As others have pointed out, hardly anyone whould ever be banned for a drug test if there was an additional burden of proof for the agency. If an athlete tests positive, s/he has to make a case that this could be contaminated food, sexual encounter, whatever.
davies report wrote:
High hopes wrote:
OK, so according to the USADA website, she has been tested 55 times over the last five years, plus an unspecified number of AIU tests.
That 33% chance figure that you came up with is wrong. I can't say what the exact figure is because I'd need a lot more information, but you're not taking into account the multiple probabilities that are involved here. Houlihan's version of events relies on:
1. Uncastrated pig meat making it into the food supply - an unlikely event given that almost all piglets in the US are castrated.
2. That meat actually containing nandrolone - remember, it CAN occur naturally in pigs but it doesn't necessarily, nor does it have to be in sufficient quantity.
3. That meat making it to the food truck she bought her burrito from.
4. That meat somehow getting into her burrito in sufficient quantities to trigger an adverse test - recall she didn't buy a pig meat burrito, so it managed to get into her beef burrito either through cross-contamination or by some meat being mixed. Also remember that according to the evidence that Houlihan's team appears to be using, that quantity appears to be around 300g of meat.
5. That Houlihan was tested exactly 10 hours after she consumed the meat - this is precisely the time period when the scientific paper said nandrolone of the level found in Houlihan would turn up in her system. If it was 24 hours later, her nandrolone levels would have returned to normal.
Each one of these are low-probability events, and every single one has to occur in order for Houlihan's theory to hold water. It's possible but extremely unlikely. The odds that she would be tested on any given day are around 1:30, but the chance that she gets tested on a day when all these other rare events also occurred? I think we're in the realms of lottery winner levels of luck (bad luck in this case).
As a thought experiment, follow this sequence of events as an explanation for an adverse drug test, but change the athlete's name to something like Mary Kiplagat. Be honest, and ask yourself how credible the story sounds.
She was asked for an explanation.
She said that the only one she could think off was the food in question.
What if there is no explanation that she has not cheated.
The burden should not be on the Athlete as strict liability requires.
Would any normal court convict on a drug offence of cheating on this evidence beyond reasonable doubt?
All seem content to see it all from the paradigm of the drug control industry.
I also repeat that if anyone really things an athlete would cheat with Deca when they are tested so regularly then they are fools.
I would want, at the minimum, to see historical hormone profiles and bio passports to see if any other evidence of cheating.
All athletes know about strict liability, it's part of every sport so they need to take the actions fully in that knowledge. It isn't new, it's been around for decades.
If they moved to 'beyond reasonable doubt' as the burden of proof I don't think we'd have seen more than a dozen sanctions for doping over the last 40 years. Anti-doping authorities would need to either secure a confession or literally catch athletes in the act of taking substances. In the end, doping is still a civil offence rather than criminal so the 'balance of probabilities' is an appropriate burden of proof.
You think the AIU and CAS didn't check Houlihan's biological passport? You think anti-doping authorities and legal experts with years of experience would overlook that?
Jo72 wrote:
As others have pointed out, hardly anyone whould ever be banned for a drug test if there was an additional burden of proof for the agency. If an athlete tests positive, s/he has to make a case that this could be contaminated food, sexual encounter, whatever.
Yes, you are correct there would be an additional burden on the agency.
BUT that would only be the normal burden in normal circumstances of law enforcement both civil and criminal.
The penalties imposed by wada are functionally as extreme or even well beyond that of many criminal and civil cases.Lives are destroyed never ever to be repaired. The burdens on the prosecution should the same for wada as civil and criminal.
There would still be loads of convictions for significant drugs that have been detected by proper peer reviewed methods.
Why should athletes suffer because the prosecution gets off lightly.
High hopes wrote:
davies report wrote:
She was asked for an explanation.
She said that the only one she could think off was the food in question.
What if there is no explanation that she has not cheated.
The burden should not be on the Athlete as strict liability requires.
Would any normal court convict on a drug offence of cheating on this evidence beyond reasonable doubt?
All seem content to see it all from the paradigm of the drug control industry.
I also repeat that if anyone really things an athlete would cheat with Deca when they are tested so regularly then they are fools.
I would want, at the minimum, to see historical hormone profiles and bio passports to see if any other evidence of cheating.
All athletes know about strict liability, it's part of every sport so they need to take the actions fully in that knowledge. It isn't new, it's been around for decades.
