LRC “interviews” Shelby about burrito defense and doping

I only post as "rekrunner", and not as any alter egos.

I did not say "Not a single one of those five items would be necessary to get a positive test from her meal." That was "twoggle".

I also never said "item one had to happen", but that "It could easily happen". "facts are facts", said "has to have ... occurred", which I agreed, but perhaps too hastily now that you push back, because in light of a recent tennis player testing positive from nandrolone from beef, item #1 isn't necessarily required.

Since no one established the source, and no possibility can be ruled out, it is not contradictory to say that the nandrolone could have come from many possible sources, e.g. pork, beef, supplements, precursor, etc.

There was no CAS finding the nandrolone was synthetic. WADA, the AIU and the CAS do not use the term synthetic. WADA also considers -23‰ to be in the "endogenous" range, for both pigs and man. WADA does tell the labs a possible way to establish "The possible Use for doping purposes of 19-norsteroid preparations with a pseudo-endogenous carbon isotopic signature", but this was not done because it was considered optional. In other words, "exogenous" isn't a fact, but was presumed.

Houlihan didn't have six months. In fact, sample collection to CAS verdict took less than 6 months, including the AIU's nearly 3 month delay. Houlihan had asked for a 14 day extension, to Feb. 4th, to submit her response, and the AIU refused, suggesting alternatively they might be allowed to supplement their response later. Apparently Houlihan did get a 3 day extension, as on the 10th day, Jan. 25th, they submitted their response. Note the lab results from the vitamins and supplements, and the purchased burritos, only came back on Feb. 23rd.

You are accusing everyone else of not being so bright, but nothing you say is accurate, and you are drawing your conclusions from your own inaccurate statements.

ok, as she said, she and her legal team (who know all about drug tests, science, and law) had 3 months then . she's claiming 7 days, but that was after they asked for 7 days. You can't ask for 7 days, then whine that you only have 7 days. Just like you can't claim your beef burrito that was really a Pork Offal burrito is now a beef burrito again (and maybe beef from Spain, since U.S. beef does not have nandrolone in it?).There's also no "naturally higher levels levels" of synthetic nandrolone if you're taking birth control pills.

I don't claim to be the smartest guy out there, but i know what bs smells like. If she's smart, she's acting not-so-smart.

I suppose that quoting me ("You say....") and responding to rekrunner is a sly attempt to trick the rekrunner and me to admit we are the same person. The truth is that there are only two people posting to this board: one person posting under 1,500 different usernames and you. :-)

Since you didn't respond to my question, I'm going to assume you meant Item #1 needed to be satisfied in order for "that amount of nandro with that CIR came from the burrito" (to quote the original post that listed those five items.
Item # 1 is
"She must have been given the wrong order."

What we know from yearly EFSA tests on cattle are that nandrolone metabolites are sometimes found in cattle urine indicating contamination with nandrolone. So, nandrolone exposure could happen from eating a beef burrito. For example, the following EFSA report from 2021 showed a bovine nandrolone metabolite (epinandrolone) is 3.17 of the samples in Poland
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/sp.efsa.2023.EN-7886

The following EFSA report from 2020 shows non-compliant exposure to nandrolone in the Czech Republic (1.64%) and Norway (2.50%):
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/sp.efsa.2022.EN-7143

Here is the EFSA report from 2019 showing nandrolone metabolite non-complaince of 5.38% for Ireland, 6.56% for Norway and 0.64% for the U.K.:
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/sp.efsa.2021.EN-1997

Now, there are a couple of problems with this: 1) just because a cow urine sample is contaminated with a nandrolone metabolite doesn't mean there is enough to cause a positive doping test; and 2) this does not tell us exposure in the U.S. We would need a large sampling of cows (e.g., 1,000) in the U.S. to see how the levels and frequency of outliers in the U.S. Even with a current sampling in the U.S., it doesn't tell us whether there were more corners cut during the COVID years.

