Independent review by experts -- yes. Public transparency of blood values which may have medical or other non-doping causes -- no. Non-transparency to the public protects the athletes from a public who cannot be objective.I did not change the goal posts. I talked about the "level" of transparency that people demand now from Paula being unprecedented -- never before expected from any athlete in any sport. Not Armstrong and not Virenque. People are asking for every blood value for the whole period of 2001-2012, if not her whole career. A federal investigation where the evidence is concealed from the public is not the same level -- no public transparency. Paula isn't being asked to come clean, but to explain why 3 "altitude-level" values are not suspicious for an athlete who regular trains at altitude, and in two cases, from data collected too soon after a race.The whole ARD/Sunday Times story accusation was that the IAAF didn't act properly on the blood values. As we have seen, this was only true for the Russians, and a few others, but for the 2001-2008 blood values, WADA largely said "huh?". After deep inspection, we see the bribery/corruption began quite late, with deals being made around 2010-2011.
preciously jaded wrote:
rekrunner wrote: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.
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.
rekrunner wrote:
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.
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.
rekrunner wrote:
3) I guess the British public should take that up with UKAD, not Paula. The public received a plausible explanation by three separate bodies.
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.