Shelby Houlihan: "I want to be very clear. I’ve never taken any performance-enhancing substances"

Rojo, you guys are some of the biggest proponents for open discussion of doping. This seems pretty cut and dry. Positive test, bad excuse, appeal rejected, 4-year ban. Do you think this is a good thing that Shelby was caught and banned?

I honestly think she is innocent.

A lot of 2:19 800m guys think not.

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rojo wrote:
Shelby, Jerry and Shalane and the lawyer made some very powerful statements at the press event today.

I know many of you won't watch to an hour-;ong video so we are going turn today's press event into a podcast as it's much easier for you all to listen to something of that length while commuting or running.

In the meantime, we've also spliced out Shelby, Jerry's and Shalane's opening statements.

Some of my favorite quotes from Shelby are below.

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Breakdown:

Emily Pritt, moderator – 00:00
Paul Greene, Attorney – 00:45
Shelby Houlihan statement– 08:00
Jerry Schumacher statement – 14:48
Shalane Flanagan statement – 21:41

Reporter Questions Begin– 26:20
Alison Wade (Fastwomen) to Paul Greene – 27:11
Kara Goucher to Paul Greene – 28:11
Kevin Sully (FloTrack) to Paul Greene – 29:25
Jonathan Gault (LetsRun) to Jerry Schumacher and Paul Greene – 31:35
Alex Azzi to Paul Greene – 34:45
Gordon Mack (FloTrack) to Shalane Flanagan and Shelby Houlihan – 36:44
Erik Boal (DyeStat) to Jerry Schumacher and Paul Greene – 39:52
Jonathan Gault (LetsRun) to Paul Greene – 41:36
Steve Soprano (LetsRun) to Paul Greene – 43:30
Kara Goucher to Paul Greene – 44:35
Alison Wade (Fastwomen) to Shelby Houlihan – 47:00
Betsy Riley (NBC) to Shelby Houlihan – 49:05
Johanna Gretschel to Shelby Houlihan and Paul Greene – 50:58
Kevin Sully (Flotrack) to Paul Greene – 52:34
Doug Binder to Paul Greene and Shalane Flanagan – 53:30

Do not be moved by an attorney not speaking in a court room. All medical findings have slight logical flaws an attorney can poke at. Bottom line, tainted meat narrative is phony.

Science.
I believe the science.

Funny how suddenly they care about people's lives being ruined. No one seemed to care when hurling allegations at people who did not test positive. Hearing the chutzpah of Kara Goucher on there with anything to say on this subject was absolutely stunning. Apparently only the people who beat here were doping but not he poor, sweet little innocent Shelbo.

Also, it's absolutely hilarious that Shalane says, and I want to make sure I get this exactly; "the tests by WADA are now so sensitive that they pick up trace amounts of banned substances from unexpected sources." But, apparently not sensitive enough to catch the master dopers from Ethiopia and Kenya, where they apparently have the super high tech doping system to thwart the detectors. Then she goes on to complain about losing medals to dopers during her career. Some I may add that NEVER TESTED POSITIVE as her athlete did. That takes some pretty big ones and a major mental disconnect to hold the positions that these people hold. It's freaking amazing!

She's a doper.
Career over.
The end.

I hear a barista at Starbucks is a pretty good gig.

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Ray Cyst wrote:
Funny how suddenly they care about people's lives being ruined. No one seemed to care when hurling allegations at people who did not test positive. Hearing the chutzpah of Kara Goucher on there with anything to say on this subject was absolutely stunning. Apparently only the people who beat here were doping but not he poor, sweet little innocent Shelbo.

Also, it's absolutely hilarious that Shalane says, and I want to make sure I get this exactly; "the tests by WADA are now so sensitive that they pick up trace amounts of banned substances from unexpected sources." But, apparently not sensitive enough to catch the master dopers from Ethiopia and Kenya, where they apparently have the super high tech doping system to thwart the detectors. Then she goes on to complain about losing medals to dopers during her career. Some I may add that NEVER TESTED POSITIVE as her athlete did. That takes some pretty big ones and a major mental disconnect to hold the positions that these people hold. It's freaking amazing!

She's a doper.
Career over.
The end.

I hear a barista at Starbucks is a pretty good gig.

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JBaller33 wrote:

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Ray Cyst wrote:
Funny how suddenly they care about people's lives being ruined. No one seemed to care when hurling allegations at people who did not test positive. Hearing the chutzpah of Kara Goucher on there with anything to say on this subject was absolutely stunning. Apparently only the people who beat here were doping but not he poor, sweet little innocent Shelbo.

Also, it's absolutely hilarious that Shalane says, and I want to make sure I get this exactly; "the tests by WADA are now so sensitive that they pick up trace amounts of banned substances from unexpected sources." But, apparently not sensitive enough to catch the master dopers from Ethiopia and Kenya, where they apparently have the super high tech doping system to thwart the detectors. Then she goes on to complain about losing medals to dopers during her career. Some I may add that NEVER TESTED POSITIVE as her athlete did. That takes some pretty big ones and a major mental disconnect to hold the positions that these people hold. It's freaking amazing!

She's a doper.
Career over.
The end.

I hear a barista at Starbucks is a pretty good gig.

