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

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

Don't mix two things up. The point was Paula being completely transparent brings nothing unless all athletes are transparent, and we have the full context, and the ability to interpret all of that with perspective.

At most, I see a need for an independent expert review, but I disagree completely that your special interest means the public has earned any special right or privilege or some expectation to see the values. This level of public transparency has never been expected of any athlete in any sport, and yet for Paula it's a negative thing to hide it from the public.

[quote]

Your point keeps on missing the point. PR seems to have done everything to prevent transparency and when you have at least 3 abnormal blood values this will fuel suspicion. If PR was transparent with at least her blood test data like other British endurance athletes have been then this would reduce some suspicion.

If you call out other athletes as drug cheats and hold up placards asking for them to be banned from races when they technically have not failed any drug tests, then people will naturally look at you with suspicion when you have abnormal blood tests revealed and you are not as transparent as other endurance athletes from your own country.

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

This level of public transparency has never been expected of any athlete in any sport, ...

[quote]

What you write here is just very misleading. Armstrong and his team mates had huge pressure upon them from government agencies (eg: FBI) to come clean when they had not officially failed any drugs tests. I guess you never followed the Richard Virenque story in France either ...

quote]rekrunner wrote:

I disagree completely that your special interest means the public has earned any special right or privilege or some expectation to see the values.

[quote]

PR would have been funded by UK athletics and lottery finding for at least part of her career; this money would have come from the British taxpayer and the public who buy lottery tickets. If you have been cheating in your sport while being funded by the public then you have been essentially stealing public money. When you start having unusual blood test results being leaked then many would feel that the public is owed a convincing explanation that you were not stealing their money and hence the need for much more transparency.

I have seen several posts recently that refer to Paula's RBC values or Hct values, which are being confused with hemoglobin(Hb) values. RBC values are measured in different units, with a normal range typically of 4 to 6 x 10^8 RBCs per cubic mm of blood. Hematocrit (Hct) is measured as a volume % of RBCs as a percentage of the volume of whole blood, (for example, the cycling Hct cutoff of 50%). Hemoglobin is measured in g/dl. There are no values for RBCs or Hct which have been released for Paula, only OFF scores, Hb, and a few reticulocyte scores.

Reticulocytes are new, young RBCs, which show basophilic staining. Reticulocytes will not increase with hemoconcentration from decreased plasma volume due to dehydration, like hemoglobin values can. Why not? Because reticulocytes are measured as a percentage(normal range of 0.5 to 1.5%) of total RBCs, not blood volume. Have the actual number of RBCs changed due to dehydration? No, they have not, so the reticulocyte score will not be altered by dehydration. Things can get complicated.

Macrodosing of EPO will usually show high hemoglobin values with a high reticulocyte score of over 1.5%, even up to 2.0 or 2.5%. Paula has a value of 0.77% in her 2012 OOC test in Monaco (and remember she can always use altitude to explain blood values, because she can always be using an altitude tent, no matter her location). She could be microdosing EPO to keep the reticulocytes lower, but she had a negative EPO urine test at the time.

So I would give her a pass on the 2012 test, but it is still suspicious and extremely unusual. In a search of literature, I found evidence of rare, isolated cases of female cross country skiers who had Hb values of 15.8 and 16.0, supposedly from clean athletes training at altitude, so I will give Paula the benefit of the doubt, and say that 16.2 must be possible for superwoman Paula, right?

Having said that, I am a physician who has lived and worked at 7000ft. altitude for the last 24 years. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of CBC with complete differentials, Hb, RBCs Hct, retics, MCV, MCH, MCHC, etc. in lots of men and women. I also know the hemoglobin values of several 2:30 female marathoners who live here, and several other national class female runners. None of the national class female runners and none of the normal females (without polycythemia vera) in 24 years have ever shown a hemoglobin value above 15.0g/dl. Many females show low hemoglobin values because anemia is very common among females. And now we have recently found out that Paula has a history of anemia! People with a history of anemia typically stay that way, even taking iron, with their Hb values typically in low normal range around 12 to 13g/dl(normal range 12 to 15g/dl for a female). Not Paula, because she has treated her anemia with ostrich, venison, and wheatgrass and has showed Hb values of 15.6,15.1, and 16.2 on three different occasions. The odds of a female with a history of anemia ever showing Hb values above upper range of normal is extremely low in my opinion.

