Sports Scientist Ross Tucker breaks downs the Shelby Houlihan case for us

Nope. They are as guilty as the rest.

What does a guy like Ross Tucker charge for an article like this? 2k?

This doesn't contradict me. "Guilty as all the rest" could mean they are all innocent.

Many of the arguments about how rare nandrolone is in pigs in the US fail in Kenya and other countries that do not routinely castrate their pigs, and do not have USDA inspectors.

I interpreted this differently. And maybe I'm naive.

But they hired Ross tucker. And by asking the questions this way. In favor of Shelby (If you believe that), repeatedly, and getting clear cut "no she doped" answers, i think it even more definitively puts the nail in the coffin.

"No one else meets the arbitrary parameters I just made up to be as deliberately exclusive as possible."

You can play the game to make lots of runners sound one of a kind: "how many athletes won an individual NCAA XC title and broke 4:07 in the 1500 by the end of their graduating summer?"

"How many athletes have run sub 4:02 and sub 14:55 while in college?"

Maybe Shelby's food truck was trying to save some $ and slipped some kidney in their offal burritos.

You can also test this by looking at the counterfactual: how many top level athletes do we see whose parents WEREN'T good athletes themselves? The answer: the overwhelming majority. In fact, elite athletes whose parents were also elite athletes are huge outliers, to the extent that they are notable stories. Rojo's understanding of how genetics works comes mainly from sci-fi than actual science

+1

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Brilliant takedown of her nonsense defence.

Houlihan is a dope cheat,she got caught and hopefully we never see her doing anything meaningful in the sport again.

The whining about missing two olympics is embarrassing,it’s her own fault,she shouldn’t have cheated.

I have a question for the Brojo's and Jonathan:

Now that you have had the opportunity to ask all of your questions to a renowned expert in the field, has your opinion on the case changed? If so, how? If not, what is making you stick to your original view?

Brojos why don't you refer to Shelby as "drug cheat Shelby Houlihan" as you do for Mary Slaney?

With respects to your second point above, note that in 4.3 of that 2021 TD, there is an "AND", which you're omitting from your selection. It is very clear that BOTH the concentration requirement AND the GC/C/IRMS results must be inconclusive. As per the CAS decision, which I read as correct, the latter is not the case here. that moves you across to the left, into the ADRV column (on the basis of 3.2.4 in the same TD, on page 5).

THen the legal language at the head of that table - "The laboratory shall report" makes very clear that the lab has to report this as an ADRV. Also in points 76 to 78 of the CAS verdict, they correctly and very clearly spell out that the "the Athlete’s delta-delta values were far out of range with that of human endogenous urinary steroids referred to in the TD2021NA" (point 76). They then quote 3.2.4 from the TD, followed by "this is undoubtedly the case here".

Your interpretation of it appears to be the same as Houlihan's, but it's focused only on the concentration, and not the large enough difference between the 19-NA and the ERC to rule out endogenous origins.

Your point 3 is basically teh same as they argued at CAS too, people can read how CAS assessed that from point 115 onwards. Houlihan's experts are summarized in 117 onwards.

The final bullet point in point 116 directly contradicts your statement above re "normal in Canadian...pork". It is however similar to European pork, and the expert who Houlihan gets on this testifies as such in Point 118 of CAS. Ultimately CAS dismiss that as irrelevant to the case (Point 119).

All this said, it brings me back to the issue about Houlihan's defence. It is remarkable to me that her experts testified about pork on another continent (Jahren, point 118), and testified only that "we just can't be sure" (as per Point 117). If the defense can be made that US pork has a signature at -23, then make it! Why not throw a good deal more at that? I found this really bemusing. And to reiterate, my approach or "job" here was not to examine the specific content of the arguments from both sides, but rather to try to explain what CAS heard and how they decided. This whole section of the case, dealing with agriculture in the USA and the likelihood of a contamination felt like a really one sided boxing match, with one side throwing all the punches and landing many, with the other throwing basically none, and defending very weakly. The absence of any strong rebuttals, with evidence, is striking.

This all seems quite fair to me. I think people need to chill out a bit on this thread.

