Not the last ... wrote:

Paula is outspoken and a leader at IAAF. I would have expected her to make the strongest case for transparency in current races and looking back historically..

Being a leader at the IAAF and driving the org to improve transparency are mutually exclusive.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Not the last ... wrote:

Paula is outspoken and a leader at IAAF. I would have expected her to make the strongest case for transparency in current races and looking back historically..

Being a leader at the IAAF and driving the org to improve transparency are mutually exclusive.

Transparency is bad for business

That is why these organizations like to retain control of anti-doping so they can contain the negative publicity

At this stage we can safely conclude there will be no new information forthcoming on this particular issue (PR). The lid is firmly closed on the pandoras box

Let's go for over a thousand posts on this thread!

Where are we now?

Paula still has OFF scores which go from 82 to 114.87, almost a 33 point change in 2 days from prerace to postrace in 2003 after the halfmarathon WC race, and from 92 to 109.87, an almost 18 point change in 1 day from prerace to postrace in 2005 after the 10K WC race. While a high OFF score of 114 or 109 in isolation by themselves, such as her isolated 109.35 OFF score in 2012, could possibly explained by altitude, these rapid and large magnitude changes in one or two days are most plausibly explained by blood transfusion. It would not matter if the OFF scores were 66 to 99 in 2003 or 81 to 99 in 2005, all of these would be normal OFF scores in isolation by themselves, but the 33 point change in 2 days or 18 points in 1 day is what is abnormal and suspicious. These rapid and large magnitude changes have not been plausibly explained by Paula, or the IAAF, or rekrunner.

Meanwhile, Paula has been appointed vice-chairwoman of the athletes commission at the IAAF, where she will be with her pal Seb Coe.... GO PAULA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paula could release blood test results around her 2:15 and 2:17 marathons to be really transparent, as normal looking blood results from before and after those races would really help her case and remove a lot of doubts...but she has chosen not to...so those doubts will remain for many people....too bad....

This story has gone away for Paula, as other newer scandals take over people's attention, such as problems with drug testing in Kenya (Their anti-doping agency is still not funded!), Russian doping coverups and corruption, and IAAF corruption,bribery,extortion, money laundering, etc., etc., etc...........

We are still waiting for information on what the identities are of the over 200 bags of blood in Dr. Fuentes freezer. We are now into March, 2016 while the decision was supposed to be announced in January, and the case of Operation Puerto goes back 10 years!.........

And now the Ethiopian Aregawi, supposedly given 3 days warning!!! before her OOC test in Ethiopia, and she tests positive for Meldonium (mildronate), a 25 year old drug from Latvia, supposedly brought to Ethiopia by Russian or Ukranian doctors, unapproved in the US, with minimal scientific information about it at all, including about zero evidence that it improves endurance performance in human athletes (who are not rats or cardiac patients). I had never heard of it till now..........and by the way.... Isn't Aregawi's manager Jos Hermens?.... Isn't he the manager of the great Geb and Bekele as well?

If someone is taking something I have never heard of, like Meldonium, I wonder what else they might be taking that I have heard of, in addition to Meldonium! I doubt that was all she was taking.............

It looks like some endurance athletes will do almost anything to enhance performance including: anabolic steroids, HGH and its peptide mimetics, insulin, stimulants, EPO and its variations, blood transfusions, and now more recently..... xenon and argon gas, meldonium, cobalt, Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF) stabilizers (which act like EPO in an oral pill form, no more injections...how convenient!), AMP-activated kinase(AMPK) activators such as AICAR and Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor(PPAR) activators such as GW1516....

Those are most of the categories I know about... that people are using...

And then there are the categories and substances that all of us and the testers still know absolutely nothing about........that people are using.......

It is a very sad state of affairs in this sport..........

rekrunner wrote:

Which athlete gives the kind of transparency you want from Paula?

Not sure that I can speak for DHT but several British male and female endurance athletes have been more transparent by making their blood data public. In stark contrast, PR has flat out refused to do this which does not look good given that her leaked test results showed that there were at least 3 abnormal values on 3 different occasions.

