16 Questions That Need To Be Answered In The Shelby Houlihan Case

I’ll even share an example. I expect you’ve also heard from credible sources that Hobbs Kessler is going pro this week and also likely which company he’s signing with. That’d be a great rumor mill story to share

I wrote the other Red Flags thread that you referenced in the your piece. I think it's great that someone from the US T&F media is asking these questions. It was surprising how few questions were asked in the press conference - were journalists intimidated or just shocked? Some further questions you might want to ask:

1. For T&F journalists - Do you think you can report on your subjects impartially? If so, why has it taken a week for any publication to even start questioning the account put forward by the BTC team? I don't object to Jonathan Gault's opinion piece, but it seems to be a bit backwards that the more impartial and critical evaluation has only been published today, but the opinion piece, based on gut reaction which firmly came out for Houlihan's innocence, came out within a day. Not just to pick on LRC, Chris Chavez of Citius didn't ask a single question in the press conference. We're all T&F fans, but journalists have a job to do, even when that involves asking uncomfortable questions of people you like.

2. For Travis Tygart - is it true that you presented Shelby Houlihan's case to the CAS? If so, how can you claim to be an impartial regulator of anti-doping? Is it the responsibility of an anti-doping agency to be defending athletes that have tested positive? Have you defended any other athletes in the CAS? If so, who? If not, then why Houlihan?

3. For BTC and the lawyer - did you consider alternative sources of the contamination? Presumably, Houlihan takes numerous legal supplements and possible medication, is it possible any of these were contaminated? This is why Brenda Martinez was found at no-fault, she could provide evidence that her legal meds contained the banned substance.

4. For Schumacher/BTC - how many of your current athletes are taking thyroid medication or have TUEs? Are you prepared to provide a list of all medication and supplements that BTC athletes are taking or have taken in the last year?

5. For USADA - this is likely a very difficult question to answer, but since Rojo has raised it a couple of times: a USADA source has told LRC that Houlihan would likely have been let off if they had conducted the test. Is this true, and what do you think is the compelling evidence that would have allowed you to exonerate her? Doping is a strict liability offense and the case presented by Houlihan's team is inconsistent, clearly intended to deceive, and provides no firm evidence of the source of contamination. Would you really be prepared to declare an athlete innocent on the basis of a receipt for a burrito which there is no evidence contained pork, plus some iPhone location data? If so, why are your standards of evidence so much lower than the AIUs and does that call into question your fitness for purpose? How can athletes across the globe be confident that USADA is testing athletes properly and applying global anti-doping rules fairly?

Other than these questions, I think that everyone needs to be very careful when discussing USADAs intentions and motivations. USADA is a regulator, but it is also a political body and Travis Tygart operates more like a politician than a technical expert. If you're interested, listen to his interview with the Clean Sport podcast. He is clearly motivated by increasing USADAs influence within WADA and, it seems, believes USADA should hold sway over the world governing body. We can debate that and whether it is right, but it does mean that Travis Tygart and USADA are not impartial observers here, they have motivations beyond just finding dirty athletes. Journalists in particular need to be sceptical when discussing the motives of Tygart and USADA.

rojo wrote:

I've had a week plus to think about everything and I realize there's a lot I want answered - from a lot of different people. Let me know if I missed anything.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2021/06/16-questions-that-need-to-be-answered-in-the-shelby-houlihan-case/

Not direct answers, but here are some of my thoughts:

0) Disclaimer: CAS has not published their grounds yet -- so not all of the facts and details are public. My thoughts below are subject to change if new facts come out.

1) Houlihan's "story" is not incompatible with the findings of the AIU and CAS. It remains possible that she unknowingly ingested nandrolone, from some non-banned source (maybe a greasy beef burrito mixed with pork offal -- maybe contaminated legal supplement), yet still meets the criteria in the WADA code Articles 2.1 (Presence) and Articles 2.2 (Use or Attempted Use) and the criteria and definitions (i.e. "intentional") in Article 10.2 (Ineligibility).

2) Houlihan's "story" is not important for determining the rule violation. In Article 2.1 and 2.2 "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". An AAF in both samples is sufficient.

3) "Intent" doesn't factor in determining guilt (2.1 and 2.2), but only to the length of ineligibility (10.2). Even a "no fault" finding is interpreted as a rule-violation, and would count as a first offense.

