ALBERTO RELEASES STATEMENT

Sock puppet hunter wrote:

It's NIKE Oregon Project.

Wrong, it has been rebranded "Oregon Project." The website is copyrighted by "Oregon Project" and not by Nike.

Salazar's strategy is this if you haven't noticed:

1. Provide as many written documents that appear exculpatory, where possible.

2. Where no document could ever be produced, call the person a liar and attack them

It's effective.

The about face by many certainly shows the power of perception and narrative.

I do think the testosterone medication/supplement story sounds plausible. It's still weird as F*** he's having a 16 year old take Alpha Male.

The vials for allergy medicine also seem plausible.

He did a very poor job about refuting the coaching of TUE claims. He basically ignored it, other than claiming the IV thing was a fabrication. No proof either way there.

Salazar does not address the Fleshman comments, which is interesting.

What is interesting is he is responding primarily to claims of which he can produce a document that looks exculpatory. And when a claim could not possibly be proved by a document he just calls people liars, because that's a he said/she said thing (e.g., the IV story).

I can tell you one thing:

This is not over yet.

Salazar has crafted a statement that puts him in the best possible light.

Magness will respond to the claims. He has to.

Epstein certainly will. He's already tweeting. There's more evidence to come out.

Not sure the Gouchers will respond. It sounds like there is more to this story than we know.

Salazar does not address the off-label Rx stuff very well if at all.

Those in the know, know, that there are a lot more rumors out there about sketchy Salazar doping stuff involving him giving out pills for this and that. Those stories will probably come out.

I think Salazar is still vulnerable. He's put his foot down. And if more people come out and say he's lying and provide detailed stories, it will not reflect well on him.

This will never be resolved. I think it's evident that Salazar is a scumbag, but he's a systematic one who appears to have treaded a very thin line between legal and illegal, working hard to back himself up.

There's no way Epstein didn't lay out to Alberto exactly what the story was going to say. That's investigative journalism 101. You tell everyone exactly what everyone else is saying and allow them to respond. I'd be shocked if Epstein and the BBC didn't do this.

I agree Alberto's case is well-documented and convincing. But he didn't just find out about these allegations when the story/documentary ran. As an earlier poster said, you can't prove innocence. I don't doubt the veracity of everything Alberto is putting out there, but it doesn't prove innocence.

Bobby Joe wrote:

The funniest thing said was that Magness hasn't ever had someone qualify for Nats.

I think it was the part about Magness lacking the wherewithal to run a practice session on his own. Is it that he can't work a stopwatch or doesn't know how to count laps and panics? If these things are true, you'd think Alberto would have figured them out quickly instead of waiting two years to can him.

This clears Salazar as far as I'm concerned. He's got more concrete evidence against pretty much all the claims than they were supported by in the first place. I was ready to say get rid of the NOP regardless of how this turns out but I'll totally back off of that, I think they're good unless another smoking gun comes out (which isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility, we could see that Epstein held something back till Salazar made his response).

Thread Follwer wrote:

roy hobbs wrote:

The section entitled The Sabotage Test struck me as being super crazy. He cites Gatlin's massage sabotage story as inspiration to begin all kinds of experiments with testosterone creams. There have been jokes about this but literally he says that he was concerned that someone might jump out and rub Galen down with androgel post-race.

Bingo! Go no further than that...massive cover up and pretty well done, but I still smell a RAT!

People are really blowing the androgel test out of proportion. It sounds like they were curious whether Gatlin's explanation for his positive test was viable, thought of a rudimentary way to test it with the help of a lab, and got an answer.

It's like if I wanted to see if leaving my A/C on a low temperature would save money over just turning it on when I needed it. Run one test, get a result. Run another, compare results. I have my answer.

If anything, they proved that they could apply Androgel to Rupp AFTER a big performance and not get a positive. Why on Earth would they dope AFTER a race?

77002 wrote:

Dr. Brown is a known sports endocrinologist. Tops in the biz.

He has worked with track athletes for decades. Magness knew this. Where Magness erred was not considering the entire clientele of Brown - past and present - outside of NOP. That is actually more likely to hurt him in the long term than tossing e-grenades at AlSal and NOP.

Are you referring to this Dr. Brown?