Whoops, another Ethiopian, Endeshaw Negesse, a 2:04 marathoner and winner of the 2015 Tokyo marathon has tested positive for meldonium.

Whoops again, at least nine other Ethiopians are under investigation, and three have already been suspended, but not named yet. The substances involved are anabolic steroids including testosterone, the stimulant ephedrine, furosemide(a diuretic which is banned because it is used as a masking agent for doping tests), and OTHER BANNED SUBSTANCES (but these other substances are not named in this March 4,2016 article from the Guardian).

If someone is using something esoteric like meldonium, they are probably using conventional PEDs as well, and it looks like some Ethiopians are doing exactly that.

If the other banned substances include EPO, will we hear the same old stories about how these were just second tier Ethiopians taking PEDs? Although Aregawi is top tier, Renato assured us she only would take drugs through ignorance and because of fear of losing (due to injuries, etc.) her great natural ability developed over years of great training with no PEDs at all until just recently. How about Negesse? Does this 2:04 marathoner who won last year's Tokyo Marathon count as a top tier Ethiopian? How about the 2:09 Ethiopian marathoner Sintayehu Mergia who just got busted for some PED( we don't know exactly what yet)? Does he count? Maybe meldonium doesn't really work anyway, so it doesn't even matter that they took it, right? And it used to be legal until Jan 1,2016, right? So not so bad, right?....... More nonsense!!!

Will we hear more stories about how EPO doesn't improve performance in top class KENYANS or ETHIOPIANS LIVING AND DOING TOP CLASS SUPER ELITE TRAINING AT ALTITUDE?.........More nonsense!

The myth of the always and forever clean Ethiopian and Kenyan athletes who would never ever take PEDs ("They will not even take an aspirin!!"...Remember that line?) is being destroyed slowly but surely as each day goes by......stay tuned..........

It is time to stop all the nonsense stories................

These new cases make me wonder about what we have seen over the last decades. I remain somewhat optimists about top athletes I watched but I would have hoped that the IAAF and PR would responded to the issue with more of a focus on transparency and erring on the side of testing. The sport really needs a fix for ETH and Kenya testing soon. There may be a lot cf clean runners there but this kind of news does a lot of damage to the sport.

Not the name ... wrote:

I remain somewhat optimists about top athletes I watched but I would have hoped that the IAAF and PR would responded to the issue with more of a focus on transparency and erring on the side of testing.

When a runner can make $700,000 from winning a marathon, I think it is hard to be optimistic about the integrity of top athletes.

When you know your competitors are doping, how do you even up the playing field? Train harder?

Not the name ... wrote:

The sport really needs a fix for ETH and Kenya testing soon. There may be a lot cf clean runners there but this kind of news does a lot of damage to the sport.

The sport's regulatory authorities have only just stated to perform some semi serious testing in Ethiopia and right now they are having a turkey shoot. The main issues are whether the offenders will be punished appropriately and whether the big names are being protected.

It doesn't answer the question. What level of transparency should athletes provide to the public, and what should determine waiving the athletes' right to medical privacy?We have the scores of the athletes, but no blood values, and more importantly, no dates. As you know 2009 is an important date for me. From this point of view, we actually have more information about some of Paula's blood values then these other "brave" English athletes.We know from the Sunday Times that 30% of podium and 1 in 7 of all athletes tested had scores like Paula.I guess it's safe to assume that other athletes also refused to publish their data. Maybe some of them are also British. Who's calling for their transparency? In order to make any sense of it, we need ALL athletes in the database to be transparent.Since privacy for athletes is the default, everyone should be able to refuse to do this, and still look good, especially given the uncertainty of pre-2009 measurements.

preciously jaded wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Which athlete gives the kind of transparency you want from Paula?

Not sure that I can speak for DHT but several British male and female endurance athletes have been more transparent by making their blood data public. In stark contrast, PR has flat out refused to do this which does not look good given that her leaked test results showed that there were at least 3 abnormal values on 3 different occasions.

