Red flags in the Houlihan case that need explaining

Am I the only one who acknowledges that the legal limit of 2 ng/mL and Shelby’s tested amount of 5 ng/mL being 2.5x times the limit, along with a single study that had a guy needed to eat a certain amount of pig offal to achieve a different level is not much of a proof of anything. For all we know at this point, eating a small amount of highly contaminated meat can bring nandrolone to 5 ng/mL. The Lawson and Wilson cases were with different drugs found in cow meat, so those can’t be used as a comparison. Basically, no one has proved that it isn’t possible to achieve 5 ng/mL by eating a normal amount of highly contaminated meat, even if there has been a lot of conjecture so far about the numbers, and one study with a man eating an amount of meat of unknown contamination.

You're right, but still, something about it doesn't sit well with me.

Then again, if she bought the burrito as a cover for a failed test, she would have presumably actually gotten a pork burrito, instead of a steak burrito, and then tried to claim a messed up order when the supposed smoking fun food receipt didn't help her case at all.

What a freaking mess.

I have been a huge Shalane Flanagan fan for years, but she - by her own admission - has a history of being unable to see what's right in front of her face. Here's Shalane on Mary Cain:

I had no idea it was this bad. I’m so sorry @runmarycain that I never reached out to you when I saw you struggling. I made excuses to myself as to why I should mind my own business. We let you down. I will never turn my head again.

My guess is that Houlihan was microdosing, independently of Flanagan and Schumacher.

mar828 wrote:

I feel like they committed to the burrito defense too readily - leave it open, for the love of Pete. Say it could be a supplement, or pregnancy, or whatever. You want to increase the potential for doubt, not decrease it. Assuming she was knowingly doping and is trying to avoid the charge, of course.

I think that they could not have left it open. Once you have a clearly positive result you are guilty unless you can show a plausible alternative explanation for the result. As others have pointed out, it is not like in a criminal court. Simply increasing doubt will be to no avail; you need to give a good alternative cause.

truth be told. wrote:

So much hypocrisy and bias by Letsrun, Kara Goucher, Steve Magness, and many others.

-They’re publicly vocal against doping.

-They’re strongly against carbon plated shoes.

-Breaking rules are bad.

But when it happens to someone they like…

or Kipchoge breaks the rules to run a sub 2 hour marathon…

…they turn a blind eye, sell t-shirts, and defend them.

Rolling eyes.

Lol I was thinking if it was a US runner from any other team, Letsrun would be selling a shirt already with the words "Burritos > EPO" or something on it mocking them. They've been in the pro-Schumacher camp for years though, so I guess they really don't want to believe one of his athletes could be guilty.

Anyway OP's post is a good one. I guess her burrito scenario could have happened, but it seems unlikely and she has presented little proof it happened. I remain unsure of whether she intentionally doped or not, and I doubt we'll ever have anything conclusive.

5-8u4y9ti]0h-irgp wrote:

Uncastrated pig meat sales are so unusual that it should not have been that difficult to have done this.

So I really have no stake in this game, other than to just enjoy the show, BUT, uncastrated pig, and indeed "unpapered" or untraced meat of any kind is VERY easy to obtain. I also live in a neighboring community to Beaverton that has a VERY high population of Hispanic people, and a TON of Mexican food trucks. For those in the area, you know which community I am talking about.

Anyway, I can put my hands on farm fresh pork, or beef, from at least 5 different sources inside of 15 minutes. If I was a small, struggling business owner, which many of these food trucks are, there is no way I would pay or use food wholesale sources for the most expensive cost item in my business, i.e. meat. They can get this meat for pennies per pound on what you pay for "documented" meat in the store or at a fancy restaurant that keeps meticulous paperwork on food sources.

Sorry, but if you know how it works you know that pork/meat from a cash only source like that is WAAAYYY cheaper than buying from expensive restaurant wholesalers like, Sysco, 5-Star, or US Foods, etc.

