Red flags in the Houlihan case that need explaining

Also Shalane stated in her interview that the meat was tainted when they clearly have zero evidence of this. The lawyers and BTC are doing a terrible job considering they have had 6 months to get it right.

oldlegs wrote:

The only thing I think that is not being discussed enough is that after the CAS ruled, there is NO OTHER APPEAL. She is 100% gone for 4 years. You can't appeal the appeal.

This isn't quite right. As you say, because CAS is the highest "court" in the sports/doping system, she has exhausted her appeals in that system. However, she can still appeal into the Swiss courts.

What I like about the OP is that it lays out everything that you have to accept as true in order to believe Shelby. If you think she's innocent that's fine, but at least acknowledge that your position is based on feelings, not facts. There is no evidence she even ate pork burrito.

I guarantee you that if Jerry & Shalane were on the panel listening to this case and were blind to the athlete in question, they would have reached the same conclusion.

bsohao wrote:

Shalane stated in her video that the burrito she ate contained the drug instead of saying "We believe..." How can she say this? There is no proof at all this is the case.

I have lost so much respect for Shalane. Not only does she lie for a drugs cheat she choose to sit beneath the American flag while she old those lies. As sleazy as any politician.

I agree with some of what you’re saying. I have no idea if she’s innocent or guilty, but they were forced to argue the way they did because of the way the WADA technical document is worded, IMO. Here are my comments:

1. I would say trace amount and they claim trace amount simply because the amount is far below what can be seen when injecting nandrolone. It is also far below what *can* be seen ingesting pig organs and meat as I describe below.

2.

3. I think they believe the jury is out because they haven’t seen it tested in distance runners. I’d certainly like to see the animal studies put to the test in elite distance runners.

4.

5. The study by Ayotte in 2008 (Steroids, 74:350-358) showed 300g of kidney, liver, heart mix led to max urine concentrations of 21.4 - 130ng/mL. Regular meat (300g) 0.6-2.4 ng/mL. The 300g tests above were from a mixture of castrated and uncastrated pigs. 100g of kidney led to 14.4 ng/mL. 100g of liver led to 1.9 ng/L. The 100g tests were from uncastrated pigs. These amounts are anywhere from 1/8 to 25 times what Houlihan measured. The problem with these small experimental groups is that the concentrations in urine can vary by as much as 6x even within these 3-person groups. Also, as the authors point out, the concentrations can vary quite a bit from animal to animal. It really doesn’t give us information about the true range in the population. It is very unlikely that 1-3 person groups with a small number of animals will show the max and mins in the general population.

6. I agree that castration is still the norm, but immunocastration is a more common way to not castrate, but remove the taint. Do we have any studies on these pigs? Also, castration is getting a bad rep, especially in Europe. I’d like to see current figures for the US and figures for the use of the Improvest chemical.

7. The one thing about BTC is that they appear to work athletes pretty hard and it takes extra time to get used to it. There are a lot of people who had jumps in the BTC group, but I doubt they are all dopers.

everything is a red flag.

ioc

usatf

wada

runners closing 10k near the 3k record

today i looked at some of the us OT athletes profiles, and you have girls more buff and developed in the shoulders and non running muscles than the men. and then there is the face, jaw.

just watching the event, probably that's all you want to do.

ignore the rest.

Oodles McDoodles wrote:

What I like about the OP is that it lays out everything that you have to accept as true in order to believe Shelby. If you think she's innocent that's fine, but at least acknowledge that your position is based on feelings, not facts. There is no evidence she even ate pork burrito.

I guarantee you that if Jerry & Shalane were on the panel listening to this case and were blind to the athlete in question, they would have reached the same conclusion.

Good post, and amazing summary of this case by the OP.

The tainted pork excuse is ALREADY a stretch, and then it turns out SHE DIDN'T EVEN ORDER PORK?

Imagine if we were asked to believe this insane story from a Kenyan runner who went from B-list to world leader in a season.

Finally, for SH and JS to pretend this was a "trace amount" and that they had never heard of NANDROLONE simply shows they are not being honest in their PR efforts.

The OP is very good at this, you are not.

You’re posting your feelings as facts, maybe sit this one out.

I kind of feel bad for her in the sense that she probably cheated because she felt her top competition was also cheating and thus she needed to do the same in order to match them. It's the unfortunate side of this sport but cheating is certainly widespread an very prevalent.

A 15 ng/mL threshold is only applicable in 19NA testing protocol for pregnant women. The flowchart seems to indicate Mass Spectrometry was performed and indicated Exogenous origin.

wada test wrote:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/td2019na_final_eng_clean.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjil-yNsZzxAhUDCs0KHVVXAcEQFjALegQIFhAC&usg=AOvVaw1pUWpXHtJyZBtRes7e_3GK

According to their own testing procedure above, as the last page flow chart shows, you can have less than 15ng/ml, and still not have an aaf.

Yes, but don't you think that Nike, with its unlimited resources, would have been able to hire some PIs and figure out the food chain for the burritos served on the night in question? Track it down, and test and demonstrate that meat from the source had high levels of nandrolone? Even if some exculpatory evidence could be generated in this way, it might not be enough to sway the CAS, but it would help move public opinion. Instead, it appears no effort was made to do this or they tried and failed. Of course, no reason to bother if you know the source was actually purposeful doping.

Harambe wrote:

pathfinder wrote:

Maybe we should put this "trace" definition into terms that some might understand easier.

Let's say that the legal BAC level is .08, and you're pulled over and blow a .2. Can you tell the cop that it's just a trace amount?

Meh, these are dumb arguments unless you can show the dose-reponse of urine nandrolone metabolites is similar to alcohol (it's not).

Okay. I can see that gorillas don't really get absurdity.

I find it interesting that the BroJo's's and JG have not posted on this thread yet...8 pages and counting. When will we get their take on the points ID'd by the OP vs feelings of guilt or innocence?

twoggle wrote:

7. The one thing about BTC is that they appear to work athletes pretty hard and it takes extra time to get used to it. There are a lot of people who had jumps in the BTC group, but I doubt they are all dopers.

Of Caucasian women at broadly world class level who had remarkable performance jumps in the last 4 years, a majority had some association with BTC (Frerichs, Houlihan, Schweizer, Debues Stafford; the most remarkable non-BTC were Klosterhalfen, Purrier and Reekie).

Of course, one should not conclude that they are all dopers, just because of this. Nevertheless, the improvement in Houlihans case in 2018 was IMO the most remarkable of these 7 and she was the second oldest of them; at least Schweizer, Koko and Reekie were young enough to make large improvements rather more likely.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

On the surface the case Team Houlihan made is compelling, but it gets somewhat ridiculous the further you dig into it.

It is ridiculous on its face.

High hopes wrote:

https://www.outsideonline.com/1924306/drug-test

RIP Bob Breedlove

Still waiting wrote:

I find it interesting that the BroJo's's and JG have not posted on this thread yet...8 pages and counting. When will we get their take on the points ID'd by the OP vs feelings of guilt or innocence?

Indeed. Surely they have noticed it by now, as it is now "Super Hot On Lets Run" and sits atop the "On The Boards" list.

They were asked if they tested the meat on the Fox interview, and they kind of ignored the question. Sounds like they tried and failed to me.

In case you need a reminder