You ask the right question "what do the facts tell us", and you end with the right conclusion "We need to know more, to either dispel the cloud or confirm our worst suspicions of what lies behind it." Therein lies the problem, because the only issue I have here is when you are doing precisely the opposite. You argue that the facts in the panel report are not enough, but you don't add more facts, and start to draw expanded conclusions that are not based entirely on the facts, either inside or outside the report. You even sometimes expressed opinions that contradicted the opinions and findings of the AAA panel, who took a much longer look at many more facts in front of them. You say you are "not confident the panel has successfully and definitively revealed for us the full extent", which may or may not be the case, but in reality you are just laying the foundation to tell yourself something else other than "what do the facts tell us". When this is not fact based, we can also call this fantasy, imagination, speculation, bad faith, or any number of synonyms, none of which mean "facts". This is all fine, to say this is just a freedom of speech opinion, and if you had said that, there would be little I could say against that, except for what I say: Your opinion is a product of your imagination. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and to express their opinions (when not too offensive). But don't pretend your opinions are what the facts tell us. And don't pretend that your constant non-fact based attacks on athletes are something ultimately good for the sport. You also go one step further, attacking all others who don't share your same faiths, by calling them naive for not seeing non-fact based conclusions the same way you do.
Armstronglivs wrote:
We are getting overly-concerned with procedural terminology here; this isn't about "presumptions", "prejudgments" and "principles", although it is quite easy to be diverted by these. In essence, the question is that which we would apply in any situation where we are trying to arrive at the truth; we ask, what do the facts tell us. This is not prejudging the issue; it's seeing where the facts take us. Your version of the truth is based on your understanding of what constitutes the facts; others may have a different view. However, it seems to me that the only facts that you consider relevant are the findings of the panel (coupled with the presumption that athletes must be considered clean until it is proven otherwise). But you have then wedded your understanding of the truth to what was confirmed by the panel and nothing extrinsic to that. Yet the panel's findings were not exhaustive; they were confined to the material put to it. There is information that wasn't part of the investigation and the panel's findings which can be considered relevant.
Unlike you, I am not confident the panel has successfully and definitively revealed for us the full extent of Salazar's activities and the involvement or otherwise of his athletes. I have suspicions that there is rather more to it but at this stage I would have to say that remains speculative and is yet to be proven. But that also means that, for me, the issue is far from being resolved by the panel. Laura Muir put it in a nutshell; "there is a cloud over the races in which his athletes have taken part". We need to know more, to either dispel the cloud or confirm our worst suspicions of what lies behind it.