I cannot help what you find plausible, but all of these erratic values have been explained, by Paula, the IAAF, and me, supported by many scientific papers.Indeed, blood transfusions COULD BE one explanation that I have not disproved (yet how would that impact the RET measurements which did not change? Honest question as something I wondered, but don't know if I asked, and surely hasn't been addressed.)Yet we know process errors could be another likely explanation that shows your observed 18 point and 33 point changes are simply not real.What other plausible explanation could there be for the low RBC measurement in Portugal?When 2 different brand machines measuring the same sample have been observed giving an RBC reading differing by 2 g/dl, we need to better understand the measurement reliability from the processes pre-2009, versus post-2009, and more importantly, how that impacts the 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000, probabilities used to determine suspicion, as well as the 1 in 1,000,000 probabilities indicating likely doping.Blood values collected before 2009 were not collected according to more stringent 2009 standards. It's not fair to use post-2009 scoring and criteria on pre-2009 samples.Rules were put in place in 2007 and 2009, precisely because wild fluctuations have been observed and attributed to many causes due to the methods used to collect, transport, store and process the blood. These significant magnitude non-doping variations are all discussed in great detail in all the many papers referenced.If these variations had occurred post-2009, I admit I would be hard pressed to argue with you, or explain wild 33 point fluctuations in the span of days.The fact that a skeptical public has different ideas of plausibility, without acknowledging large errors actually observed by science, is a primary reason that especially pre-2009 values should not be made public.

Following up, it seems that "Around 4 per cent of British athletes are alleged to have recorded abnormal scores in blood doping analysis leading up to the eve of London 2012, with the Sunday Times putting the total figure at "a dozen"".http://www.eurosport.com/athletics/i-ll-sue-top-british-athlete-confronted-over-sunday-times-doping-crisis-claims_sto4842226/story.shtmlSo while several British male and female "I've got nothing to hide" athletes were brave enough to publish their data, it seems that "a dozen" more were just like Paula, refusing the pressure to waive their personal rights and make their data public. Any comparison between Paula and only these "nothing to hide" athletes, would be one-sided.Calling for complete transparency from Paula is still only part of the picture. For the public to be able to put it in proper perspective, we need to see complete transparency from many more athletes, plus documentation concerning the blood measurements from collection to reporting, and documentation concerning the athlete's training history and any medical issues.To put this in greater perspective, we should see a graph that includes the points of the brave "clean" athletes, plus the dozen other "abnormal" athletes, plus the graphs of busted athletes, plotted on the x-axis with dates. The dates might highlight major testing milestones, like the 2007 and 2009 rule changes.For example, comparing post-2009 with pre-2009 would help us distinguish if "abnormal" means "doping" or simply "altitude training plus fluctuations due to pre-2009 process errors".For the sake of consistency, either the data is private, or transparency must be complete. The best compromise is that complete transparency is limited to experts charged with the task of enforcement, and other experts allowed to guarantee cross-checks and the integrity of the process.

Really rekrunner, you are such a bore. I don't know why you're on this thread. I'm on here because I love the sport and something has always smelt very fishy around the Paula story since it came out last year, and nothing that has come out has made me feel any differently, if anything the opposite.

Feels like you belong in a court of law, endlessly arguing about procedure, getting your client off on a technicality. Yes, we know that samples need to be taken 2 hours after a race. But what about 1 hour 59 mins? You really think that the result is that different then? And what about 1 hour 58 mins? There's not a fixed line in the sand for this, but obviously any changes will be gradual. (Of course we don't know how long after the races the tests were taken because Paula hasn't released the blood test forms (see my list on page 40 of this thread).

And you speak of pre-2009 like it was the stone-age in terms of blood testing, that no-one had any idea whatsoever what they were doing. Another favourite of the lawyers. Testing develops, for sure, but you really think everyone was that naive?

Regards for Paula and transparency, and what other athlete gives us that - how about setting an example for us, now that she is the athlete's representative and all that? No, didn't think so.