4) Studies show that eating the wrong pork can raise levels above the WADA threshold "naturally". I don't think we are talking about "tainted steroid injected" pork, but naturally occurring hormones. Not saying this is the case for Houlihan, but every athlete should be on notice, that seemingly normal behavior can be perceived as "significantly risky" in a WADA/CAS context, and should not be "manifestly disregarded".

5) The current limit of 2 ng/ml was put in place by WADA around 2004. Before that, the IOC threshold was 5 ng/ml for women, and 2 ng/ml for men.

6) Women appear to be at greater risk of violating the threshold. According to Dr. Patrick Schamasch, director of the IOC medical commission, an "IOC study of 621 athletes during the 1998 Nagano Olympics "in real competition, not simulated,” produced “only five above our limits--all women.""

7) How can Jerry not hear of "nandrolone"? I don't find this important. I suppose if you had polled 100 coaches what Linford Christie was busted for, they would say steroids. I don't find it unusual that coaches and athletes are not experts in details of doping. They are not scientists or doctors.

8) Why do agents/coaches/athletes "lie"? Look at some of the posts in this thread, and a thousand others -- Shelby testing positive casts a shadow on the whole group. If you are African, it casts a shadow on the whole nation. It is a scarlet letter. The principle here is "innocent until proven guilty", and not commenting on on-going cases is a principle that should cause the least reputational harm to innocent athletes.

9) I think "death sentence" is an appropriate metaphor. Metaphorically, if competing is your "whole life", then a doping positive, for a 28-year old athlete in her prime, could prove "fatal" to her career.

10) What did CAS actually "find"? It may seem pedantic, but it was the AIU who sanctioned Shelby, based on a positive A and B sample result. The instant the B-sample came back positive, rule 2.1 (Presence) was violated. The only way to overturn guilt was to challenge the correctness of the A or B sample result. The CAS panel found that Houlihan's lawyers did not "rebut the presumptions" that the A and B sample results were correct. They also found that Houlihan did not determine the source of the nandrolone, which was her only path to reducing her 4-year ban. Therefore, they upheld the AIU's sanction.

11) Was going directly to CAS for a single hearing a smart choice? She skipped one "hearing" and her chance for appeal, and I find it unlikely that there are grounds for the Swiss courts to overturn the rulings.

12) Is Tygart right (about other "no fault" cases)? Do we need some WADA reform? "Strict liability" may sound like a good idea for catching the worst offenders, but it does place a rather high burden on the athlete, not only to defend against anti-doping charges after an AAF, but for every decision that they make both in and out of competition, for keeping logs and receipts and other evidence that may be handy in a hearing, for things that would be ordinary behavior for non-athletes.

There aren't any questions to be asked about whether Houlihan was doping. That boat has long sailed. Only her team, her fans, doping apologists and those who haven't grasped the issues think otherwise. She has failed the same standards applied to any other athlete convicted of doping. It is only that she is American (and white, I suggest) that has resulted in the endless contortions here to find an "innocent" explanation for her unarguable breach of the doping rules.

If there is any remaining question it is who else was involved in her doping - I find it unlikely that she did it without expert advice and help - like who recommended and supplied the nandrolone, and according to the "right" levels for it to be effective - and even how not to get caught, although there was a slip-up there. When all of her athletic activity has been undertaken as part of a close-knit team I would expect the team to be involved with everything she did. Such as doping.

A point that isn't understood here is that if her teammates were clean she was cheating them with her doping and not just her competitors from other clubs and other countries. Yet her teammates stand by her. Either they cannot understand how CAS can find an athlete guilty of doping - extraordinary for professional athletes to not get that - or they are all part of the same dirty game. Burrito? Really? As CAS has effectively said - "that is bs".

rojo wrote:

Will you release your complete Athlete Biological Passport to the public immediately?/

The ABP is kept by WADA, athletes have no access.

Having access to your ABP would make doping even easier.

I can see the "pork" excuse growing under your expert ministrations. The fact is she has been convicted of doping - the rest is pedantry, as hard as you find that swallow. If she had had the same aversion to nandrolone as you do to uncomfortable truths we wouldn't be discussing any of this.

That article was painful reading. Really.

I have criticised your so called journalism , but you continue to outdo yourself

Easy answer here: The way that BTC announced and conducted the press conference made it nearly impossible to ask relevant questions in real time. This wasn’t a mistake; it’s why they announced it the way that they did.

Everyone’s had time now to digest the WADA technical documents and nandrolone research, but that wasn’t the case during the press conference itself.

