Travis Tygart/USADA Supports Shelby Houlihan

I appreciate being reminded that I said I was done writing on Letsrun forums.

In many ways, I'm about as not-woke/conservative as they come.

I also hope that I am truly "liberal" in the sense that I am open to discussion and debate, rather than shutting others down or being shut down/cancelled or "put in my place" in a discussion.

I believe that WADA/AIU are authoritarian organizations that function like some Eastern regimes and now unfortunately like many Western governments as well. They are concerned with lawsuits and bad publicity, not with making sound holistic judgements that protect the athletes above all else. It's a broken system when people from Salazar's inner circle of athletes continue to compete, yet when an athlete who did not deliberately put a banned substance in her body for the purpose of performance enhancement is banned from athletics. Something is wrong, when that seems like the place we have come to.

Many of the problems we have in the world on interpersonal, local, national and international levels come from an unwillingness to say "hey, I was wrong" or "hey, we messed up." WADA/AIU's unwillingness to do this, with the Shelby Houlihan case, has tarnished its reputation. I commend Travis Tygart for speaking publicly against WADA. I think WADA/AIU will be outed for what they have become eventually.

I believe that in the end, the truth will come to light and people will know the truth about Shelby and ultimately about almost all elite American distance runners.

I only know of one internationally elite American distance runner (who won medals and US Championships) over the last 20 years who truly broke doping rules. I hope that this person will confess everything, eventually at some point.

Of course I don't know everything, and anything is possible. Yet, having been in these circles for as long myself, I believe the integrity of our elite runners in America, in terms of not breaking rules, is much higher than most people on Letsrun would presume to be the case.

Like I said, I am praying that the truth will come to light.

Your wanting Shelby to be clean is clouding your judgement. You are no different than the bigfoot hunters who here a noise and say "d'you here that, that's a squatch out there. You see, the squatch can emulate almost any sound other animals make in the forest."

You and the other Shelby apologists argue semantics, make up facts and shout read the rules all because you want her to be clean.

She failed a drug test (during a time of known limited testing). Tried to sweep it under the rug for six months (so much for transparency), gave a bull 💩 excuse about a pork burrito, when a receipt was produced that said she ordered carne asada they changed their story. Denied know what nandrolone was. Changed story again saying maybe it didn't come from a burrito....

Quit sniffin' her farts and come back to reality

Semantics!

The Wada code uses words with specific meaning and you can’t take those words out of context or the definition eada apply to those terms nor can you substitute your own words for those in the Code.

If you read the Code and the decision you would grasp that.

I for one don’t have any wish to see her clean, I just don’t care.

What you fail to grasp is that a “ failed drug test” (please actually explain in the context of the WADA code) does not mean cheating.It may not even be a violation.

"It's a broken system when people from Salazar's inner circle of athletes continue to compete, yet when an athlete who did not deliberately put a banned substance in her body for the purpose of performance enhancement is banned from athletics".(quote)

Salazar's athletes did not test positive for banned substances; Houlihan did. That may help you to understand why Salazar's athletes have not been banned but Houlihan has. You also claim she "didn't deliberately put a banned substance in her body for the purpose of performance enhancement". You don't know that. Since she couldn't show it was accidental she was responsible according to the balance of probabilities. The ban was appropriate.

I was thinking the opposite. A lot of "fans" of the sport want to believe it is as dirty as cycling was, and this taints their judgement up and down the spectrum.

Speaking for myself -- before you jump to more false conclusions -- I'm not concerned about Houlihan specifically, but I'm concerned about a process which takes shortcuts at the athletes' expense to arrive at a 4-year ban without doing the work necessary to ensure all 4-year bans are given to intentional cheats. This is exactly the same concern expressed repeatedly by Tygart that needs to be reformed.

The facts are that WADA explicitly tells us intact pork and pork organs can produce these kinds of positives. They do this for a valid reason, otherwise, why call it out in the technical document used to guide the WADA labs in their testing and reporting? Scientists like Prof. Ayotte showed us that the levels can be quite high, as high as 20-30x Houlihan's levels, and other scientists showed us that C3 versus C4 plants (i.e. soy versus corn) will produce different isotopes (which is why WADA says this analysis may not be used when athletes invoke pork).