From the article:

"Jeffrey Garber, American College of Endocrinology president, said hypothyroidism increasingly is being diagnosed in people who don't have it, by endocrinologists whom Garber labeled as "alternative." "The alternative crowd is saying, 'Gee, this is why you're not feeling better, because these [mainstream] doctors are clueless,' " Garber said.

Even within the camp arguing for a broader definition of hypothyroidism, Brown stands apart for diagnosing it in young athletes. It's unclear exactly how many elite athletes are being treated for thyroid disorders, but of the 30 athletes who have trained with Salazar as part of Nike's elite team of distance runners, he said that five—or 17% --have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. In a specialty accustomed to treating older women, Brown calls himself a pioneer for finding hypothyroidism in young athletes."

Link wrote:

Not convincing. At all. I'll write more later, but, for starters:

6. I might be wrong about this we'll see - but I don't think it was Brown that told Kara not to take the Cytomel. I think Salazar knows this. The letter from Brown ( a guy in Houston is her endocronolgist?!??) is an attempt at misdirection.

Are you serious? Dr. Brown's office is ground zero the whole elite-athletes-need-a-thyroid-tune-up mess. He has prescribed thyroid meds to something like 15 Olympic gold medalists, starting with Carl Lewis. His name shows up in every article about thyroid problems and elite athletes.

I guess you haven't been paying attention.

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

Nutella1 wrote:

9% of his elite athletes had a very rare physical condition. That suggests it would be more prevalent, but it's not. Huh. Seems legit.

Subclinical hypothyroidism is significantly more common. According to the Mayo clinic it appears in somewhere between 4-8% of the population. There is no reason that I know of to believe that it would be less common in elite athletes.

I think we can give Salazar a tentative pass for this one.[/quote]

You had better check the age range on that figure.

You gotta be kidding wrote:

Link wrote:

Not convincing. At all. I'll write more later, but, for starters:

6. I might be wrong about this we'll see - but I don't think it was Brown that told Kara not to take the Cytomel. I think Salazar knows this. The letter from Brown ( a guy in Houston is her endocronolgist?!??) is an attempt at misdirection.

Are you serious? Dr. Brown's office is ground zero the whole elite-athletes-need-a-thyroid-tune-up mess. He has prescribed thyroid meds to something like 15 Olympic gold medalists, starting with Carl Lewis. His name shows up in every article about thyroid problems and elite athletes.

I guess you haven't been paying attention.

You missed my point entirely. That being that the letter from Brown to Salazar does not contradict anything that Kara said. Kara didn't say it was Brown.

Percent of adults who currently have asthma: 8.0%

Hypothyroidism results from reduced effects of thyroid hormone on tissues. Hypothyroidism is more common in women and has a total prevalence of 1% to 2%, increasing with age (~10% adults >65 years). In the U.S. population, the prevalence of biochemical hypothyroidism is 4.6%, but clinically evident hypothyroidism is present in 0.3% .

Those poor sick elite athletes.[/quote]

Oops, forgot about Adam. He also has thyroid issues and was probably diagnosed before joining NOP. So that's a minimum of 8/55 that took thyroid meds.

With all of the successful college programs in the U.S., has there ever been so much suspicion or charges made against any other program than we have seen made against the NOP?

I have a hard time believing everything is on the up and up at the NOP.

But Alberto and his legal team put a great spin on his reply, but I never trust people that portray everyone else as liars. Think of all the athletes who have been busted in the past, all were in denial until they finally were taking down.

No hypothyroidism is actually a very common condition.

http://www.thyroid.org/media-main/about-hypothyroidism/

The androgel squirt thing, beyond being psychotic, could be a cover. It's actually a clever ruse to find out how much doping is possible without testing positive.

Also it probably proves that Gatlin is dirty dirty

Much more evidence for NOP being clean that weak shit claimed against them. Unless something else is presented, apologizes should be made. Unfortunately because, 'armstrong did it'.. I dont think we'll see a lawsuit against 'no longer in the spot light but trying desperately to be remembered hey I have a blog you can check out' associates.

sanchobaile wrote:

There's no way Epstein didn't lay out to Alberto exactly what the story was going to say. That's investigative journalism 101. You tell everyone exactly what everyone else is saying and allow them to respond. I'd be shocked if Epstein and the BBC didn't do this.

I agree Alberto's case is well-documented and convincing. But he didn't just find out about these allegations when the story/documentary ran. As an earlier poster said, you can't prove innocence. I don't doubt the veracity of everything Alberto is putting out there, but it doesn't prove innocence.