If they moved to 'beyond reasonable doubt' as the burden of proof I don't think we'd have seen more than a dozen sanctions for doping over the last 40 years. Anti-doping authorities would need to either secure a confession or literally catch athletes in the act of taking substances. In the end, doping is still a civil offence rather than criminal so the 'balance of probabilities' is an appropriate burden of proof.
You think the AIU and CAS didn't check Houlihan's biological passport? You think anti-doping authorities and legal experts with years of experience would overlook that?
Just cos the athlete knows about strict liability does not make it right.
At the end of soccer games in the Euros you will see players picking up drinks from multiple sources; do you think it reasonable that they should check sources and check with manufacturers?
The IST do not require checking with previous history.
And such would be given to the defence.
There would still be loads of convictions for drug use.
Possibly less at the margins.
I am aware that civil burden is on balance of probabilities but in civil cases do you think there would be a intense application of strict liability were someone would be required to prove what they ate a month prior.
And would there be an assumption that the lab did its work correctly.
And would the suspect be allowed to carry out there own tests on the sample.
And would carbon isotope evidence be allowed.
And would a fellow lab head from a closed group be allowed to give evidence.
I could go on and on.
davies report wrote:
Why should athletes suffer because the prosecution gets off lightly.
They won't suffer if they follow the rules of the game:
Rule 2.1.1 "It is each Athlete's duty to ensure that no Prohibited Substance enters his body. Athletes are responsible for any Prohibited Substance or it's Metabolites or Markers found to be present in their Samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, Fault, negligence or knowing Use on the Athlete's part be demonstrated in order to establish an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under article 2.1."
Shelby Houlihan has been found guilty, lost her appeal, case over.
davies report wrote:
Jo72 wrote:
As others have pointed out, hardly anyone whould ever be banned for a drug test if there was an additional burden of proof for the agency. If an athlete tests positive, s/he has to make a case that this could be contaminated food, sexual encounter, whatever.
Yes, you are correct there would be an additional burden on the agency.
BUT that would only be the normal burden in normal circumstances of law enforcement both civil and criminal.
The penalties imposed by wada are functionally as extreme or even well beyond that of many criminal and civil cases.Lives are destroyed never ever to be repaired. The burdens on the prosecution should the same for wada as civil and criminal.
There would still be loads of convictions for significant drugs that have been detected by proper peer reviewed methods.
Why should athletes suffer because the prosecution gets off lightly.
Hyperbole. And they aren't "prosecutors" - this isn't criminal law.
The sanctions are relatively mild, the athlete is not jailed or heavily fined, no compensation is due and the athlete is not even prevented from earning a living, just from earning a living in that particular profession, and for a limited and proportionate timeframe.
Athletics authorities simply don't have the power of national criminal agencies to prosecute crimes to a criminal standard of proof. Almost no-one would ever be found guilty of drugs offences in sport if it wasn't strict liability.
Only if the traditional criminal sanctions are available such as loss of liberty and jail time, then should the standard of proof be beyond reasonable doubt.
Another giver of +1 wrote:
davies report wrote:
Why should athletes suffer because the prosecution gets off lightly.
They won't suffer if they follow the rules of the game:
Rule 2.1.1 "It is each Athlete's duty to ensure that no Prohibited Substance enters his body. Athletes are responsible for any Prohibited Substance or it's Metabolites or Markers found to be present in their Samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, Fault, negligence or knowing Use on the Athlete's part be demonstrated in order to establish an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under article 2.1."
Shelby Houlihan has been found guilty, lost her appeal, case over.
You are seeing this in terms of the rules being reasonable.
May not be over as the contract between athlete and governing body may be deemed unfair conditions and based on a gross disparity of power.
birdbeard wrote:
I agree. What does Jerry expect them to do? The story they have provided, while plausible, is an incredible stretch. If anti doping authorities let her off, the precedent would be that if you can make a story, any story, that might explain your positive, you walk.
Just doesn’t make sense.
THIS IS IT. YOU NAILED IT: "the precedent would be that if you can make a story, any story, that might explain your positive, you walk"
the part that makes me real sad is WHY DID SHALANE SUPPORT THIS BS? What did NIKE pay her? Now she goes down with them. deep down this hole. She could have had a coaching career or smth but now its nothing left for her.
Want to talk about highly highly unlikely? A woman running a sub 4 1500m.
Out of the 3.7 Billion women in this world- a dozen can do that. Does that mean they’re all doping? They’re a 1:500,000,000 outlier.