When a blood transfusion is done, there is a large and rapid increase in Hb values, and reticulocytes will show a below normal value at the same time, because the reculocytes(new,young RBCs) are being diluted by the massive amount of old RBCs from the transfusion, which has "older" blood which has been stored for a while (maybe in the freezer of Dr. Fuentes).

Now let's assume that Paula's normal reticulocyte value is around the 0.77% measured in 2012. Her reticulocyte values of 0.47% in 2003 and 2005 World Championships show below normal reticulocyte values at the same times as a rapid increase in hemoglobin value from an anemic 12.0 prerace to an above normal value of 15.6 postrace in 2003, with an OFF score that goes from 82 prerace to 114.87 postrace in 2003 and from 92 to 109.87, with a postrace Hb of 15.1 in 2005. These values are entirely consistent with what would happen with an autologous blood transfusion,in both 2003 and 2005.

Paula can really quickly fix her anemic hemoglobin value of 12.0, because in just 2 days it becomes 15.6(above upper range of normal!). It normally takes a long time to fix anemic hemoglobin values, since the half-life of an RBC is about 60 days, but not for Paula! She can really, really fix her anemia in 2 days! Go Paula!!!

At the 2003 race, an official is discussing Paula's blood tests and hemoglobin score with her, which seems highly unusual! At the 2005 WC race they do a heterologous blood transfusion test for RBC membrane antigens to see if there was a transfusion of blood from a different person, and the test was negative. It won't detect an autologous blood transfusion. It does look like they were suspicious of Paula to even perform that test at the 2005 World Championships.

The IAAF in their reports just explained away high OFF scores in isolation. They never discussed or even mentioned the prerace OFF scores of 82 and 92. They never mentioned or explained the incredible 33 point increase in 2 days or 18 point increase in 1 day. The most suspicious elements of Paula's blood tests, the rapid and large magnitude changes in OFF scores are completely ignored and are completely absent in the report, which I find to be highly suspicious. The most suspicious elements are OMITTED in the IAAF report! That sure is strange, isn't it?

Then Paula refers to her blood test expert in an article, as the lab director of the Lausanne lab, but never mentions his name. Why not ? His name of course is Dr. Martial Saugy!!! Informed readers would know the history of Dr. Martial Saugy, which includes destroying 67 Russian samples. The fact that Paula has him as her blood test expert is very, very, very suspicious!

And of course nothing before the 2009 ABP actually counts (including Shobukhova's outrageous OFF scores) because there could of possibly been massive lab error/variation to explain Paula's rapid and massive 33 point and 18 point changes. Any blood test result before 2009, according to the IAAF and rekrunner, no matter how outrageous (like Shobukhova's results) simply do not count!!! So that is just too bad for all you Paula doubters!!! Lots of other athletes were tested pre and post race on the same equipment at the same labs on the same days. Where are all of their lab errors? There should be many other athletes with abnormal changes if it was due to lab variation. In fact, if the lab error was this large, hopefully the results would have all been thrown out, and would have never entered the IAAF database, to then be leaked later. But they were entered. Is there massive lab error affecting other athletes or is lab error just affecting Paula again and again?

The IAAF had suspicious blood tests on Shobukhova going back nine years before they did anything. Without a positive EPO test, and no ABP before 2009, it seems there wasn't much they could do or wanted to do. The IAAF

also has suspicious blood test results for Kenyan athletes who have won medals at the Olympics and world championships, but we have not seen any of those so far, or the names on the 200 blood bags of Dr. Fuentes, which includes winners of the London marathon.

To give Paula a small break on all this, at least she has not shown (so far) any evidence of outrageous EPO use with consequent outrageous hemoglobin values of 18 to 21 g/dl, such as some athletes have shown.

While it may be possible to produce outrageous, world class, world record performances with normal hemoglobin values, we know that many outrageous performances were obtained with outrageous hemoglobin values.

Paula could be transparent, and remove all doubts about her outrageous 2:15 and two 2:17 marathon performances, by releasing normal looking pre and post-race hemoglobin values from these races, but she chooses not to so far, so the doubts and suspicion about her will stay for now. What do you think, readers? If you had normal looking scores from your best races, and there were doubts about you, wouldn't you release them? I know I would. I think it adds to suspicions to not release them at this point.

