Sunday Mail Has More Details on Paula's Blood Values and Off Scores + News She'll Put up £1m for an MRI lie detector

rjm33 wrote:

Paula also says in an interview that the 2003 Half Marathon World Championships was an important race for her. Her explanation for her huge increases of hemoglobin( from 12 to 14.8 in 2days!) and OFF scores( from 82 to 114.9 in 2days!) have changed from "I was sick" to.... "I won the race while anemic with a hemoglobin level of 12g/dl while simultaneously developing a level of dehydration that has possibly never been seen ever before in humans tested in running labs, with results published in medical journals(and her "expert" Dr. Martial Saugy says her results are "obviously hemoconcentration due to dehydration").....to "It must be a lab error".....

^ This x 10000000000000. When I showed the math to larkimm, he called that armchair analysis.

More interestingly: the IAAF still used the dehydration excuse in their investigation into themselves, while referencing a couple of studies that show that a 10 - 20% increase in hemoglobin may occur in extreme conditions (as in 1:07 at 21 C...NOT). Now, shall we laugh or shall we cry?

Paula's never testing positive by the federation.

The longer the IAAF pretends, and it seems they will, the harder it gets for Paula.

Transfusion cheats out Paula.

Maybe Oprah can do Paula's confessional show??

One more test to go over, her Feb. 7, 2012 out of competition test taken in Monte Carlo. Please remember that Paula can use altitude as an excuse, because Paula can claim she uses an altitude tent anywhere on the planet, even at sea level, so Paula can always "be at altitude," wherever her location. Here we just have one isolated test with no other close in time tests for comparison.

Her 109.35 OFF score is above the ~106 altitude cutoff, and her Hemoglobin level is 16.2g/dl which is also above normal range of 12-15g/dl. Calculating her reticulocyte score from our OFF score formula of OFFscore =Hemoglobin score x 10 - 60(square root of reticulocyte%), gives an answer of 0.77 reticulocyte% of RBCs, which is well within normal range for reticulocytes of 0.5-1.5%. So her reticulocytes score is not too low, indicating blood transfusion, which she wouldn't be doing in the off season anyway, and her reticulocyte score is also not too high, which could indicate EPO use. It is in normal range, so without other blood test scores for comparison, and without a positive EPO test, I would give her the benefit of the doubt on this one isolated test, and say OK, I think this score could be obtained by a clean athlete at altitude. You passed this one isolated test, enough for me at least, although 16.2g/dl of Hemoglobin is a VERY HEALTHY ABOVE NORMAL HEMOGLOBIN VALUE, for someone who says their values don't vary much over time...

We still want to see all your values from before and after your best races...transparent...nothing to hide...they will prove your innocence...Go Paula!...We are still waiting....Perhaps Ashenden could take a quick look at them.....

In summary, some of Paula's OFF scores really are OFF!

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But Ashenden has already seen all of the blood values, as has Seppelt and Parisotto, and I have seen no specific comment from them about Paula's values or OFF-scores or subsequent explanations. Apparently no one else in this thread has either, since I posed this very question on page 2.The IAAF and UKAD have also seen all of the values, and both have decided that the actions at the time were sufficient, and no further action or suspicion is justified.The Sunday Times have seen all the values, and yet they did not mention any suspicious values surrounding her world record setting 2:17 and 2:15 marathon performances. It would seem odd to mention less important important races, and an out of competition test nearly 10 years later, but purposely leave out the timeframe around the two world record setting records that made her the most famous.Maybe the WADA's Independent Commission "wow" report Part II will add new information, insight, or otherwise comment about Paula. Then again, maybe not, since no one outside of the UK press thought she was important enough to discuss. The real story, outside the UK, and outside the "letsrun-forum anti-Paula fanbase" is the Russian/IAAF bribery, and what's coming in the WADA "wow factor" report Part II -- maybe Kenya's recent doping positives and "anti-doping" problem, combined with local AK federation corruption?I too would be interested in Ashenden's opinion regarding Paula's profile, and the external context provided, but he seems more concerned with the IAAF, and Coe, as if Paula is not really part of the story.By the way, from the IAAF, here are the three values the Sunday Times chose to report to their public:1) Paula's first sample: OFF: 114.87; HGB: 15.6 and RET: 0.47%2) Paula's second sample: OFF: 109.87; HGB: 15.1 and RET: 0.47%3) Paula's third sample: OFF: 109.35; HGB: 16.2 and RET: 0.77%

rjm33 wrote:

...

We still want to see all your values from before and after your best races...transparent...nothing to hide...they will prove your innocence...Go Paula!...We are still waiting....Perhaps Ashenden could take a quick look at them.....

