Red flags in the Houlihan case that need explaining

Think a huge red flag is colleen leaving similar time to when she got popped apparently. Might be coincidence or apaira

OK, this is going to get a bit lengthy but here goes:

1. You can argue the definition of "trace" if you like, but Houlihan was 2.5 times over the limit and therefore, it was clearly not a trace amount in her system no matter how you dice it.

2. Sure, Schumacher may have been ignorant of nandrolone, I can accept that. It would be odd for a guy who's been a pro coach since 2008 to be ignorant of a substance that had led to other athletes testing positive for doping but maybe he's the kind of coach who doesn't pay attention to detail...

3. The jury isn't out on the benefits of nandrolone. It works by delivering more oxygen to the muscles via the red blood cells. Why is this beneficial to runners? Well, lack of oxygen is one of the reasons that we produce lactic acid. More oxygen to the muscles means better lactic tolerance, or an improved ability to operate at faster speeds for longer. On top of that, nandrolone aids muscle building which is useful to mid-d runners, and recovery which is beneficial to all athletes.

4. The claim is unclear, and that's part of the problem. Even their story isn't easy to read.

5. Agree that the study is imperfect. It's not being misrepresented, as you say, but it's not definitive being based on a sample 3. I didn't see anything in the study to say that you have to adjust for the height or weight of the individual, maybe you can provide a reference?

6. The article is old but things haven't changed much and castration is still the norm

7. Yeah, performance jumps do happen, normally I'd expect to see them a year or so after an athlete goes pro when the new training kicks in. Houlihan's occurred three years later which raises the flag. The performance jump on it's own raises an eyebrow, but combined with the failed doping test, we have a serious cause for concern.

I'm totally open to reassessing the evidence when presented but what we have now is a string of really remarkable coincidences or appalling luck. It can happen. In any case, I just want us to think critically about this. Facts and evidence first, your feeling for whether Houlihan is decent or honest left at the door for now.

Viking21 wrote:

I would like to believe that she is innocent, but I would also like to believe in Santa Claus.

Going off on a tangent, I'm just a lowly high school coach, but if my athletes eat at McDonald's or drink a soda, they go on the burpee squad. They police themselves and we have some fun with it, but come on. Do Olympic hopefuls really head on down to the corner and chow down at the Mexican food truck? That would get you on my burpee squad for the entire season.

I don't buy this one really except for the hypocrisy called out in this tweet:

That being said, even in this article talking about her now-healthier diet there's talk of unhealthy stuff. More compelling than the idea that Shelby eats at food trucks (which I have no problem believing) is basically everything else.

Hardloper wrote:

Is there any way we can find out her nandrolone levels on passed tests? She claims (and supposedly AIU agrees) that it must have been taken orally because she "passed" the test one month later but given the half-life of intramuscular nandrolone is only 6 to 12 days it could have easily been below the test threshold after one month.

Remember when you lied in your posts title that claimed she only had “trace” levels of the banned substance in her system?

You’re willfully lying to yourself for whatever reason.

^This x 1000

I can´t believe that Gault can write such emotional, naive crap on the front page. It´s the typical BS when you defend people you don´t want to be guilty: "He/she is such a nice, honest person who I have been following for years, and there is no way he/she can be a doping cheat. He/she has always been very outspoken against doping bla bla:"

There should be an important distinction that the BTC didn't outright blame the pork for having the steroid, they were left trying to figure out where the contaminant substance came from and they arrived at that conclusion. It could be something else theoretically, they are just assuming it's from that.

I’m sick to my stomach. This is not a trivial amount like Lawson or Wilson, this is a great amount of nandrolone. To pre empt the facts with this PR spin

Wow I’m really shaken about how I feel about the sport right now.

The BTC Diaspora included Colleen, Kat and Centro. Seems like a possible division of opinion in the organization.

Hardloper wrote:

Is there any way we can find out her nandrolone levels on passed tests? She claims (and supposedly AIU agrees) that it must have been taken orally because she "passed" the test one month later but given the half-life of intramuscular nandrolone is only 6 to 12 days it could have easily been below the test threshold after one month.

Urinary half-lives of metabolites NA and NE are significantly longer

~ 30 days

See table 5:

So much hypocrisy and bias by Letsrun, Kara Goucher, Steve Magness, and many others.

-They’re publicly vocal against doping.

-They’re strongly against carbon plated shoes.

-Breaking rules are bad.

But when it happens to someone they like…

or Kipchoge breaks the rules to run a sub 2 hour marathon…

…they turn a blind eye, sell t-shirts, and defend them.

