Shelby Houlihan joins The Running Effect Podcast again

all we want is for Shelby to tell the truth. I don't personally care how much "worse" things get for her. I don't care about her at all.

But Shelby cheated, and she has an inside view of how she got the drugs and what drugs she took. She also might have a clearer idea about who in the sport is also doping, and who (agent, sponsor) knew or was helping her.

She is not innocent Rekrunner. This was not a freak occurrence. Positive A Positive B and no plausible explanation. Uncommon progression. No explanation.

As I said before, Shelby can tell the truth and she can make the sport better. She can be an important voice and maybe undo some of the damage she caused to the sport already.

I really admire Kara Goucher for this reason. On her podcast, she admitted she knew coming forward would put her under suspicion that otherwise wasn't there. She feared Alberto massaged her with testosterone and asked USADA to go through her records with a fine toothed comb. She asked for that. She risked losing everything, and she put herself in front of a firing squad knowing there would be some who would never believe she was clean.

Tyler Hamilton did it. Floyd Landis did it. But Shelby staying silent about it when we all know she cheated? bahhh.

You seem to think you already know the truth.

But what if the truth is that she doesn't really know how it got there? She already told us that, and that is highly consistent with not being able to establish the source.

5 ng/ml of ingested nandrolone can not explain her progression.

Sounds like you believe the truth is: "She is not innocent Rekrunner. This was not a freak occurrence. Positive A Positive B and no plausible explanation. Uncommon progression. No explanation."

Besides the A and B positive, the rest looks to me like a lot of your own personal speculation. I'm sure you would like nothing more than for her to confirm your speculation is right, and you will hate her until she does, but is that how it should work?

Lol @what if. What if you finally admit that this cheat knows exactly where the drugs came from?

What if you round the 5.2 - 5.8 ng/ml properly up to 6 ng/ml, not down to 5 ng/ml?

What if you finally acknowledge that she must have taken a lot more than 6 ng, considering how much urine people generate within 8 hours or more?

What if you would inform yourself about the increased, not decreased availability of corn during the pandemic?

What if you would listen to experts like Ayotte and Tucker?

What if you would stop lying?

Wouldn't that be nice for the rest of us?

I listened to the podcast and it was weirdly not about running, training, or the suspension. I was surprised how much was just them going back and forth about what they are reading and how it motivates them to train and be their best selves. It was light on training and comeback-related details.

On the other hand, a few months ago, when The Running Effect had Travis Tygart on, it was amazing. Tygart did such a good job explaining why the ban stands as it is and at the same time why he is concerned about this case and cases like this one (false positives due to ingesting something via supplements that are made in the same factory as all the other MetaR0id and JACK3D+ AndroBoost and all that other crap.

Can someone who knows more about this tell me why the "tainted supplements" scenario wasn't explored more by her, WADA, and all of us? It is what I thought of right away when I heard about her positive (the burrito never seemed believable to me and even Shelby's camp admitted that they were clutching at straws). Why not explore the supplements more closely?

p.s. Tygart gave a clear lecture about only buying supplements from approved and screened sources because a lot of the product out there is tainted. From the article:

Because they did explore the supplements and ruled them out:

A: The ones she still had in January tested negative.

B: The ones she used up after her positive test and before her notification were regularly used during earlier tests which were negative.

IIRC she was tested almost 20 times that year - USADA and AIU knew something was up. Would be nice to see her ABP! And how often she "missed" tests! Naturally that will all be kept a secret.

Why would she even need to change her name? Seems like Regina Jacobs is doing alright.

The big question is: She got caught for "5 ng/ml nandrolone" what else has she taken ? Armstrong never got caught in tests and so many other athletes than since has admitted it. So now we have an athlete caught redhanded and you really think she only "took" "5 ng/ml nandrolone".. Well you don't believe she took it since she is not russian nor kenyan.. lol

Blatant cheater, I suspect other amounts of drugs has been taken in this case.

Bigger questions for me is:

- Why wasn't the B-sample result treated as an ATF as foreseen in the TD2021NA?

- Why was the IRMS test used against her when the TD2021NA says it may not be used?

- What was the rationale for the one CAS Panelist ruling that the AAF was not arrived at properly?

- Why did the CAS "rule" commercial pork was corn-fed, after the AIU expert conceded pigs were fed soy during the pandemic? Why "rule" on that question at all as that question was not really before them.

- Why was the possibility of medically castrated boars not considered by Prof. McGlone? There were delays in pig slaughters, and the vaccine wears off in a matter of weeks.

- Why did Prof. McGlone say cryptorchids were only 6-months old, given the delays is slaughtering the pigs?