Where did you get the hemoglobin score of 14.8? The recent IAAF report quoted a hemoglobin score of 15.6 and also quoted the ret score at 0.47 for the 2003 World half test (post race)

I know you're a troll but..

Ashenden is not commenting on specific athletes

UKAD chief exec is on record as " burying bad news"

IAAF ..appalling track record on anti doping

rekrunner wrote:

The IAAF and UKAD have also seen all of the values, and both have decided that the actions at the time were sufficient, and no further action or suspicion is justified.

Or in other words:

The IAAF and UKAD have also seen all of the values, and both are saying that their own actions at the time were sufficient, according to their own investigations into themselves.

To me, this looks like a cover-up of a cover-up. Especially because they are still using the old, now retracted excuse(s) from Paula in their written justification, while also openly admitting that they just trust the words of the accused.

However, you are of course correct in pointing out that the Russian story is much bigger, as well as potentially the Kenyan one - but remember that that involves the same people in Lausanne and at the IAAF...

If someone would defend the Russians, more people would argue against them. As for the Kenyans, there are parallel running threads too.

So, rekrunner, what will it take for you to stop believing Paula? If she takes her fourth excuse (faulty equipment instead of dehydration instead of altitude instead of sickness) back, and comes up with a fifth? Or are you just playing advocatus diaboli here?

>> "But Paula says that WADA recommended Saugy evaluate her stuff not that she went and picked him out. WADA so far (at least with the Dick Pound stuff) looks pretty good in all of this with the exception of Saugy's lab. Also it claims he did not know whose profile he was evaluating, but he might be able to guess I would suspect."

Victor Conte was appointed a while ago in a poacher-turned-gamekeeper role to assist the testing bodies with finding the ever-more-sophisticated approaches to doping, particularly around synthetics.

Conte was on the radio on Monday slamming Pound and WADA, saying that not only had they ignored his recommendations, but they had actually used them to help athletes not get caught. It was damning stuff. Whether anyone chooses to believe a convicted felon is of course another matter.

On a separate note, can someone explain to me the 1/1000 fraction that is often bandied about? It is often bandied about as meaning that there is a 1/1000 chance that an off-score could be achieved by natural means. But it can't be that simple, as that means almost certain guilt.

Altitude can supposedly be used as an explanation, but seeing as most serious athletes will use altitude training then why isn't this factored in a priori?

Do you have a link to the radio interview? Conte is both an egomaniac and a liar, but that doesn't mean everything he says is not true.

I'd like to see a more thorough explanation of the 1/1000 thing, too, but usually numbers like that are determined by the accuracy and precision of the testing procedure and instruments. What it means roughly is that there is a 1 in 1000 chance that those scores would be registered given that Paula was clean. Now, one such score, by itself, especially from an athlete who was tested as often as Paula, is not necessarily damning, but 3? Given that the suspicious numbers were produced months apart, we can take the trials to be independent. Thus, there is somewhere around a 1 in a billion chance that 3 such scores would be produced by a clean athlete! THAT's the damning part here. Paula couldn't possibly have been tested so frequently that it's reasonable to suppose that she's the victim of bad luck. And it's why Paula is desperately trying to come up with different explanations to show that the 1 in 1000 is really 1 in 10 or something instead. But the fact that her explanations and her husband's and the account in her biography are so different is not helping her case.

My understanding is that there are two sets of distributions, depending on whether the athlete has been at altitude or not. What's damning here is that Paula said she was at altitude, but, as the sleuths of letsrun have determined, she couldn't have been, or at least not enough to have made much difference in her scores.

Finally, all numbers aside, she set probably the greatest record in women's running in the dirtiest era in endurance sport. She's failing the walks and sounds like a duck test.

rekrunner wrote:

The Sunday Times have seen all the values, and yet they did not mention any suspicious values surrounding her world record setting 2:17 and 2:15 marathon performances. It would seem odd to mention less important important races, and an out of competition test nearly 10 years later, but purposely leave out the timeframe around the two world record setting records that made her the most famous.

Do you know that they have seen all the blood-test values for the entire career of the athlete in question? Besides, newspapers like the Times are not entirely free to report what they want to make a big story. They will have certain constraints to respect. Don't forget that this story started a year ago with the leaked long list of athletes with abnormal blood values who were apparently not followed up properly by the IAAF. Today, we only know a few names who were on that list. The newspapers could have made a huge story 12 months ago if they announced all of the names on the list but they were obviously respecting certain reporting rules.

As far as these numbers from the Sunday Times, I haven't seen them before, but I just checked them with the OFF formula, and they are calculated correctly. You will see that we both agree on the 2012 third sample, and I showed above in my previous post how to calculate that 0.77% reticulocytes, that we all agree on.