Lrc funded a great piece that pretty clearly shows Shelby is guilty. And yet the prevailing comments here are saying they're supporting Shelby too much.

Honestly this is the nail in the coffin but people are posting like they've published a piece vindicating her...

You should look into an interview with a sports scientist on letsrun.com to see that there is zero chance. Wrong isotope, wrong levels of nandrolone. No chance. Quite shocked you have missed it. We can officially put that excuse on the shelf. There is zero chance. Quit pretending that is plausible.

Why do you completely disregard what Ross says? Why so you keep sending him question when you don't care about his answers?

I am not an American, but Houlihan’s rise was abnormal and her 14’22 in training was frankly unbelievable. When she failed the drugs test I wasn’t surprised.

It does seem like Rojo is refusing to accept the evidence. He hired Tucker (who always does an amazing job!) and it feels like he was hired to help SH case. However to a neutral observer Tucker’s response makes it very clear that she deserves the ban, however Rojo doesn’t accept this, his mind hasn’t been changed and instead he is talking about Ajee Wilson or other cases and still using language that makes it clear that he thinks at worst there is only a possibility that Houlihan could be a doper.

The evidence is clear she is guilty.

The idea that BTC must be defended at all costs as the sport has no interest without them is offensive and complete bull####. If they have been doping to try and keep up with other athletes (who may also be cheating) they don’t deserve anything except condemnation and to be ostracised. You can say there is bad PR when Schumacher claims not to know what nandrolone is, but continuing to train a convicted doper (SH) and forcing out of your group someone never convicted of doping (Debues-Stafford) makes it clear what his moral viewpoint is.

Raising money for a convicted cheat is unbelievably offensive. Why not give the money to those athletes whose careers and prize money was stolen from them when they finished behind Houlihan in races?

Sorry for the length but Ross was permitted 5000 words.
Ross is very helpful at understanding scientific details like isotope ratios. Yet even his 5000 words still leaves me with many unanswered questions.

Did the CAS make the right ruling?
I still have doubts about an AAF versus an ATF. Apparently the CAS Panel did too, as the ruling was not unanimous, but only by majority.
However, the CAS does not need to consider any AIU arguments -- only Houlihan's arguments and evidence -- to rule that Houllihan did not identify the source, or meet her burden to prove "not intentional" to the standard required in the Code.

Is the WADA process "just"?
Not in the case of potential accidental ingestion.
It places a sometimes impossible burden on the athlete to prove facts in the past without the ability to gather the necessary evidence that can swing the likelihoods in the athlete's favor.
Again -- look at the case of Simon Getzmann, and imagine he consumed all of his legally prescribed and WADA legal medication.
It places no burden on the prosecution to determine the source of the nandrolone, or to establish intent.
Therefore, a guilty verdict of an intentional ADRV can be arrived at without any real basis in fact.

Does "one-sided" mean what Ross thinks it means?
I found Ross' choice of describing the CAS ruling as "one-sided" quite interesting.
He means it to say the CAS believed the AIU made a strong case, and that Houlihan's team offered no strong rebuttals. But "one-sided" can also mean non-neutral or biased.
The CAS sided with the AIU, sometimes on points they ruled unrebutted, and sometimes on points rebutted, and sometimes against points conceded.

Did the CAS rule correctly on the interpretation of TD2021NA?
I think Ross bolds the wrong part. The TD2021NA clearly says "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/IRMS analysis ...". This wording does not present GC/IRMS testing as an option, but unambiguously does not permit it, following the consumption of intact boar.
And yet the WADA lab established "exogenous" on that basis and the AIU accepted it and the CAS upheld it. This is one of the CAS rulings that puzzle me, and makes me question the neutrality of the "one-sided" ruling.
Whether the fault is with WADA's TD2021NA, the WADA lab, the AIU, or the CAS, it is not obvious that the AAF is the correct outcome.
At least a minority of the CAS panel agreed.

Does the AIU make a strong case against Houlihan?
The AIU makes a compelling argument that the right kind (wrong kind) of burrito would be rare to find on the US market. But even 1 in 10,000 chance means 12,100 pigs per year in the US market, and the risk of nandrolone positives from intact boar ingestion among athletes is not negligible.
Nothing the AIU and their experts tell us about the *general* pork market, before the pandemic, sheds any light on what Houlihan *specifically* ate.