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All Shalane’s statement did was make me think that Shalane was a doper too.

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If indeed "the tests by WADA are now so sensitive that they pick up trace amounts of banned substances from unexpected sources" wouldn't these types of false positives be a lot more common? Or was Shelby just really unlucky?

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Barry Badrinath wrote:
Rojo, you guys are some of the biggest proponents for open discussion of doping. This seems pretty cut and dry. Positive test, bad excuse, appeal rejected, 4-year ban. Do you think this is a good thing that Shelby was caught and banned?

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This is a complete nightmare for Shelby if she's telling the truth, so I want to be sympathetic, but I don't like how this press conference is just sprung on you and then it kind of seems like they expect running journalists to take a sympathetic tone. (Kara and the guy from dyestat did not help.) Good on Jon for asking specifics like amount of nandrolene found in her urine. They gave no one any time to research the context around this.

And the lawyer (30:08) refers to the pig offal burrito she ingested a couple of times but from her statement and Jerry's, it doesn't seem like she ordered a pork stomach or brain burrito. They both say the food truck serves offal so are assuming cross-contamination. I think reporters get a different sense from their presentation than were you to just read Shelby's IG post first.

She says she was at her then-boyfriend's place the morning of the drug test in December. Would that be Centro? Anyway, is there a witness to this burrito consumption? Christian Coleman got taken down in part by a trip to Chipotle and now this...

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Barry Badrinath wrote:
Rojo, you guys are some of the biggest proponents for open discussion of doping. This seems pretty cut and dry. Positive test, bad excuse, appeal rejected, 4-year ban. Do you think this is a good thing that Shelby was caught and banned?

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Ray Cyst wrote:
Funny how suddenly they care about people's lives being ruined. No one seemed to care when hurling allegations at people who did not test positive. Hearing the chutzpah of Kara Goucher on there with anything to say on this subject was absolutely stunning. Apparently only the people who beat here were doping but not he poor, sweet little innocent Shelbo.

Also, it's absolutely hilarious that Shalane says, and I want to make sure I get this exactly; "the tests by WADA are now so sensitive that they pick up trace amounts of banned substances from unexpected sources." But, apparently not sensitive enough to catch the master dopers from Ethiopia and Kenya, where they apparently have the super high tech doping system to thwart the detectors. Then she goes on to complain about losing medals to dopers during her career. Some I may add that NEVER TESTED POSITIVE as her athlete did. That takes some pretty big ones and a major mental disconnect to hold the positions that these people hold. It's freaking amazing!

She's a doper.
Career over.
The end.

I hear a barista at Starbucks is a pretty good gig.

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rojo wrote:
3) Regardless of what is true in this case. The system has to be reformed. USADA Must either lower the limite for positive tests or tell people not to eat certain foods We can't have one major US star testing positive and then getting off or getting banned per year due to this crap.

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Brilliant post Rojo. I tried quoting it but the forum wouldn't let me.

Really respect your thoughts and opinion.

Shalane had a prepared statement that she wrote (and rehearsed) 2 nights ago and it's clear that she was the one that wrote the statement that Shelby read. Both of those prepared, rehearsed, propaganda offerings were written by the same person and meant to induce sympathy - 100% guaranteed. Someone please ask them who wrote Shelby's statement and how many times she rehearsed it.

Here’s what I think about the food excuse. Why is it ONLY Americans that have positive tests due to food? Do other countries not eat any food?

This excuse is garbage and anyone who believes it is stupid in my opinion. It’s like a married person who gets an STD and says I never cheated on you. The evidence is you cheated and you’re just looking for every excuse to get out of it.

It is irrelevant if she actually ate food. Are people not realizing you can dope and then go out and eat pork and then use that as the excuse? That’s why they have to draw a line in the sand. Athletes will dope all they want and go eat pork every day and save the receipts and say, look it’s just the food.

The fact is simple. Shelby cheated. And tried to hide it by eating a burrito and showing evidence she ate a burrito. After all, who saves receipts from eating burritos? Nobody. Unless your lawyer told you to save it for your future doping case because he’s supplying you with PED’s.

I think it’s great when cheaters get banned. We’re only debating this because she’s American. If she was from ant African country or Russian we’d take it as face value and move on.

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sbeefyk2 wrote:
Here’s what I think about the food excuse. Why is it ONLY Americans that have positive tests due to food? Do other countries not eat any food?

This excuse is garbage and anyone who believes it is stupid in my opinion. It’s like a married person who gets an STD and says I never cheated on you. The evidence is you cheated and you’re just looking for every excuse to get out of it.

It is irrelevant if she actually ate food. Are people not realizing you can dope and then go out and eat pork and then use that as the excuse? That’s why they have to draw a line in the sand. Athletes will dope all they want and go eat pork every day and save the receipts and say, look it’s just the food.

The fact is simple. Shelby cheated. And tried to hide it by eating a burrito and showing evidence she ate a burrito. After all, who saves receipts from eating burritos? Nobody. Unless your lawyer told you to save it for your future doping case because he’s supplying you with PED’s.

I think it’s great when cheaters get banned. We’re only debating this because she’s American. If she was from ant African country or Russian we’d take it as face value and move on.

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