One final point: It is true that the post I am referring to qualified the five bullet points differently than McGlone at the CAS hearing. The post on this board said that those all five items had to be true to cause a positive test. That is definately not the case for any of the items in my opinion. On the other hand, the "prosecution" witness (McGlone) had eight bullet points and started with the assumption that the issue in question was uncastrated boar. With that assumption, it is true that the food truck order would had to have been mixed up. Most of the rest of McGlone's bullet points are his own speculation as a "prosecution" witness.

I mean this seriously, and I apologize if this sounds wrong, but Shelby and Centro were dating at the time, yes? And Shelby was on birth control. If Centro was on nandrolone, and Shelby and Centro were having unprotected sex, could have that been a reason she popped positive?

I'm being serious here and don't mean to sound gross

It sounded like Centrowitz was tested by AIU around the same time?

I thought she wasn't using birth control, but that does create the same metabolite in the urine.

was he tested? I don't know that he was. But if he was using (which he might have been) and Shelby truly was not, then this could have been how it got into her system

I think there's a good chance this is what happened btw. and she couldn't call out Centro bc doing so would've burned bridges for her for life

It sounded like it when he said it could have been him in an interview. Of course, that's just his word, but wouldn't AIU test all the athletes nearby on the same trip?

For it to be systemic in her, he would have been glowing for months. But if it's trace amounts in the same area perhaps not. I don't think that has been researched.

And in his case, microdosing nandrolone would be playing with fire. If done with such precision, why not testosterone and HGH instead?

This is the inside information I have:
It is true as the CAS describes in Item #37 in the CAS report that there were two expert meetings in hot tubs:

"During the hearing, two expert hot tubs were held, the first with Prof John McGlone, Prof Christiane Ayotte, Dr Emmanuel Strahm and Prof Anne Hope Jahren, and the second with Prof Christiane Ayotte, Dr Pascal Kintz and Dr Jack Fritz."

The CAS lawyers gave little consideration to Houlihan's expert witnesses because they couldn't hear much of what was said. When Houlihan's experts would speak, the prosecution witnesses (Ayotte and McGlone) would splash around in the hot tub drowning out almost everything that was said.

If I had to pull a number out thin air, I would say that there is far less than 1 in 10,000 chance that this isn't true. I hope the Letsrun reporters followup with Shelby to confirm that this is exactly what happened. It will probably help her tremendously to see this post and get a chance to respond prior to World Indoors.

Who said she didn't use testo + HGH + nandro + xyz?

You sound confused. The boar claim comes from Houlihan, not from McGlone.

Centrowitz has actually addressed this and said both he and Shelby were tested on the morning of December 15, 2020. She was positive, he was negative.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2021/06/matthew-centrowitz-defends-shelby-houlihan-absolutely-i-support-her-i-believe-her-i-could-have-been-in-the-position-she-was-in/

It has to do with the strategic advantage of a shorter detection window. If the testers come knocking, an athlete can dodge up to 2 tests within a 12-month period without consequences, but a 3rd test results in whereabouts failure suspension. If you're glowing for a day or 2 you can disappear and come back, but if you're glowing for 2 or 3 weeks you can easily get suspended for dodging tests.

You can see in the various nandrolone research articles (some mentioned in the CAS report) that the glowing stops within 1/2 - 2 days when ingested, depending on the amount.

BS? So you still think it is beef.

You might be smart, but you don't seem to be accurately informed. You seem to be confused about the timeline and who asked for what. Where did you see that she ever asked for 7 days and then whine about getting it? Once you are charged, you only get 7 days to respond. She didn't ask for 7 days. She asked for a 14-day extension beyond the 7 days, and the AIU refused (on the 8th day), but possibly still gave them 3 more days, with a non-committal suggestion that they might be able to supplement their response later. They submitted the package on the 11th day. 4 weeks after submitting this response, on the 40th day, the results from the supplement/vitamin test came back -- that would have been useful input for a possible supplement defense.