Now, I am not saying that is what happened to SH, but what I am saying is that this whole "exotic German Wild Boar" tangent is a little off(al) tee hee, because if you want cheap meat, that is possibly uncastrated, you can get it locally in Oregon.

Actually, a drive through the countryside can get you all kinds of farm fresh items in the areas surrounding Beaverton. Take that as you will, but let's not pretend that these food trucks are the ones you see on Netflix, with the finest, culinary chefs, and professionally sourced ingredients. They are small business owners, and like anyone, they just might cut costs by using a tertiary source of meat or any other item they need to do business. It's not a judgement, but they wouldn't be the first to do this.

"CAS decision was by majority and not unanimous. So, some in the judgement panel dissented".~....if true? ....this is a real smoking gun!

IT SHOULD BE 100% or UNANIMOUS........just like a jury

The "food truck" Houlihan refers to is actually several food trucks, at least one being more-or-less permanently placed. It does serve offal, but mostly beef. "Boar" isn't necessarily wild . It also refers to un-castrated domestic pigs, such as would be used for breeding. It would seem to comprise a tiny portion of pork meat. It's unclear if/when boar meat would be sold for human consumption, let alone its offal. Concerns around "boar taint" make it undesirable or restricted, though I suppose it might be niche marketed as "humane", similar to free-range or organic branding. In any case, it seems while Houlihan is blaming the food truck, she hasn't even established she ate pig or pig offal. Example menu:https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/UDSZlQFV1BB_t2_Auso2aw/o.jpg

Artichoke Toast wrote:

I've had wild boar here in the US - it required special order at a fancy restaurant in Chicago. The taste was incredibly unpleasant. While I find it plausible she could have accidentally been served the wrong thing, I find it extremely unlikely that a food truck is sourcing boar.

Has anyone figured out which food truck this is? I used to live in Beaverton and there were just a few in the area at that time: Richi's and Ochoa Lupitas...neither one of them serves pig offal. I'm surprised Shelby and her team, if this is actually a true story, didn't give specifics of the exact food truck and the menu. If I were her attorney, I would absolutely do that. True stories have more detail.

Pig offal refers to the insides of a pig such as the heart, liver, organs, tongue. Humans are barbaric and reprehensible specimens for killing, cooking and eating these things.

nearest hippie wrote:

Then again, if she bought the burrito as a cover for a failed test, she would have presumably actually gotten a pork burrito, instead of a steak burrito, and then tried to claim a messed up order when the supposed smoking fun food receipt didn't help her case at all.

What a freaking mess.

This is what makes me think she's innocent. My first thought was, "if I'm going to take a steroid with known links to meat contamination, I'm going to buy that meat to cover my tracks". But it doesn't add up in this case, she bought a steak burrito, not a pork burrito. That's a big distinction.

However, who orders a steak burrito, gets pig organs, and just decides to eat it anyway? I would be scared it would ruin my next run and I'm a bona fide hobby jogger.

The whole thing is a mess though, you are right. Why did it take WADA 6 months from notifying her she got popped until they issued the ban. Very convenient that she doesn't have enough time before the trials to appeal. I wouldn't put it past WADA to pull some nonsense like that.

Wellthenfellas wrote:

"CAS decision was by majority and not unanimous. So, some in the judgement panel dissented".~....if true? ....this is a real smoking gun!

IT SHOULD BE 100% or UNANIMOUS........just like a jury

The ENTIRE CAS panel concluded that she doped, rejecting her argument that the drug test result was due to a contaminated burrito. The panel was only split on a procedural issue, with the majority finding that it was valid.

You aren’t very bright, are you?

hank jr wrote:

This is what makes me think she's innocent. My first thought was, "if I'm going to take a steroid with known links to meat contamination, I'm going to buy that meat to cover my tracks". But it doesn't add up in this case, she bought a steak burrito, not a pork burrito. That's a big distinction.