If we want to pretend Prof. McGlone's finger in the air estimate of 1 in 10,000 is fact, then as many as 12,100 intact pigs enter the US food market each year, according to the AIU expert. Most pork eaters (near 100%) will test negative -- not relevant to Houlihan's case -- but a few will test positive. It is also fact that Prof. McGlone conceded pigs were fed soy during the pandemic, which would explain the istope value and the delta-delta value. Prof McGlone told us that it could only come from 6-month old cryptorchids exclusively which, despite his concession that diets contained increased soy, probably ate corn. But many of his assumptions were not valid during the pandemic (i.e. 6-month old pigs eating corn). I also question the completeness of Prof. McGlone's testimony as he didn't address or rule out or estimate the possibility of chemically castrated boars getting to market several weeks after the second dose wore off.

I didn't see her changing her story so much as fans like you changing her story, hopping from false conclusion to false conclusion. Her story was that pork offal from a mixed up order (greasy burrito instead of a dry burrito) was the most likely source of the nandrolone, after testing her vitamins was negative, but at no point could she 100% sure as it was too late to gather the evidence necessary.

Another fact is that the likelihood of any other alternative, such as Prof. Ayotte's suggestion of pseudo-endogenous norsteroid precursors, has yet to be evaluated, so it would be premature to say that synthetic doping is more likely than ingestion by pork.

What a word mess that is. It's like you pulled the phrases out of a hat.

"Strict liability" means she is responsible regardless. The fairness of that is questionable.

The appropriateness of a 4-year ban is precisely what Tygart calls into question, as athletes are being punished for not being able to meet the near-impossible burden of establishing the source.

Of course, doping athletes will know the source, but innocent athletes will not (with a few lucky exceptions -- see Getzmann), and the process cannot tell them apart. Experts like Prof. Ayotte will also not know the source, nor will "fan-emies" of the sport.

Your whining about these cases never stops. Tygart, Mayotte - yawn. Really - apart from you - who gives a cr*p what they think. They are irrelevant. "Strict liability" - more blah blah. She tested positive for a banned drug - as dopers do. She was given the right to defend herself, and she also exercised her rights to appeal. She failed at each turn. She couldn't produce convincing evidence that her doping was accidental. The only reason that it was "near impossible for her to establish the source" is that the accidental cause she suggested was expertly assessed as being of "near-zero" likelihood. So she was the source. CAS didn't say so but that is what an "intentional ADRV" means. It isn't up to WADA to establish the source. The drug was in her body. She was responsible for it being there - and couldn't show otherwise, like most dopers. But your pathological defence of the doping cheats never ends.

Interesting point. Are there other examples of these kinds of shortcuts resulting in similar bans?

There is a summary of the findings and conclusions of the arbitration panel in each CAS decision.

I'd appreciate, if you could quote the paragraph(s), where the likelihood of "near zero" or "close to zero" for Houlihan's scenario are mentioned. This shouldn't be difficult, and I am 100 % sure you are not quoting from paragraphs that do no exist, ie. the panel just didn't find Houlihan's explanations "possible but unlikely", "possible but not propable" or akin, indicating possibly only less than 50 % propability of having being the cause for her positive.

Are we really going back to August 2021 again? Fortunately I have all of that saved...

That "zero" stuff originally comes from World Athletics, see point 40 (and the following arguments):

The Athlete’s explanation that the 19-NA in her sample resulted from her consumption of the meat of an uncastrated boar simply cannot be accepted. The explanation presupposes a cascade of factual and scientific improbabilities, which means that its composite probability is (very) close to zero:

As for that "cascade of factual and scientific improbabilities", CAS agreed to the cascade of improbabilities, and ruled these "improbabilities" to be, one after the other, as "possible" and 2x "possible but improbable" and "possible but highly improbable" and not "consistent".

Another "zero" is for non-castrated pigs alone, as Dr. McGlone is cited in point 104 ("the rate of cryptorchidism today is “extremely low, approaching zero”;").

As I am sure we all know by now, one "possible but improbable" is enough for a guilty verdict, but here was so much more.

Thus the two independent scientists consulted on this case by runnersworld and letsrun concluded:

"There’s an extraordinarily small chance, basically zero, that this a false positive.” (Dr. Skiba)

and "the contaminated food explanation doesn’t stand up to basically any level of scrutiny." (Dr. Tucker)

You are welcome!

Thanks for the info!

I knew that there was something fishy in the media reports stating that it was the expressedopinion the panel, e.g. "Cas says ‘close to zero’ probability burrito led to Shelby Houlihan’s failed drugs test" (Guardian).