Regarding the burrito, this is what they thought at the end of the first week: "Our thought is that they either cooked our burrito with other greasy meat, other meat was mixed in, or we were handed the wrong burritos entirely." Since nothing was ever definitively ruled out, you can have many possible claims in parallel. It could have been beef cooked in pork grease, or mixed with pork offal, or a greasy pork offal burrito. No way to reconstruct those events 30 days later, short of security cameras.

Regarding birth control, if it contains "norethisterone", it's possible the levels can be up to 10 ng/ml and WADA still considers that a "Negative Finding". Anything more than 10 would be an "Atypical Finding". Apparently it would be impossible to be found an "Adverse Analytical Finding". The sophisticated nandrolone micro-doper would certainly be taking oral contraceptives with norethisterone. There doesn't seem to be any other nandrolone exception for other kinds of birth control.

I don't expect athletes to be smart about the pork industry, or the supplement industry, or burrito truck supply industry.

- You claim ignorance of doping when a false positive is, aside from injury, possibly the greatest threat to your career. Why were you not more proactive in ensuring banned substances didn't enter your body?

- Did Nike offer any education or other resources for dealing with the anti-doping landscape? Did you ever ask them to test your supplements? Do you think they would have?

- Did you ever ask you coach, Nike, or USADA for a list of sources for safe supplements?

- If you now think your supplements could have been the source of contamination, why were you taking supplements you hadn't verified were clean?

- The scientists presenting evidence against you stated the odds of accidentally achieving the levels in your system were astronomical. What leads you to believe this could still be an issue of contamination?

- Were you tested during your ban? How frequently?

Honestly Jonathan, you and rojo come across as being completely on her side. You gave her a couple tougher questions, but overall you were WAY too sympathetic.

Barf.

I ran for a lowly D2 school. I will never forget the first pre-season XC meeting I attended where our NCAA compliance officer gave us a long speech about the risks of supplements and the anti-doping protocols we might face, even at the D2 level. He wanted us to discuss any and all supplements with him. The athletic department kept a list of supplements that were considered safe, and they were proactive in educating us in order to avoid any embarrassing accidental positives.

If a no-name D2 school is this proactive with their cross country team, I can't help feeling that the idea Shelby was so naive about doping is a joke. At some point, somebody has to have talked to her about the risks of supplements. These are questions you could easily cross reference with other athletes. Would the "oh I just didn't know, I just run" charade hold up?

Don't you want to know if ASU has this talk with their athletes?

Don't you want to know if Nike has this talk with their pros? Nike has anti-doping clauses built into their contracts, right? Wouldn't it be interesting to know how that discussion happens between athlete/sponsor?

These are the types of questions that you, a supposedly impartial journalist, should have had prepared ahead of time.

How does biological passport fit into this? I thought it was supposed to show pattern of doping. Also I would like to know how many times Shelby was tested in the months prior to the positive test. She said in the interview she never had whereabouts failure, prior positive or TUE. We want rigorous testing and boot out dopers but also do not want arbitrary process that ruins careers. It’s reasonable for athletes to expect fair and consistent process and as fans we want it too.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. To respond to a few of the issues you raised.

Well Houlihan mentioned during the interview that her team didn't agree how with how the AIU/Ayotte calculated those odds. In the key study the AIU relied on re:nandrolone levels after boar consumption, one of the test subjects actually tested positive for very high levels of nandrolone (130 ng/ml) after eating boar organs rather than meat. She said her team raised this issue but it didn't seem to go anywhere with the AIU/CAS.

Probably still a good question to have asked though.

I didn't ask this, because we already know the answer. USADA keeps a public record of testing numbers. Houlihan was tested by USADA 16 times in 2021, 18 times in 2022, 9 times in 2023, and 7 times in 2024.

usada.org

Athlete Test History

Guy Infront

Statistics for how many times Olympic or Paralympic athletes have been tested by USADA. Athlete test history information for each individual athlete.

Open link

As for her supplements, I do think we addressed that topic and got a pretty good sense of where Houlihan stands by asking her about which ones she was taking and whether she has changed her behavior with regards to her supplements/diet/routine after her positive test. But I think some of your questions are good if we ever decide to take a deeper dive into that specific topic.