Do you think Paula's hemoglobin values and OFF scores around her outrageous races were normal or outrageous?

........Go Paula!!!!......................

cleans wrote:

Ruling on the Operation Puerto blood bags expected this month:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/2016/03/09/operacion-puerto-blood-bags-ruling-expected-this-month/

Lots of interesting comments emerging prior to this ruling. Rafa Nadal re-affirming that he is cleans. Real Madrid - a soccer, not a tennis club - issuing a statement that Rafa is clean and exemplary.

If the ruling is that the blood bags should be destroyed, I think that will possibly be the biggest body-blow ever to the war on drugs in sport.

Does anyone find it sad that she didn't follow through with the promise to take a lie-detector test? Making a statement like that and not following through is the behavior of someone who feels her public image is not repairable.

Curious to hear your thoughts again, wejo.

I continue to reserve judgment, but can't say that I am optimistic for her.

cleans wrote:

If the ruling is that the blood bags should be destroyed, I think that will possibly be the biggest body-blow ever to the war on drugs in sport.

A Spanish court (in Madrid!) will decide. With both Barcelona and Real, and thus several soccer players of the Spanish national team, being part of the story, the cover-up will prevail. Most unfortunately, but that continues to be the way nowadays. See IAAF: both Coe and Paula got promoted...

1) More clearly, there is only a hemoconcentration argument. Anyone who understood dehydration simply misunderstood what was being argued. The IAAF did not argue dehydration. (Actually, I found I also used the word "dehydration" earlier, so I must retract "surely I never".)2) No problem3) See 1)4) I think it's a dead end, but good luck.5) You are entitled. I didn't read her bio.

casual obsever wrote:

1) If you didn't use the dehydration argument, I apologize. The point still stands though, because Paula and the IAAF (and larkimm) did.

2) Mea culpa, sorry.

3) Because common knowledge is that a severe dehydration causes a serious performance drop.

4) I wrote "That's why I would love to see the experts' judgement's justification, but the IAAF keeps that one secret too." And I stand by that remark. The IAAF only wrote: "the experts noted that this altitude exposure was a plausible explanation"). This is not the experts' justification; it is merely an opinion without any further arguments. Also note that "plausible" wasn't defined; maybe there was a 1% chance?

5) I was clearly talking about Paula's bio... Why she wrote that, though she got caught with 15+, well, I have an opinion on that...

webby wrote:

Does anyone find it sad that she didn't follow through with the promise to take a lie-detector test? Making a statement like that and not following through is the behavior of someone who feels her public image is not repairable.

Can't you say the same thing about the frozen samples?

1) Non-transparency is the default, and the athlete's right. It is not a bad thing, especially if the abnormal values have multiple non-doping sources.2) There was no pressure to publish a decade of Armstrong's blood values. The federal investigation was kept secret from the public. Do you also have a decade of Virenque's blood samples.3) I guess the British public should take that up with UKAD, not Paula. The public received a plausible explanation by three separate bodies.

rjm33 wrote:

I have seen several posts recently that refer to Paula's RBC values or Hct values, [...]

........Go Paula!!!!......................

Great post! This is the in-a-nutshell Case for the Prosecution, presented by a qualified medic. Thus it carries more weight that something assembled by a recreational poster like myself.

I'm looking forward to the corresponding Case for the Defence. I expect rekrunner is compiling it as I type!

While my posts are boring, yours are certainly entertaining.1) For what it's worth, your friend, Paula's independent expert, told us that Paula's RET didn't change significantly, pre- and post-race 2003.2) The ARD/Sunday Times did not mention pre-race values. Therefore, the IAAF's detailed rebuttal, targeted mainly at the Sunday Times/ARD/Ashenden/Parisotto ignored explaining away claims not made. The pre-race values came later, I think from the Daily Mail. But the IAAF did explain that all pre-2009 values could not be compared to other values, so in effect, they did actually address that it was improper to look for 18 point and 33 point swings.3) You are good at math. You can make the pre-2009 values count by recalculating the threshold probabilities.4) The lab and process errors and altitude values exist in many of the 1 in 7 athletes, and many of the 1 in 3 podium finishers, with "suspicious, or at the very least, abnormal" values. Besides Paula, there are about a dozen other British athletes. We should demand more transparency from Seppelt and the Sunday Times.5) I think ALL of Paula's off scores NOT highlighted by the Sunday Times between 2001-2012 are below the sea-level threshold of 103. That's why they only highlighted those three. This means her world records in Chicago and London were very likely accomplished with unremarkable blood values.