This is why contaminated Testosterone micro-dosing (with nandrolone showing up via a manufacturing error) makes the most sense to me. In that scenario, the burrito thing is just a bit of a Hail Mary excuse drawn up after the fact.

If she was doping and thought she could get caught she would've just ditched the test. She either wasn't OR more likely was successfully evading the tests for years through micro-dosing.

When Schumacher claims he hasn't heard of nandrolone, he marks himself a fool or liar - most certainly the latter. That and disingenuous BTC press conference/releases, make him untrustworthy. There is no evidence shared which indicates he is complicit in Houlihan's intentional doping (if you believe AIU and CAS). But absence of proof is not proof of absence. Someone will probably crack eventually, after a feud, sanction. Guilt by association and rumor were enough to brand Salazar. If Schumacher gets a hall pass, it's hypocrisy and speaks to money and politics.

casual obsever wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

There is zero evidence to support the belief that Schumacher was involved. It was Houlihan that tested positive and not him.

Yes - but Schumacher went out of his way in defending the banned drug cheat - even after CAS confirmed her ban - and instead of scolding the doper, he tried tear down the anti-doping system. That speaks volumes.

Wellthenfellas wrote:

"CAS decision was by majority and not unanimous. So, some in the judgement panel dissented".~....if true? ....this is a real smoking gun!

IT SHOULD BE 100% or UNANIMOUS........just like a jury

Thanks Donald. The CAPITALS are always a give away. Will you make sure this smoking gun gets in the Q newsletter this month?

What I will say to this, is what makes you think the US is uniquely capable of being trusted to mark its own homework? US anti-doping officials are subject to the same pressures and incentives as anti-doping officials in any other democratic state. There is distrust of some national anti-doping authorities where there is no real history of independent regulatory bodies, obviously Russia comes to mind, but otherwise, I wouldn't say USADA has greater integrity than either Dutch, Swedish, or German anti-doping authorities. To the rest of the world, this just looks like special pleading from the US. USADA's reputation isn't that great on the global level, there's still questions about why Lance Armstrong evaded justice for so long and everyone knows that he was caught not due to USADA's great work, but by Floyd Landis deciding he wanted to blow the whistle. Without that, Armstrong would still be a hero today. USADA just stitched together the legal case, Floyd Landis brought the smoking gun.

don't know if shes guilty or not but there sure is a massive history of innocent people going to jail for a crime they did not commit .

hank jr wrote:

However, who orders a steak burrito, gets pig organs, and just decides to eat it anyway? I would be scared it would ruin my next run and I'm a bona fide hobby jogger.

This is another part that makes no sense. I can believe that if you ordered carne asada and got pork instead that maybe you just shrug your shoulders and eat it. If you get boar liver, heart, and kidneys, you are going to spit that out, march right back to the window and ask for the food you ordered.

Wellthenfellas wrote:

"CAS decision was by majority and not unanimous. So, some in the judgement panel dissented".~....if true? ....this is a real smoking gun!

IT SHOULD BE 100% or UNANIMOUS........just like a jury

well....

CAS wrote:

"The CAS Panel (by majority) found that the athlete neither rebutted the presumption that the AAF was properly reported pursuant to the ISL, nor rebutted the presumption that the ADRV was properly managed, asserted and notified pursuant to the International Standard for Results Management (ISRM).

Finally, the CAS Panel unanimously determined that Shelby Houlihan had failed, on the balance of probability, to establish the source of the prohibited substance. As a result of which she was found to have committed an intentional ADRV and sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility starting on 14 January 2021"

High hopes wrote:

1. You can argue the definition of "trace" if you like, but Houlihan was 2.5 times over the limit and therefore, it was clearly not a trace amount in her system no matter how you dice it.

Maybe we should put this "trace" definition into terms that some might understand easier.

Let's say that the legal BAC level is .08, and you're pulled over and blow a .2. Can you tell the cop that it's just a trace amount?