New Shelby houlihan article out in WSJ. Big respect again to gds

Thanks for those links. Fascinating stuff. I hadn't paid much attention to this issue in recent years.

Yes, scientific fraud is not that uncommon, and it almost always takes other scientists to identify it.

Only people who know little or nothing about the science behind PED testing put as much faith in it as the knee-jerk cynics do.

And as that Guardian piece notes, the people on these 3-person CAS arbitration panels are not scientists themselves, so they are easily bamboozled by incompetent or unethical expert witnesses.

From the WSJ story:

"Schumacher says Houlihan was never included in team practices during her ban."

You are very poorly informed. WADA did nothing because they were not involved in this case. And it wasn't from Dec to June.

The AIU handled the case. Also the AIU did not remain silent during the "3 months of nothing from WADA", but kept communicating with the cheater (by her own admission!), while the INRS lab was analyzing the B sample and finalizing their report, which then had to be studied by the AIU to decide on the next steps.

As others have pointed out repeatedly, 3 months is relatively fast, as you can quickly verify on the AIU page that lists all recent cases.

Could that have been done in 2 instead of in 3 months? Possibly. Definitely yes, had they more staff or no waiting lines (fewer cheaters).

You have quite the double standard. You have evidently no interest in the intellectual truth.

What happened to all your regular soundbites like

Of course the CAS said many things, but they didn't say they did "prove their innocence"

and
The CAS said many other things based on the incomplete evidence, and a set of unproven assumptions.

and

Everything is possible

and

All options remain on the table?

That's a pretty disgusting accusation to make based only on the accused's "weird sociopathic energy."

Well welll... It was you who wrote: "As the WJS story says, both Schumacher and Houlihan say her training with the team was in accordance with AIU guidance."

Freudian slip? Here is more info from the WSJ story:

"Houlihan would join the BTC team for easy runs, trained at a team gym during a team weightlifting session, and participated in a team training camp in Flagstaff, Ariz., DeBues-Stafford said."

And we all know that Houlihan stopped doing that soon after her joining the team leaked to the press.

Of course you of all people would agree with that. CAS however never "determined that Ayotte presented false testimony in the Lawson case". They never said that either. Let's look at what actually happened:

She called - according to CAS - some test values "low" that the CAS panelists - who are not scientists - considered "large". Neither side mentioned the exact values, neither side gave their definition of low/large. Could simply be that they used different definitions or had different opinions about low/large, wouldn't you agree?

Like a letsrun poster would consider a $100,000 salary low, and a high school student might consider a $100,000 salary large, for example.

What exactly did CAS "determine"? Here I help reminding you all:

"Nor was the Panel entirely persuaded by Professor's Ayotte's evidence" - nothing at all about "false testimony".

2014 | 4:10, 9:05, 16:11
2015 | 4:09, 9:03, 15:49
2016 | 4:03, 9:01, 15:06
2017 | 4:06, 8:37, 15:00
2018 | 3:57, 8:36, 14:34

2019 | tests positive with 5.0 parts per billion (ppb) of nandrolone in urine, an anabolic steroid. Normal levels are considered around 0.50 ppb, with 2.0 being the threshold for triggering a positive.

Nothing Freudian about it. Just a paraphrasing error on my part. To clear up any confusion, here's the relevant graf from the WSJ story:

"Schumacher says Houlihan was never included in team practices during her ban. He and Houlihan say they strictly followed guidance from the Athletics Integrity Unit, the independent group that manages antidoping issues for track and field’s world governing body."

So who's lying, Schumacher or DeBues-Stafford? This is literally a case of he said/she said.

And what's the basis of your claim that "Houlihan stopped doing that soon after her joining the team leaked to the press?"

Did USADA, AIU, or any other doping authority subsequently investigate whether Houlihan and Schumacher had broken the rules? If not, why not? Were any BTC athletes warned by any authority that they were being put at risk by Schumacher's continuing to coach Houlihan?

A conflicted Prof. Ayotte represented to the CAS that her WADA Lab correctly followed WADA's ISL and TD documents, when report the result as an AAF, rather than an ATF. This wasn't univerally accepted by the CAS. The CAS was split on whether Ayotte's representations were true, but didn't publish the reasons for the minority dissent in their report. It is clear the WADA Lab and the AIU relied on the CIR result, despite express language that says it may not be used to establish the (exogenous) origin, if the athlete invokes pork, because pork is a known confounder rendering the CIR test unreliable.

Prof. Ayotte represented that Houlihan's values were 2-3x more than the literature, seemingly "forgetting" that her own literature reported values 22-26x Houlihan's values.

Prof. Ayotte represented that pigs in the USA and Canada usually ate corn, despite Prof. McGlone's concession that during the pandemic, pig farmers increased the amount of soy fed to their pigs, which would explain the CIR result.