An excellent post from rjm33.

It's worth noting the urinalysis test for EPO detection is very poor. False negatives are the norm. Almost the entire reason for the ABP.

Also worth mentioning, I believe Paula's explanation compared her off scores to other athletes. That's not how it works. A doper's off scores will vary quite like Paula's. The level of dishonesty required to publish explanation is very high.

Saugy is infamously referenced by Papa Diack as "plan B" in case the Russian positives are somehow sanctioned. Saugy has a long history of fixing positives and more for the IOC sports.

Thank you again rjm33.

Why didn't Paula allow Ashenden and Parisotto to discuss her values since she's so clean? This would have been over a year ago and Ms. Radcliffe would be the undisputed GOAT.

Instead this thread rumbles along with the truth eating away at her ridiculous claims.

Good call.

cleans wrote:

rjm33 wrote:

I have seen several posts recently that refer to Paula's RBC values or Hct values, [...]

........Go Paula!!!!......................

Great post! This is the in-a-nutshell Case for the Prosecution, presented by a qualified medic. Thus it carries more weight that something assembled by a recreational poster like myself.

I'm looking forward to the corresponding Case for the Defence. I expect rekrunner is compiling it as I type!

Interesting contemporary newspaper report from 2002:

"Her high-profile anti-drugs stance gives her reason to feel paranoid about the prospect of food being spiked, and Ndereba's manager had ignited Radcliffe's wrath with pre-race innuendo. That was silenced as Radcliffe and her husband, Gary, took the initiative. "

"Nderba was gracious, and conceded Radcliffe: ''did a great job'', but is unlikely to be high on Radcliffe's Christmas list. Her manager, Lisa Buster, had complained because the world body had decided not to subject Radcliffe to a dope test on the run-in to the race.

The IAAF thought they were doing her a favour, because she had already been tested so often this year, and deemed it pointless. Though a fierce anti-doping campaigner, Radcliffe has been scurrilously treated by the French media, and spent much of Thursday and Friday demanding that such a test be done on her, to give no further opportunity for unwarranted slurs. She was delighted when doping analysis was eventually arranged before the race. "

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11913981.Pythonesque_Radcliffe_crushes_field_Paula_worth_millions_after_world_best/

Non transparency will be naturally regarded with suspicion in the context of the revelations of the goings on in the sport over the last 18 months. It is a bad thing when you have at least 3 abnormal blood values and you have given changing reasons to explain these values over time. It looks especially bad when you have called for a clean up in the sport and you have other athletes from your country who are being more transparent about their blood values, and none of their values look as suspicious as your leaked values.

You seem to have changed the goal posts here, you said "level of public transparency" now you say this means specifically blood test data. There was relentless pressure on Virenque in France and Armstrong in the US to prove that they were clean.

This seems to be a key part of the debate. However, the explanations have not really added up as pointed out repeatedly in this thread and some of the bodies (IAAF) who have given these explanations have a proven history of covering up drugs tests results and corruption. And again, the lack of transparency does not help things at all.

I thought the Nov. 22,2006 Independent article found by just sayin was a huge find. Jos Hermens recommended that 3 German athletes go see the Spanish Dr. Miguel Angel Peraita, because his methods, which included homeopathy, were revolutionary. "I was maybe a little dumb." Hermens said "I should have asked more questions about what Peraita exactly does."

Jos Hermens just has real bad luck, because the doctor that he recommends back in 2006, just by coincidence, is involved in Operation Puerto. One of the German athletes also tested positive for a PED.

Jos Hermens is the manager of the great Geb and Bekele, and others including Abeba Aregawi, the 1500m world champion who just tested positive for meldonium. Any other famous athletes managed by Jos Hermens?

I found this information devastating, as Geb and Bekele were my favorite runners when they were at their peaks.