Every time someone says “the odds of that happening is ….” I cringe. To do this to someone it should be a certainty. This case just isn’t anywhere close to that. I think it is more likely than not she was doping. That should not be enough.
This was my initial thought: Why would you take the risk???
5-8u4y9ti]0h-irgp wrote:
[quote]High hopes wrote:
Why in fact would you eat poor quality, bad tasting meat from a burrito truck and take such a risk in the first place?
Ok, why did no one think of this: assuming she was tested at 7am, that means she would have needed to eat at 9pm. The taco truck in question closes at 6pm. So they would have had to test her at 4am for that to work?
Do you think BroJOs are staying away from this thread because it exposes their incredible naivete and poor judgment?
And why did they throw JG under the bus and claim he was on his own with his article???
High hopes wrote:
I knew I'd forget something, so here's one more red flag:
9. The BTC team needed to make a strong case that Houlihan isn't the type of athlete to dope. This is because they have not presented any concrete evidence to validate their pig offal theory. So, why not present incontrovertible and unbiased evidence that Houlihan is, and always has been, a clean athlete? Show us her biological passport. Normally, I would say this is a dumb thing to do as there's too many amateurs out there who will misread or misconstrue data they don't understand. But Houlihan literally has nothing to lose now. Her career is more or less over at the very top level so it's time to go all in. If her biological passport showed no irregularities at all and then this nandrolone finding will look like an outlier. Why have BTC relied on tangential evidence like a receipt, iPhone location data, and an article which suggested Houlihan needed to eat 300g of pig offal that is generally not available in the US (and precisely 10 hours before her test)?
We need her biological passport 100%.
unbelief wrote:
thats apologetics on steroids. so shes just some lug thats loyal to the tribe? great, then i have even less faith in her statements about what’s going on. she loves jerry. this damages him snd his image and his image as a leader. she reflexively responds.
no credibility, sorry
You're right. She screwed up on this one, and if she wants to coach at this level, will need to address her blind spots. Having your athletes' back is one thing, but covering to this extent is unwise.
So Houlihan takes a polygraph and undergoes a hair analysis... big deal.
Did those, on the balance of probability, provide any evidentiary relevance for a potential question of intent or lack of intent concerning whether or not she committed an anti-doping rule violation?
As CAS seems bent on looking for intent as well as degree of fault and negligence, did Houlihan establish the source of the Nandrolone and establish the absence of an intent to enhance her performance? Not beyond a degree of probability on either.
wejo wrote:
We need her biological passport 100%.
Strangely though, you have never asked for that before, not in Kiprop's case, not in Jeptoo's case, not in Coleman's cases, not in Radcliffe's cases, ....
But yes indeed, more transparency would be nice. But for the most part, it's the athletes that fight against transparency, see e.g. Radcliffe, supported by the anti-transparency Lord...
Another question that you journalists should follow up on: why was her initial ban kept secret? Nike power? American power? That hasn't happened in Kiprop's case, in Jeptoo's case, in...
Do we know the time stamp on her burrito receipt? does that even line up with the 10 hours until the test (at 6AM?)?
High hopes wrote:
Also remember that according to the evidence that Houlihan's team appears to be using, that quantity appears to be around 300g of meat.
There is not a single piece of evidence that it takes 300g of meat to trigger a positive test similar to Shelby’s reported levels. It’s just a LetsRun rumor that got started by posting a link to only one of mutiple studies and then misinterpreting the results of that one study. Not only does the research show that this is not true, but it is even stated in the WADA technical document that levels more than double what Shelby had can be obtained from meat.
wejo wrote:
High hopes wrote:
I knew I'd forget something, so here's one more red flag:
9. The BTC team needed to make a strong case that Houlihan isn't the type of athlete to dope. This is because they have not presented any concrete evidence to validate their pig offal theory. So, why not present incontrovertible and unbiased evidence that Houlihan is, and always has been, a clean athlete? Show us her biological passport. Normally, I would say this is a dumb thing to do as there's too many amateurs out there who will misread or misconstrue data they don't understand. But Houlihan literally has nothing to lose now. Her career is more or less over at the very top level so it's time to go all in. If her biological passport showed no irregularities at all and then this nandrolone finding will look like an outlier. Why have BTC relied on tangential evidence like a receipt, iPhone location data, and an article which suggested Houlihan needed to eat 300g of pig offal that is generally not available in the US (and precisely 10 hours before her test)?
We need her biological passport 100%.
Has WADA / AIU ever made an ABP public? Genuine question.
Or do you actually think athletes have access to their ABPs?
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