Houlihan had a viable excuse -- nandrolone from pork in low levels, like Houlihan's, is well known to WADA, who considers the low amount of "usual". Diets producing the same pseudo-endogenous signature as Houlihan's results, is also well known to WADA and documented "in the literature".

Seriously.

A better question is, if the CAS didn't find a more likely source was established, how does the general public conclude a different source is more likely than a low amount of nandrolone from a greasy burrito?

An eye-opening post on so many levels. I hope Jon and Robert on the podcast specifically drill her on these “vitamins.” I’ve never heard a tainted vitamins story ever before, it is tainted supplements as you point out!

The CAS in Houlihan's case went further than simply saying nothing, by calling Houlihan a credible witness.

The Lab did "create" the positive test. If the nandrolone was from pork, Houlihan's results would not be considered a positive test. It is the Lab who interpreted the result as a positive test, or not, depending on WADA's standards.

The CAS in the Lawson case was rather diplomatic, but made it clear that the compelled data from the Montreal Lab contradicted Prof. Ayotte's previous characterization of the labs results.

Similarly in Houlihan's case, Prof. Ayotte's own publications contradict her characterization of "the literature", whether the CAS says it or not.

These suggestions that Prof. Ayotte was loose with the truth are not only coming from the other party (in the Lawson case), but from outside observers.

But even without considering these mischaracterizations of her own lab's work, there is an obvious conflict of interest in having Prof. Ayotte be an expert witness for one party in a case where the first question is whether her lab deviated from WADA standards and guidelines and whether they interpreted and reported the results correctly. The CAS should have independent expert guidance -- possibly outside of WADA's network.

It's not just he said she said. Although they both could be right, if coincidental joining of easy runs doesn't count as "team practices".

More details are for example here, including strava proving GDS to be correct, and Shelby's defense being:

she couldn’t go to any practices or work out with anyone on the team, but if she happened to bump into them and they were running at the same place, then she could run with them.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=12465171

And no, I do not know what USADA or the AIU told Houlihan or Schumacher or GDS - do you?

Because doping explains the positive so, so much better than the ridiculous pork burrito nonsense. This isn’t hard. You are completely misrepresenting the impact of the decision and the court’s findings. Doping is presumed with a positive test (and is likely at the level she tested). It was then up to Shelby to prove a different reason for the positive. She completely failed to do that.

You don’t seem to understand the legal nuances of the decision at all or how these proceedings work. CAS is not responsible for identifying the source of the nandrolone. Their finding that the pork could have possibly been the source but not probable is a half-step removed from them saying that it could have been aliens that put it there. In other words, they found the pork burrito argument to be ridiculous too even though they acknowledge that there was a greater than zero percent chance it could have happened. Their finding that Shelby was credible is only with respect to her defense. Meaning they believed her when she testified that she ate at the taco truck in question, that she ordered a specific kind of burrito, that it tasted funny, etc. They absolutely did not find she was credible in the sense that her defense was valid or that she didn’t intentionally dope.

Your never-ending quest to argue every single case and point completely undermines your overall credibility, especially where the athlete herself has abandoned the very defense you refuse to concede on.

That’s absolutely ridiculous and no, Shelby’s team did not explore it as a possibility. What do you know about Quigley that makes you think she is an evil moron?

Can't quite figure out what you are talking about here. There is no double standard. Athletes before anti-doping tribunals either succeed in establishing their innocence (or more specifically, establish no-fault, no-significant fault, or non-intent on the balance of probabilities) to the tribunal, or fail to meet that burden, based on specific and concrete elements. Both innocent and guilty athletes can fail to meet the burden.

Lawson and Getzmann represent the best case scenario, once an innocent athlete has been wrongly charged. It still cost them 5-figures to defend, and they were both suspended for more than 1 year, resulting in loss of income and sponsorship. But since the burden of proof is known to both WADA and Houlihan's CAS to be "difficult to provide", many innocent athletes are treated like intentional cheats and railroaded to 4-year bans.

What options do innocent athletes wrongly charged have when they cannot afford a 5-figure defense? Getzmann had to borrow the money from his father, and was lucky to have kept pain-killer medicine he took, that tested positive in a small amount.

The intellectual truth in Houlihan's case is that she was unable to find sufficient "specific and concrete" evidence to persuade a panel of arbitors, and she was therefore convicted of "doping" based on presumptions, and sanctioned for 4 years based on another presumption.

Yes because “tainted supplement/vitamin” manufacturers are totally sneaking f$cking DECA into their supply.

Give me a break. If she tested positive for some weird gray market research chemical then sure…I’ll hear you out.

But this is DECA. Literally an anabolic steroid. No supplier, no matter how sketchy they are, is sneaking an anabolic steroid into their “innocent” vitamins/supplements in the present day.

Not even joking I think the burrito is a more believable excuse.

A very obvious doping progression.