You have to hand it to them, it was a clever play. “Here is our story — sorry, we can’t verify it on the call, but rest assured, we presented evidence to CAS, even though they ruled against us. [Insert vague rant about how all coaches now must fear CAS/WADA/etc.] Anyway, since the Trials and then the Olympics are about to start, please respect our team’s privacy and don’t ask any follow-up questions for the foreseeable future.”

I don’t blame anyone on the call who realized (probably with good reason) that they’d get better clarifications from sources not participating in the press conference.

+1

Very impressive analysis.

Agreed, its funny how this is reported and how she is being railroaded yet when a Kenyan athlete gets caught their called a drug cheat. Call a spade a spade. She got caught and now is a drug cheat. Enjoy your time off. CHEATER

Jonathan Gault wrote:

devin wrote:

Basically what I got from this article was that JG knew about the positive test but didn’t publish it. Why? That looks suspicious for favoritism honestly.

Just to be clear: there is a difference between hearing tips/rumors about something and KNOWING it for sure 100%. I hear a lot of rumors in my job. Not all of them are true. If I'm going to publish an article that says that one of the biggest names in the sport has tested positive, you better believe I'm going to want to be 100% sure.

Trust me, I would have loved to have broken this story. But based on the information I had at the time, I did not feel confident enough publishing it (and potentially smearing someone's reputation) as I didn't have it 100% locked down.

So you didn’t try to verify the story? Very suspect. What’s your agenda?

Joker wrote:

rojo wrote:

Will you release your complete Athlete Biological Passport to the public immediately?/

The ABP is kept by WADA, athletes have no access.

Having access to your ABP would make doping even easier.

That's only partly true. Unless something has changed in the last couple of years, athletes can access their blood marker data. Though that's probably of little use in this case

Anyway, another question to add to the list, this time for Schumacher/BTC:

Who is responsible for athlete nutrition and education at BTC? Jerry hadn't heard of nandrolone, but you have to think somebody is responsible for educating the most high-profile group of T&F athletes in the US about what they put into their bodies. Every professional sports team in the world has someone to perform this role. If it's not the head coach's role to ensure that his athletes look after their bodies, then who is this delegated to and what information are they providing?

sbeefyk2 wrote:

I don’t know why Letsrun is giving so much time and effort to a doper. I thought Letsrun had a zero tolerance policy for dopers? That policy must only apply to sprinters and foreigners. I’ll let you figure out why that is ;)

We all know why

Yeah it kind of is when people who are smart don't want to take illegal drugs.

Do you realize what some of the side effects of steroid use are?

Go look them up.

Go take a look at John Cenas enlarged inner shoulder and bicep squiggly varicose veins because his heart is clogging up due to the amount of steroids he's taking. Those squiggly varicose veins are something you would expect to see on a 79 year old man not someone that's 44.

Your whole post just sounds like really dumb.

And yeah i'm sure the entire track community and CAS will listen to you. Sure.

Are you from the steroid infested powerlifting community as well?

I was a D1 athlete for a top 20 volleyball program. Back in 2001 we were tested and educated regularly about of approved/banned supplements. Incidentally, my school had one of most storied track and field programs in the country with multiple triple crown titles. The NCAA Drug Testing Program was taken extremely seriously by the AD, at least in my view.

This article is a decent start but it's still quite sad to see you both sidesing it.

Anyway a few key questions remain

- what did she eat? we've heard all this jazz about ordering this, tainted pork that. at no stage has anyone actually reported what she says she ATE.

- what's all this synthetic nandralone vs naturaly occuring stuff. i follow this enough to know a white american has got popped but not enough to know the details here. I think the aiu are claiming they can prove it was synthetic? she claims those test aren't valid?

let's not even get into questions about all the rest of the btc

Yeah they need to stop blaming this on bad meat. It's like really? Wow. You really think we're going to believe that you ate a piece of steroid infested meat?

It's just so funny to listen to at this point.

quote post wrote:

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Just to be clear: there is a difference between hearing tips/rumors about something and KNOWING it for sure 100%. I hear a lot of rumors in my job. Not all of them are true. If I'm going to publish an article that says that one of the biggest names in the sport has tested positive, you better believe I'm going to want to be 100% sure.

Trust me, I would have loved to have broken this story. But based on the information I had at the time, I did not feel confident enough publishing it (and potentially smearing someone's reputation) as I didn't have it 100% locked down.

So you didn’t try to verify the story? Very suspect. What’s your agenda?

He was trying to verify the story … by calling the relevant agent. Are you dense?