CAS got it wrong--Shelby is innocent. Read this report by Twoggle3

griles17 wrote:

runnER/DR wrote:

I'd want this guy as defense lawyer. Get everyone to lose the forest for the trees. Classic OJ stuff right there. Get people focused on tiny details enough and they forget...that she had MASSIVE amounts of nandrolone in her body.

She had very, very little

nandrolone in her body. Less than a quarter of one grain of salt in mass. Foolish for you

to comment what you did.

The endocrine system is quite sensitive. Hence the legal limits are what they are

SDSU Aztec wrote:

doping level 3 wrote:

Lol. You must be very young.

You didn't answer my question. There was a huge backlash against Lance even before the Oprah interview. Him being so arrogant in his self-defense was disgusting. Who was on his side besides his attorneys?

For years there were staunch defenders of Armstrong. Many saw him as being like a saint. You have a short memory.

Samurai_Runner wrote:

This is the most credible discussion I've seen on this topic, because the author presents both legal & scientific FACTS and LOGICAL arguments as to why the CAS decision was flawed. The author appears to be objective, and everything that was presented can be verified. Unfortunately, many choose to believe narratives from the media or their own feelings without knowing or considering the facts (or wanting to know the facts) and details of how decisions are reached.

+1

We should encourage more of this kind of depth and breadth of analysis like Twoggle’s editorial. He wrote this just after the CAS media release announcing the sanction, without the benefit of the 44-page report. But just the same, the piece is backed up by copious amounts of links and quotes to studies and official documents from CAS and WADA and various other sources.

He repeatedly hits the nail on the head, explaining exactly where Houlihan’s arguments fit in the context of WADA defined processes.

In the second part, he explains the difficulty that athletes face when confronted with the news of an AAF, and suddenly the lone athlete is facing an alliance of anti-doping scientific and legislative bodies, with a long history of working together, while the athlete starts at zero, knowing nothing about the science or case law. Going through the case history of Jarrion Lawson, we can see, from the athlete’s point of view, how difficult it is for the athlete to attempt to prove food contamination, one or two months after the fact, when restaurants are under no obligation to provide any information. Everyone should be more disturbed that Lawson, by luck, got off on appeal because the AIU’s expert gave inaccurate testimony about her own lab results, and the same expert appears again in the Houlihan case, giving similar testimony.

This is what makes linking to twoggle’s lengthy editiorial so valuable — uninformed readers can follow the links and the arguments, and learn many things about the process, even if they may disagree with some of the points.

With anything of that length, breadth, and depth, it is always possible to nitpick some details (like 40% from a sample of 5), but the discerning reader with minimal knowledge of the context should be able to put this in perspective, rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I’m genuinely surprised at the vehement backlash to the piece, and wonder if these reflexive responses come from any individuals having the qualifications and experience they say Twoggle lacks, and it seems to reflect a deep-rooted intellectual insecurity that many are afraid to have their firm convictions challenged.

Blah blah blah. See you in 2025 after the 4 year ban is over. Drug cheats are out

There are also several problems with your “review”.

Note that “twoggle” wrote the piece on the strength of the CAS Media Release, without the benefit of the details in the 44-page report. It should not surprising to anyone that some points would need updating based on new information previously not available.

I would agree that 40% does seem “sensational” given the small sample size of 5. (BTW, small sample sizes seems to be a general issue with much of the anti-doping research.)

But surely you are smart enough to see that “false positive” in the sense of an IRMS test is a false determination of “exogenous” versus “endogenous” (using WADA’s broadened definition), especially after reading the details and argument in the piece.

Are we talking about “meat being from commercial pigs "with largely corn-based diet"? The AIU and CAS talked about it, but this looked to me like unconfirmed assumptions from the AIU and its experts, based on national statistics, ignoring changes in diet during the pandemic to increased quantities of soy, which would alter the IRMS results.

I would agree that there is a question — that is one of the changes made possible with the benefit of the 44-page CAS report published.

Note that a majority of the panel agreed the WADA lab followed the 2021 process, meaning that at least a minority agreed that the A and B samples should have followed the path of the process that can only lead to a “negative” or an ATF result.

This confirms that there is a question, at the very least among CAS arbiters, of how to properly apply the TD2021NA to Houlihan’s samples.

It does seem highly questionable that the changes from 2019 to 2021 related specifically to boar consumption, can be completely ignored by the WADA labs, at their discretion, and still be considered within the process. This suggests to me an ambiguity in the document that must be clarified by WADA in a TD2022NA.

It is not the AIU, but WADA that should realize the ambiguity, as demonstrated by the split opinion of the arbiters, and clarify their guidance.

Why would you say “not kidney, etc.”? Was this documented somewhere?

I would agree that 5.2-5.8 is not likely to come from meat, but from the higher concentrations found in organs like kidney, liver, heart, testes, etc. (I haven’t seen any table regarding stomach).

Then the quantities would not need to be so much, as little as 5-10 grams, e.g. in chorizo, or chopped up and mixed in with the other ingredients.

Let’s not forget that this is editiorial opinion — the discerning reader can decide to take this section for what it is worth, or not.

Just the same, they are well reasoned opinions also backed up by studies and logical arguments.

Sub-lingual (and anal) are alternate ways to bypass the first-pass filtering of the liver with oral ingestion, and would be comparable to injection if not indistinguishable.

It’s hard for me to see why you think these alternatives are interesting, or that an editorial opinion piece should be that exhaustive.

Twoggle gave two peer-reviewed reasons why it doesn’t make sense to chose oral with less benefits — peer-reviewed reasons finding no benefits from small doses.