On the first sample above, which is postrace from 2003 HalfMarathon World Champs win, I remember the hemoglobin number being 14.8, which gives a recticulocyte score of 0.3%, which is well below normal range. This number was from previous discussions, which showed her hemoglobin going from 12g/dl to 14.8g/dl during the race, which is a very unlikely large increase of 2.8g/dl to be due to dehydration. Now let's use your new number of 15.6g/dl for Hemoglobin level. This number gives even more improbable results!!! Now you have Paula going from Hemoglobin level of 12.0g/dl prerace to a Hemoglobin level of 15.6g/dl postrace, an even more improbable increase of 3.6g/dl in 2 days compared to my previous numbers. So this is an even more crazy impossible increase than before!!! With the new Hemoglobin number, the reticulocyte score comes up to 0.47%, which we agree on, and which is still just below normal range of 0.5-1.5%, while the OFF score change remains unchanged, going from 82 prerace to 114.87 postrace in 2 days!, which all can still indicate doing an autologous blood transfusion. So you can see why Paula wanted to CHANGE HER EXPLANATION AGAIN to "it must be a lab error"........Please, someone ask Ross Tucker, or check medline, and see if there are any published science journal articles that have ever in history documented an increase of 3.6g/dl of Hemoglobin after 1hour and 7 minutes of hard running in moderately hot conditions. I already referred to one study I saw which showed an average increase of 1.6g/dl increase after over 2 hours of running, with some runners showing no increase at all, and a maximum increase in just one subject of 2.2g/dl , yet somehow Paula can increase her hemoglobin levels from an anemic 12.0g/dl to an above normal range(12-15g/dl) value of 15.6g/dl just 48 hours later, after running hard for just 1 hour and 7minutes... Incredible!!! Go Paula!!! ..."It MUST BE A LAB ERROR"....If Paula would release complete blood results pre and post race for her world record marathons, she could really help her case... if they are NOT SUSPICIOUS....Why not release them?...nothing to hide...prove your innocence Paula.....

I only troll for data or facts.So, in other words, all of the experts who have seen the data are not accusing Paula.And the only ones convinced Paula has doped are non-experts who admittedly arrived at this conclusion without complete data.

doping expert wrote:

I know you're a troll but..

Ashenden is not commenting on specific athletes

UKAD chief exec is on record as " burying bad news"

IAAF ..appalling track record on anti doping

rekrunner wrote:

I only troll for data or facts.

So, in other words, all of the experts who have seen the data are not accusing Paula.

And the only ones convinced Paula has doped are non-experts who admittedly arrived at this conclusion without complete data.

doping expert wrote:

I know you're a troll but..

Ashenden is not commenting on specific athletes

UKAD chief exec is on record as " burying bad news"

IAAF ..appalling track record on anti doping

It's exactly the opposite to what you're saying. Ashenden and Parisotto put their name to an article, which, while looking at the bigger picture, also included the conclusion that on three occasions during that period the unnamed athlete (Radcliffe) posted blood scores that were ‘highly unusual’ for an elite athlete and that were so 'abnormal' that there was 'only a one in thousand chance that they were natural’.

Despite Paula challenging this with her statement, providing 'evidence' for why the scores were explainable, despite being 'cleared' by the IAAF report and UKAD, they have very notably NOT retracted their statement or conclusion made originally in the Sunday Times. It would be very easy for them to have said - ok, now you have given us the context for these tests Paula, you are correct and our conclusions were wrong, but it is telling that they have not done so.

When you understand the rules and limits in place in 2003 and 2005, in fact there was never anything wrong with the blood values. There is/was no need to cover-up anything, either then or now, since these blood values did not raise any flags at that time.But you ask an interesting question: what will it take for me to stop believing Paula? There is a false assumption that my opinion is formed based on anything that Paula said. At this point, it's premature for me to ask her questions at all, until its been established that the suspicious values in question actually form a suspicious profile. No expert has made that determination yet.What it would take in part is to erase some of the knowledge I've already gained from other sources, and perhaps a few studies behind which support them.For example, in 2009, they standardized how to take blood, in order to reduce the variability of measurements. This specified things like brand of device that measures the blood, calibrating the device, and taking blood only after 2 hours after a race. They even found that taking blood standing up, sitting down, or laying down, can influence the measures. This is presumably and reportedly because these things increased the variability of the results. These are things I learned without Paula saying a word, so it doesn't surprise me, to hear her say much of the same things. A blood sample with an HGB of 12.0, and an OFF score of 82, therefore seems as plausible as autologous blood transfusion. If a non-calibrated off-brand machine drawing blood while Paula was lying down falsely measured 12.0 when the corrected value is 14.0, and two days later, she is dehydrated from a hot semi-marathon, this is a plausible scenario. Keep in mind, nothing is proven either way, and there is a large degree of uncertainty, so we are really comparing two probable hypotheses. What is unfair, is to evaluate pre-2009 blood samples based on post 2009 rules, that were not collected with the more stringent post-2009 requirements, while ignoring at the same time the increased probability of significant variability of the values for non-blood doping reasons.What could convince me more is if some expert came forward and said that her profile was highly irregular. After all, the ABP doesn't work off one or two threshold violations, but from a long term pattern of many measurements.Or If the WADA IC part two report sheds new information that supports a coverup theory, money changing hands, warning emails, or some kind of doping support network, etc.What would also be helpful, for those who won't be convinced without Paula's full release of all data, is to see how it compares to other profiles. We've seen a graph of Paula versus a few British athletes who published their clean data, but how does Paula compare to athletes sanctioned by the ABP? We've seen she is several orders of magnitude away from the likes of Shobukhova. How about other athletes who might have similar suspicious outliers, yet were not sanctioned by the ABP?