Frederico Rosa was the manager in Kenya of Matthew Kisorio, 58 min half marathoner(tested positive for anabolic steroid nandrolone), Rita Jeptoo, 2:18 marathoner and multiple winner of Boston and Chicago marathons (tested positive for EPO), and Pamela Chepchumba, 1:08 half marathoner and 2:25 marathoner (tested positive for EPO way back at the 2003 World cross country championships). Just a few bad apples for Frederico to throw out of his beautiful orchard. He runs multiple training camps in Kenya and has managed Paul Tergat, Sammy Wanjiru, and many others.

There are rumors about Dr. Fuentes working with athletes going way back to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. All those Spanish athletes doing so well, such as Fermin Cacho (1500m gold in 1992), Abel Anton(winner of London marathon), Martin Fiz, Marta Dominguez (3k steeple world champion busted for ABP and implicated in Operation Puerto) may have been clients of Dr. Fuentes.

Please, show us the names on the bags........

........and more Ethiopian names to come..............

........and more samples to be retested from the 2008 Olympics.............

A good find here. The article even mentions Weldon Johnson as her chaperone during her 2:17 world record at the 2002 Chicago marathon.The IAAF HAD DECIDED NOT TO SUBJECT PAULA TO A DOPING TEST LEADING UP TO THE RACE. The IAAF (run by Lamine Diack at the time) thought they were DOING HER A FAVOR, because she had already been tested so often that year, that they DEEMED IT POINTLESS!That sure was nice for the IAAF to be thinking of Paula, and deciding not to do a doping test right before her world record, and deemed the doping test as pointless. It really is nice that the IAAF thought so much of Paula that they thought they would do her such a favor!Of course, Paula DEMANDED that she be tested, and was DELIGHTED when doping analysis was arranged before the race.Was doping analysis arranged for after the race as well, Paula?No results of the doping analysis DEMANDED by Paula and performed on Paula at the 2002 Chicago marathon have ever been released................and Paula has been appointed vice-chairwoman of the athletes commission at the IAAF.......how nice...........Go Paula!.............

The IAAF also decided to do Liliya Shobukhova a favor by STOPPING ALL DOPING TESTS for Liliya leading up to her 2011 Chicago Marathon win in 2:18:20. We found out later that Liliya paid a lot of money to get her favors from the IAAF!

Other favors by the IAAF for Paula include:

The IAAF appointing Paula as vice-chairwoman of the IAAF athletes commission.

The IAAF whitewash report about Paula's blood tests. Did Dr. Martial Saugy contribute to the report?

Dr. "Plan B" Saugy seems to be used a lot for favors:

He is Paula's blood test expert to explain away any abnormal readings!

He destroyed 67 Russian doping test samples at his WADA Lausanne lab!

He is alleged to have covered up a positive EPO test at the 2001(if I remember correctly?) Tour of Switzerland for Lance Armstrong and the UCI and talked to Armstrong about how to beat the EPO test!

When some positive doping test samples from the FIFA World Cup in soccer were sent to Dr. Saugy for reanalysis, he found all of the previously positive doping samples to be negative!

So, in conclusion, there is absolutely nothing suspicious at all to see here.........move along now.........Go Paula!........Go Dr. Martial Saugy!.........

rjm33 wrote:

He is alleged to have covered up a positive EPO test at the 2001(if I remember correctly?) Tour of Switzerland for Lance Armstrong and the UCI and talked to Armstrong about how to beat the EPO test!.

Technically, Saugy did not hide the positive. It was brilliant work on verbruggen's part. I believe one sample was swapped so technically Armstrong was never positive.

Saugy has buried Fifa and IAAF positives.

The email was from Nick Davies (former IAAF spokesman and former top aide to IAAF President Sebastian Coe, before he had to step down) to Papa Diack, and in it he mentions that Gabriel Dolle, the head of anti-doping at the IAAF, had confirmed that if there were problems from Moscow testing that they had a Plan B to use the Lausanne lab run by Dr. Martial Saugy.

That email is smoking gun evidence pointed directly at Dr. Martial Saugy. So far, even after all these revelations, nothing has been done to Dr."Plan B" Saugy, as he still has his job. Why? Because he is very useful to give favors to corrupt sports federations when they need a favor.