Rolling eyes.

I still see the Uncastrated Wild Boar study from Germany popping up in references in the thread - it's still pretty questionable how relevant that is to castrated piggy innards imho.

But if you look further through the study, they did have female and male participants consuming wild meat (also from uncastrated boars), it doesn't say if they weighed 120 lbs but that wouldn't be an unusual weight for a typical female student in Europe (students like participating in studies for cash, not unusual) - so the claim that one small burrito would cause small shelby to test positive seems even more implausible. Germans might be big, but obesity levels are significantly lower than the US and the UK.

The point about her biological passport might be more interesting- does she have a naturally higher level of nandrolone? Was she accidentally pregnant?

Something definitely pushed her well over the allowed range to an ADVERSE find, and there isn't a plausible answer being presented.

Regarding the final point, your concern about disfavoring the anti-doping system, the reason for this is because the anti-doping regime is a complete, unmitigated farce. And there is a huge issue regarding the equal application of the rules. If the USADA still takes its role seriously and tries to perform it semi-competently, what does that do to clean up the sport if other NADA's are not doing their job due to corruption or disorganization? As hard as it is to catch dopers to begin with, it just means that US athletes are working with a major disadvantage while athletes in other countries are running on rocket fuel and running plainly doping enabled times while their NADA's seemingly look the other way. Forget Russia, China or East Africa. Is there a British or Spanish distance runner who isn't doped to the gills because their govts sent the doping green light? Maybe, but the optics aren't good. The end result of the anti-Armstrong crusade for example was not a cleaner sport but the selective destruction of US cycling while other nation jumped right onto the doping bandwagon or stayed on it.

On top of that, there is distrust when an athlete's fate is placed in the hands of a lab. I thought the UCI savaged WADA in their response to one of the earlier charges against Armstrong. He was guilty as hell but the lab at issue was still a shoddy mess. I think Shelby doped because that is now the way the game is played, but I still want to see the full report.

I think Jonathan *wants* to believe it and he just was willing to overlook a bunch of troubling aspects due to his "trust factor" with the people involved. On the surface the case Team Houlihan made is compelling, but it gets somewhat ridiculous the further you dig into it.

The prior contaminated meat stories had a real logical plausibility e.g. I ordered this meal with this meat that could plausibly produce this small trace of a substance that was picked up. This hypothesis was tested and found to be credible.

Meanwhile this one has someone NOT ordering the right type of meat. If it was a mistaken order, the "greasiness" is the only thing picked up even though Carne Asada is grilled and much different than pork organs. Now even if it was that wrong order, was it the right type of pork (castrated male pig) that could contain Nandrolone? That is equally unlikely. Would it produce a test result this high? Also pretty uncertain. Did Team Houlihan test/corroborate any of those things even though they did apparently go back to the food truck and had someone get burritos? Either they didn't or they did and didn't get the results they wanted from that exercise. The more you go down this rabbit hole, the more story seems to fall apart or at the very least the defense is completely lacking any proof that this wasn't just garden-variety doping gone wrong.

I feel like they committed to the burrito defense too readily - leave it open, for the love of Pete. Say it could be a supplement, or pregnancy, or whatever. You want to increase the potential for doubt, not decrease it. Assuming she was knowingly doping and is trying to avoid the charge, of course.

Another red flag from the Fox News interview. When Shelby and her lawyer were asked straight up if they tested the meat, the lawyer dodged the question. My guess is they did and found nothing.

Their story is full of holes. They're acting very suspiciously

So many hours of our last few days wasted due to a LAWYER sending us in rabbit hole reading about pork. We’ve been had…

The fact that some anonymous message board poster had to put this together instead of the people who run this site is both very sad and very funny.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that a site started by two track bros wouldn't have strong journalistic roots, but given the influence of this site as media outlet it's still pretty disappointing.

Anyway, thanks for putting this together. An informative read.

The participants in the key study were Dirk, Kurt and Luc, FWIW.

runderun wrote:

Another red flag from the Fox News interview. When Shelby and her lawyer were asked straight up if they tested the meat, the lawyer dodged the question. My guess is they did and found nothing.

Their story is full of holes. They're acting very suspiciously

Video here:

Yes I think your interpretation is correct. It doesn't seem like their argument is that they have proof that the burrito story is plausible and can be replicated, but rather that the lab erred by not reporting this as an "atypical finding." This is trying to win by technicality and I think is doomed to fail.