They had IAAF blood data from 2001 to 2012. I don't know if there could be more IAAF data, or non-IAAF data. But others are clamoring for the 2002 and 2003 data, in order to change their minds. I can't possibly see what could constrain the Times to say 3 samples were 1/1000, versus 5 or 6, if the data existed, since they weren't specific about scores or races or athletes.

It's telling, but it's telling us what. If they were wrong about Paula, then why wouldn't they be wrong about everyone but the most blatant outliers. That doesn't sound so easy to me to admit they were that incompetent as experts to think blood results are the last word. Looking at blood data out of context will lead to some false conclusions in borderline cases with plausible explanations (which) they reportedly did not have.No, I don't believe these experts intended to make specific athlete judgements. I think it's more likely that the UK press decided to highlight the unnamed British athlete, and that these experts concerned themselves more with the IAAF slow response to some of the more blatant (e.g. Shobukhova) cases. Look at how Mo Farah was treated by the press and public, for the two scandals he was connected to, despite being explicitly excluded from both. Newspapers know what sells.

>> Do you have a link to the radio interview? Conte is both an egomaniac and a liar, but that doesn't mean everything he says is not true.

I tried to find one but couldn't. He dialled in to a BBC broadcast discussing the state of athletics last Monday evening. Sometimes these can be found as 'podcasts' on the BBC website but had no luck finding this one.

Conte claimed that he alerted WADA to a synthetic PED that would be typically taken by athletes at a certain time of the year. He then found that WADA actually *reduced* testing around the time period he had suggested they focus on. I can't remember all his points - I was driving home at the time and hadn't specifically listened out for this programme - but he was very clear that he felt WADA were deliberately suppressing information they could have used to catch cheats. It was pretty strong stuff. Who knows what is motivating him to say this, but given what we have learned in the last year, nothing would surprise me.

An interesting point made by another contributor was around what actually constitutes 'cheating' when it comes to blood. Training at altitude alters blood favourably. Using an oxygen tent does the same, but in a more convenient way. A blood transfusion does the same, in an even more convenient way.

Are all, some, or none of the above, 'cheating'?

rekrunner wrote:

But Ashenden has already seen all of the blood values, as has Seppelt and Parisotto, and I have seen no specific comment from them about Paula's values or OFF-scores or subsequent explanations. Apparently no one else in this thread has either, since I posed this very question on page 2.

Because you pretend no one has replied.

The

rekrunner wrote: The Sunday Times have seen all the values, and yet they did not mention any suspicious values surrounding her world record setting 2:17 and 2:15 marathon performances. It would seem odd to mention less important important races, and an out of competition test nearly 10 years later, but purposely leave out the timeframe around the two world record setting records that made her the most famous.

Again, you pretend Paula did not clearly state she would make it rain legal bills on top of the UK's much stricter media regulations.

Enough already.

Some people have pressed reply and typed words in the box, but none of them were quotes, comments and conclusions from Seppelt, Ashenden, and Parisotto, all of whom have the complete blood data, something you said was a good thing, specifically addressing Paula's blood values, and subsequent explanations -- only general comments about the IAAF, combined with some extreme Russian examples. The threat of a lawsuit (to the Times) doesn't change the fact that these quotes do not exist.This is not pretend, but historical fact, unless you mean that other people pretended to provide a response.The fact is that Paula only stands accused by the non-expert uninformed public, and a series of sensational stories in the Sunday Times.Seppelt (ARD) and Ashenden and Parisotto are not subject to strict UK media libel laws. If Ross Tucker can write about Paula at his website, surely Ashenden can respond to Paula's explanations in an open letter, providing a better perspective. In a moment of clarity, you pointed out if he did, we could put this issue to rest, but he hasn't.So we are left with an ambiguity -- does the raw data even create a doping case for Paula to answer? The experts either have said no, or remained silent. The non-experts find creative ways to prolong the conspiracy.