I still hope that someday, some journalist will pick around the story and uncover some inconsistencies or something will be leaked that will undermine her story. There's enough unanswered questions out there. I'm still interested in her claim that prior to her 2012 test she was 'at altitude, and injured at altitude, so I wasn't running every day and I wasn't crushing the red blood cells' (see recent Runners World interview at the Disney Marathon) and contrast that with interviews she gave at the time, such as this one taken from Runners World:

"The events of recent years have, Radcliffe admits, made her feel vulnerable. But her time in Iten, going ‘back to basics’, has seen it flood back at just the right time. “All the runs are on trails, apart from my mile reps, which I prefer to do on the road,” Radcliffe revealed in Kenya. “You can’t wrap yourself up in cotton wool, you have to take risks, and that has benefits. Being in Iten really improved my confidence. I only expected to be running once a day and I ran twice, comfortably. I pushed hard and it worked out, and that gave me a huge boost. The trails are full of holes and lumps and bumps, and I was running hard on them. I gave it every chance for something to go wrong, and nothing did. If I survived that, I can survive anything.”

Interesting........ There were a lot of athletes out there in the UK training camp at the time, surely one of them remembers something......

There are so many angles.

Here is an interview from back in 2005 when Paula was still speaking to the Sunday Times. It was posted on this board and Paula mentions her "congenital anaemia":

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1120374

This means the fastest marathon runner of all time (allowing for gender) has congenital anaemia. Or in other words an abnormally low count of red blood cells and hemoglobin.

How is this condition treated in the general population? Typically by blood transfusions or blood boosting drugs such as EPO.

What are the chances that Paula acquired a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) for the treatment of congenital anaemia that facilitated the use of blood boosting techniques for medical reasons?

Congenital Anaemia wrote:

What are the chances that Paula acquired a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) for the treatment of congenital anaemia that facilitated the use of blood boosting techniques for medical reasons?

I'm guessing you're thinking fairly high.

The latest sporting excuse seems to be "I leave everything around what I take to my doctor", which athletes can use as a moral 'get out of jail' card if they ever get busted.

At least Paula, as far as I'm aware, has never used that excuse.

She does, however, seem to know an awful lot about her own blood values. Absolutely not proof of being a doper, of course, so no need for others to make this point, but it does make me suspicious.

And I still don't get how athletes allow themselves to get blood transfusions with Healing Hans, when they have no idea what he is putting into their bodies. Isn't that reckless?

Congenital Anaemia wrote:

There are so many angles.

Here is an interview from back in 2005 when Paula was still speaking to the Sunday Times. It was posted on this board and Paula mentions her "congenital anaemia":

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1120374

This means the fastest marathon runner of all time (allowing for gender) has congenital anaemia. Or in other words an abnormally low count of red blood cells and hemoglobin.

How is this condition treated in the general population? Typically by blood transfusions or blood boosting drugs such as EPO.

What are the chances that Paula acquired a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) for the treatment of congenital anaemia that facilitated the use of blood boosting techniques for medical reasons?

Hilarious article. "After the morning gym session, I have a meal. It might be ostrich or venison with wheatgrass and steamed vegetables, all washed down with four litres of water." Straight out of pseuds corner (for the 'private eye' readers on here). FOUR litres?!?! Good luck with that.

Yes, for a anaemic asthmatic Paula has done pretty well.

From Wikipedia:

Treatment of individuals with [Congenital dyserythropoietic anemia] usually consist of frequent blood transfusions, but this can vary depending on the type that the individual has.[14] Patients report going every 2–3 weeks for blood transfusions.[10] In addition, they must undertake chelation therapy to survive;[15] either deferoxamine, deferasirox, or deferiprone to eliminate the excess iron that accumulates.[16] Removal of the spleen [17] and gallbladder [18] are common. Hemoglobin levels can run anywhere between 8.0 g/dl and 11.0 g/dl in untransfused patients, the amount of blood received by the patient is not as important as their baseline pre-transfusion hemoglobin level.[19

Now that Paula is Seb's right hand lady, she'll escape any doping charges.

But this whole affair has shown me what a disgusting human being she is. Probably one of the most unlikable characters in all of running. Long ago I learned that it's reasonable to judge people by the company they keep. Her and Coe are perfect pair in that respect.

You people try to prove me wrong but you have no proof. You want transparency? Here's transparency for you: I've trademarked my user name. When you reference me, you better use the trademark sign as well.

If not, I'll sue you and you won’t be getting any money back in the future like Lance Armstrong, I promise you that.