Why would you say "we all know by now, one "possible but improbable" is enough for a guilty verdict, but here was so much more"? This is both not knowledge, and not correct.

In short, back in August 2021, there were three non-equivalent probabilities:
P(positive given pork) =/= P(positive came from pork given positive) =/= P(positive not intentional given Houlihan's arguments/evidence)

These different probabilities can be assigned to the three parties like this:
- The AIU argued P(positive given pork) = "near zero", generally for a complete national population
- Houlihan argued that P(positive came from pork given positive) = "most likely" specifically for her sample size of one
- The question before the CAS was P(positive not intentional given Houlihan's arguments/evidence)

The CAS was not asked to evaluate the AIU's arguments but Houlihan's. I don't blame the CAS, because they can arrive at a decision of "not intentional not probably established" without even/ever considering the AIU's arguments, solely based on the incomplete evidence before them, as Houlihan cannot produce the primary evidence that would settle the question regardless of national probabilities.

But I do see why everyone else gets the probabilities wrong.

This thread is purely about what Tygart thinks -- you must care since you are reading and writing in it.

Mayotte? Do you mean Prof. Ayotte? I guess the WA/AIU cared what Prof. Ayotte thought enough to ask her to give expert opinions on their behalf. Interesting you say her thoughts are irrelevant.

I guess many someones care what Tygart thinks as someone sought to interview Tygart, and letsrun featured Tygart's quotes on their front page, and at least two threads have been started about Tygart's statements. They didn't do that just for me.

I guess my whining might stop once necessary WADA Code reform has tipped the balance back to fairness for all innocent athletes, in line with the stated missions and visions and goals of both WADA and the AIU.

But once again, you oddly resort to ineptly and inaccurately trying to re-explain the steps of the very process that Tygart says needs reform, as if the rambling gospels and fallacious inferences of a traveling preacher can add any value to the topic.

There is simply no way to tell from the process if Houlihan is a "doping cheat", because the process doesn't require establishing, and did not establish, that.

It's getting tiring pointing out all your factual mistakes, but this one highlights your jumbled thoughts: "It isn't up to WADA to establish the source." The obvious fact is that WADA was not a party in this dispute. The dispute was between Houlihan and the WA/AIU, and was brought before the CAS. WADA was just the author of a process that all of these parties are subservient to, that Tygart has repeatedly argued.

Given the facts and arguments in the Houlihan case, we should re-evaluate the verdict of 50 Kenyan nandrolone cases, resulting in nearly 40% of all Kenyan bans in the period between 2004 and 2018, reported in a WADA study. As we should have learned, nandrolone positives would be way more likely in a country that does not routinely practice pork castration.

In cycling we had Contador and clenbuterol.

There are the examples of Getzmann and Lawson, who both served more than 1-year of suspension, incurring fees for testing and legal representation to prove their innocence within the process. Note that despite ultimately proving their innonence, and having the rest of their ban terminated, this does not overturn the guilty verdict, or undo their 1+ year served ban, or pay back their personal costs in legal and scientific fees.

Relevant to Tygart, there are the examples of the 27 USADA cases prosecuted since changes in 2015, where Tygart vocally claims each time that the WADA process needs to be reformed, and that anti-doping agencies like USADA and the AIU need to work as hard to protect innocent athletes for eating small amounts of banned substances in their food, or inadvertently from prescription medication, as they do convicting guilty athletes of intentionally doping for performance reasons.

And more globally, as estimates of defending a charge range from 5 to 6 figures, most athletes simply cannot afford to challenge the charge of doping, suggesting many more cases were simply not argued before any tribunal and just accepted.

It's about as informative as observing spittle coming out of the side of your mouth.

"I guess my whining might stop once necessary WADA Code reform has tipped the balance back to fairness for all innocent athletes, in line with the stated missions and visions and goals of both WADA and the AIU."(quote)

You haven't found an innocent athlete, as your choice of Houlihan to fight this battle shows.

How is that materially different from the submission before the Panel, that it did not differ with, that "the explanation presupposes a cascade of factual and scientific improbabilities, which means that its composite probability is (very) close to zero"?

This is the kind of no-value no-intellect post we've come to expect from you. When you have no merit, you resort to insults that are more appropriately directed to your mirror.

No one can really say for sure, as the WADA Code is broken and in need of reform.