Can you measure intent by counting pigs?
No. The likelihood of intentional use cannot be measured by looking at the ratio of intact boars to castrated boars and female pigs. All these "possible but unlikely" judgements from the CAS are irrelevant, except for the finding that Houlihan did not establish "not intentional" -- the only question before them.
To show the absurdity of the method, consider a scenario where a restaurant sells beef burritos, chicken burritos, and pork burritos in equal quantities. Assuming the receipt is unreliable evidence, could you prove which burrito you ate "on the balance of probability", one month after the fact, after the burrito has been long eaten/discarded? Each option would be 33.3% likely, below the 50% "more likely than not" threshold.
To show the absurdity of the method again, let's apply the AIU's method to Ayotte's alternative hypothesis of exogenous nandrolone precursors. We would not only have to count these exogenous products, but other nandrolone products leading to higher isotope ratios, and all other exogenous products which cannot cause a nandrolone positive. We would have to count all of these exogenous products across the US market. By the same argument, we would similarly arrive at a "near zero" likelihood that the exogenous product Houlihan took was the one that Ayotte suggests, due to the product of a cascade of low likelihoods.

Are the AIU experts neutral?
No. They are experts for one-side of a dispute.

Are there questions about the experts' testimony?
Yes.
Ayotte:
Ayotte told us in 2004, that average isotope ratios in her lab, from boar consumption, was -23.5 per mille, but told the CAS Panel that the range was -18.5 to -21.
Ayotte uses two studies to repesent that 2.5 ng/ml is some kind of maximum observed in research. Yet the WADA TD2021NA points us to another study where one subject, just eating boar meat (not organs) reached 7.5 ng/ml.
The question of "meat consumption" is itself highly misleading, when the claim is nandrolone from offal. Then we find figures as high as 130-160 ng/ml, including in studies by Ayotte.
It wouldn't be the first time she misrepresented information to a panel with material impact on the verdict.
McGlone:
McGlone relies on a number of assumptions which are not valid during the pandemic, and one not valid after the Trump Administration changes.
Prof McGlone creates a false choice of 6-month old cryptorchids eating corn, or nothing.
Even then, Prof McGlone estimates 1 in 10,000 boars penetrate the USDA inspections -- accepting this estimate means up to 12,100 pigs per year in the US pork market.
Prof McGlone relies on USDA inspectors to do their job of filtering out boars and cryptorchids.
The USDA job includes permitting intact boar into the US food market based on the "smell" test.
Under the Trump Administration, changes were made in the USDA, reducing the number of USDA inspectors and allowing trained line workers to do the inspections.
During the pandemic, a number of factors alter many of McGlones assumptions.
- Unavailability of inspectors due to illness
- Unavailability of corn means more soy in the diets
- Unavailability of butchers means pigs may be older than 6 months
- The USDA permits acceptance of boars in the food market based on a "smell" test
- A pandemic of an airborne virus certainly reduces the motivation to deeply sniff the air
One category of boar missing from McGlone's false dichotomy is the medically castrated boar, and any assessment of unavailability of such medicine during a pandemic, and unavailability of butchers (meaning older, more mature boars) during the pandemic.
We must take McGlone's estimated opinion of 1 in 10,000 with these factors in mind.

Did the CAS get "commercial pork" eats corn right?
This is another ruling that puzzles me.
The pandemic shifted the diets towards soy (and consequently any isotope ratios towards -23.0).
McGlone conceded this point. Yet the CAS, ruled that commercial pork was still corn fed.

Did Houlihan's team get it wrong?
One of the stomach burritos for sale that day includes chorizo. Looking for nandrolone in the stomach may have been the wrong place all along.

Is this case "open and shut"?
If the question is with respect to WADA rule violations, as interpreted by the WADA code, there is little the innocent athlete can do to prove otherwise.
If the question is whether Houlihan truly intentionally doped with exogenous nandrolone, there is no way to tell from the WADA process.

Why doesn’t Letsrun call her “the drug cheat Shelby Houlihan”? Seems inconsistent with their past references to individuals like Mary Slaney.