Actually twoggle did mention more than once contamination of supplements and medicines. There is no need to specifically suggest “testo cream” contamination to help make the point, particularly if we can consider testo-cream as medicine.

No innocent person comes out with that ridiculous burrito story.

Sometimes a circunstancial piece if evidence outweighs everything else.

spinozza wrote:

Blah blah blah. See you in 2025 after the 4 year ban is over. Drug cheats are out

I see a disturbing tendency for many posters whose minds are seemingly overwhelmed by nuance and detail to want to reduce the arguments to emotional slogans.

Here is another piece that is related, highlighting the need for reform for contamination cases and other WADA politics. I particularly like the quotes from long-time USADA Chief Travis Tygart like:

“At our last count, we recorded 27 cases where athletes did absolutely nothing wrong but were treated like intentional cheats.”

“This is our sixth no-fault case in just one year, meaning that yet another athlete has been unjustly charged with a violation and publicly recognised for ingesting a prohibited substance from a completely innocent source, such as contaminated medication, meat, or water, and despite there being no effect on performance.”

“USADA strongly objects to this requirement under the rules and will continue to urge WADA to reform the system to be fairer for athletes.”

sepreh wrote:

No innocent person comes out with that ridiculous burrito story.

Sometimes a circunstancial piece if evidence outweighs everything else.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Innocent people tend to genuinely describe events that actually happened to them, rather than “come out with (a) story”.

The problem here is that some fans cannot distinguish between guilty people acting innocent, and innocent people acting as themselves.

cvcv wrote:

3) Shelby Houlihan is likely innocent.

Letsrun - where conspiracies become reality.

waste wrote:

This Houlihan saga on LRC is basically a reincarnation of the vaccine debate. In Jan 2020, you had half the class of 50 not knowing how to do a hypothesis test of means on a sample of heights after being taught for a third of the semester. By Jan 2021, seemingly the whole world on social media are experts on biostatistics, clinical trials, virology, etc. Not only are they experts, they are now apparently doing their own independent research going through scientific literature. Its truly a marvelous evolution

Lol, yeah this pretty well sums up the last year.

rekrunner wrote:

sepreh wrote:

No innocent person comes out with that ridiculous burrito story.

Sometimes a circunstancial piece if evidence outweighs everything else.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Innocent people tend to genuinely describe events that actually happened to them, rather than “come out with (a) story”.

The problem here is that some fans cannot distinguish between guilty people acting innocent, and innocent people acting as themselves.

You are like an incurable disease in this place, with your denial drivel that never ends.

spinozza wrote:

griles17 wrote:

She had very, very little

nandrolone in her body. Less than a quarter of one grain of salt in mass. Foolish for you

to comment what you did.

So you admit she had nandrolone in her body. An illegal doping substance. And therefore deserves her 4 year ban. How nice of you to admit that.

You aren't very bright, are you?

Sally "It's All About the Bike" Jenkins. When she started talking about WADA and ignorance I knew Shelby was in trouble.

Shelby's rapid improvement is cited as 'proof' that she was doping. Rojo likes to bring up her not wearing certain spikes as an indicator of her innocence. In a weird twist, BTC or someone else needs to show that the spikes she was wearing in her 1500 and 5000 AR's are a material reason for her improvement. Going from 4:06 to 3:59 is one thing, if going to 3:54 is partially because of spikes suddenly her improvement and innocence become a lot more believable.

I like the bit that's left out, where USADA cuts a deal with a doping athlete (Ngetich) and allows them to serve suspension in secret, and seemingly still race during that period. Travis Tygart is no better than any other politician, and make no mistake, he is a politician. Listen to his interviews on the Clean Sport podcast, he's angry at the lack of influence USADA has at WADA and that seems to be what motivates him.

Amazing that you can't have a civil discourse without attempting to insult the other person. Speaks to your character and how you were raised. That being said, I'm not a Republican, did not vote in 2020, and I don't know what would have happened if I would have voted on all three ballots. I live in a state where all voting is by mail....no in person voting. I was just making a statement that something is wrong when three ballots are sent to the same person. You never did offer a rational explanation why I received three ballots which should be a legitimate question...I would think. All you did was offer a personal attack and let your politics do your talking.

The analyst who supplied the findings of the test was found lying about another athlete's test is the past. After it was found that she was lying, the athlete's four year suspension was overturned after approximately two years. Don't you think that raises a level of suspicion that deserves to be addressed?

+1 God tier response

T&F Nut wrote:

Amazing that you can't have a civil discourse without attempting to insult the other person. Speaks to your character and how you were raised. That being said, I'm not a Republican, did not vote in 2020, and I don't know what would have happened if I would have voted on all three ballots. I live in a state where all voting is by mail....no in person voting. I was just making a statement that something is wrong when three ballots are sent to the same person. You never did offer a rational explanation why I received three ballots which should be a legitimate question...I would think. All you did was offer a personal attack and let your politics do your talking.

Something is wrong if you voted 3 times. You didn't. You got 3 forms because of how you are registered - and to make sure you had the opportunity to vote - but only one of you would have got to vote. Once you had voted under your name the other forms would have been nullified if you had also tried to vote with them. Your name wouldn't occur 3 times on the electoral roll.

Is this supposed to support the "stolen election" conspiracy theory - because that was blown out of the water long ago. Except to Republicans. (I am not a Democrat.)

I like you "speaking" to my character - it sounds lofty of you - and of "how I was raised", so many decades ago. Kind of quaint.