The part about investigative journalism 101 is correct. Everyone in the story knew.

Al Sal's evidence will be found to be mostly a carefully constructed story that didn't happen. He couldn't be bothered to keep a couple of claims consistent.

The most important thing wrote:

I can't believe this hasn't come up yet, but...

Given ProPublica's journalistic method, why is AlSal only now saying that what he was accused of is false? Had he made his claims when they first contacted him, this story wouldn't have blown up as much as it did. Their process would have led to them accepting his claims and then investigating further. Instead, only one side of the story came out and other informants and claims were able to come out against him.

If we are to believe AlSal, why didn't he immediately deny the claims when he had the chance and before the article/video came out?

Because AlSal is smart- he gave his critics just enough rope to hang themselves with. He even waited for all his critics to come out of the woodwork so he could lower the boom on all of them at once and make them henceforth irrelevant.

When Turkey hunting one sets his decoy and waits for them all to show up. He doesn't start shooting when he glimpses the first sign of a bird.

Attorney PR firm shills wrote:

Most of you are just sheep wrote:

If this truly changed your opinion, then you are just another sheep easily manipulated.

The attorneys and the PR management firm are going out blazing on this thread. They know enough to try to fake LRC out by using multiple VPNs and switching posting locations with each post.

My simple VPN with only a few dozen worldwide choices I can post from can fake out Google. So, be aware that only a few NOP converts are posting under several names, and using multiple posting locations.

I hope this is false as it would seem completely silly and a waste of $. In any case, I will go back and read the document. Didn't most people anticipate a lot of this? I didn't expect that they were operating outside of the view of WADA/USADA. I figured Salazar would get confirmation before doing something. The info on Gouchers and Magness was new as it gives us the point of view from the group. In the end, probably nothing will come of this. It brings up the question of how does one go about achieving an edge, which should be discussed when it goes beyond simply training and supplements comes into play. However, it doesn't make anyone feel better about the altitude tents, supplements, etc. In the end I don't think Rupp or anyone's results are the results of PEDs (I feel they probably didn't take anything banned) so much as the training/talent. I guess it just tells us how the world of running is now. One big haze of grey.

I will still cheer for Rupp and the NOP, but I guess I will want people like Derrick, True, Vail, etc to get their due as I think their success has little to do with a pharmacy, altitude tents, or anything besides training.

runDirtyrun wrote:

NOP outage wrote:

Alberto even points out that most times the TUE is granted for 3-5 days.

We're trusting what Alberto says now? You know, he's been so honest and transparent for so long, of course we can rely on his statements.

TUEs are wide open for abuse. What he's not mentioning is TUE periods are not standardized and can be quite long.

For example, the prevalence of "asthma," real or not, as a TUE in elite endurance athletics means the TUE period will be quite long because, theoretically, once you have asthma, you can't be cured. Of course, mysteriously, many elite athletes ARE cured of their asthma after their elite-level careers are over.

There's a big difference between asthma and exercise-induced asthma. I have the latter, but it's not severe. I get flareups from extreme exertion, dust, and pollution while exercising, but I've never had an issue when not running. The first time it happened was severe: 80 miles into a dusty 100 mile race, my lungs seized up. For the remainder of the race (yes, I was stupid enough to finish it), my maximal breathing was so shallow that I couldn't breathe deeply

enough to push my heart rate past 125 (was wearing a HR monitor). I had a number of flare-ups in winter of 2013-2014 due to very extreme pollution here in Salt Lake City, UT. I could complete most of my runs, but would end up doubled over afterwards. I'm posting under my name, so if any of the serious SLC marathoners read this, they'll remember this. It was bad. I had to get a Ventolin prescription, which was moderately helpful with my lungs, but not great. I've had a few other serious flareups on long training runs in excess of 2 hours, and most recently dropped out of a 50k in 2014 due to my lungs seizing up on a dusty course. I'm both finishing my PhD and getting married in the next few months, so I'm not focused on running whatsoever right now and am not training in any serious fashion (I will pick it back up in Fall, when I will probably be very slow for a few months). In any case, since I stopped training seriously at the beginning of 2015, I have not had a single symptom remotely related to exercise-induced asthma. It is a real thing and I suspect that it actually is pretty common in elite athletes.