- What considerations and adjustments, if any, did Prof. McGlone make when giving his assessment of the pork industry in the US during the pandemic compared to the pork industry pre-pandemic?

- Why did the AIU argue that her levels were 2-3x larger than studies, when one of the experts in the case authored more than one study finding levels 20-25x more than Houlihan's, as high as 130-160 ng/ml?

- Why did the AIU only argue against pork meat and allege the athlete's claim was just pork stomach, when the athlete's claim was "offal" found in a pork stomach burrito? While pork stomach is "offal", "offal" is not just pork stomach.

- Why aren't other athletes stepping forward to condemn Houlihan as a cheat? It looks like only outsider fans and journalists. Most every athlete that knows her and Jerry support Houlihan's character. Gabriela DeBues-Stafford left because of a lack of transparency and she thought she was at risk of her own violation for training together, but she said she only confirmed she never saw anything like doping at BTC.

Are you guys seriously beating this long dead horse? Quoting a Washington Post article? Seriously? That hack of a writer does not know the first thing about the sport. Caught and banned. Move on.

Some good questions:

Is she a cheat? There was no such official finding, and I have low confidence in the WADA process, which permits generous assumptions against accused athletes, that it reliably identifies intentional cheats.

In its official TD2021NA, WADA calls anything less than 10ng/ml "low", so whether you write 5 or 6 ng/ml, WADA still considers it "low". I usually try to write 5.x, as the two values are different.

Sure she ingested more than 6ng, but the measure is ng/ml, and her measured values were "low" according to WADA.

The AIU expert conceded that pigs ate more soy due to a corn shortage.

I think Prof. Ayotte has some credibility issues in CAS hearings, but in any case I listened to Prof. Ayotte, and read several studies she authored, and some presentations she gave at different seminars and symposiums about nandrolone and isotope ratios.

What is Tucker an expert in exactly? While I appreciate his exercise physiology background, he essentially said nothing that I didn't already know from the CAS report, and in some cases, just parroted some of the AIU arguments which I consider flawed.

Which lie? Pretty much everything I have ever said on this topic can be found in the CAS ruling, in the WADA Code and TD documents, in published studies on nandrolone and boars, or comments from Tygart, or other official sources.

It probably would be nice for everyone if I turned into a lemming and grabbed a pitchfork and hopped on the bandwagon.

Bigger questions for me is:
- Why wasn't the B-sample result treated as an ATF as foreseen in the TD2021NA?

Because they don't have to do whatever Shelby asks and they don't have to lick her boots.

- Why was the IRMS test used against her when the TD2021NA says it may not be used?

Irrelevant to a positive test.

- What was the rationale for the one CAS Panelist ruling that the AAF was not arrived at properly?

Shelby gets to choose a panelist. The AIU chooses a panelist. and there is a neutral panelist. Rulings are almost always 2-1 because of this.

- Why did the CAS "rule" commercial pork was corn-fed, after the AIU expert conceded pigs were fed soy during the pandemic? Why "rule" on that question at all as that question was not really before them.

The bottom line is that the amount of offal shelby would have had to injest to trigger a positive in her system was three times the amount she admitted to eating that night (if she actually ate offal at all, which she did not.) So corn or soy, it's irrelevant.

- Why was the possibility of medically castrated boars not considered by Prof. McGlone? There were delays in pig slaughters, and the vaccine wears off in a matter of weeks.

See my answer to the above question.
- Why did Prof. McGlone say cryptorchids were only 6-months old, given the delays is slaughtering the pigs?

See my answer to the above question.

- What considerations and adjustments, if any, did Prof. McGlone make when giving his assessment of the pork industry in the US during the pandemic compared to the pork industry pre-pandemic?

See my answer to the above question. Also, this isn't about pork.

- Why did the AIU argue that her levels were 2-3x larger than studies, when one of the experts in the case authored more than one study finding levels 20-25x more than Houlihan's, as high as 130-160 ng/ml?

Oh no, call 9-1-1. It was still a positive test and she couldn't explain where it came from.

- Why did the AIU only argue against pork meat and allege the athlete's claim was just pork stomach, when the athlete's claim was "offal" found in a pork stomach burrito? While pork stomach is "offal", "offal" is not just pork stomach.

Becuase she ordered beef. Carne asada. And she likely received beef. The chances of her getting a different burrito than the one she ordered are slim. The chances of that then being a pig offal burrito are flat out ridiculous. And once again, she'd have to eat three pig offal burritos to trigger a positive.

- Why aren't other athletes stepping forward to condemn Houlihan as a cheat? It looks like only outsider fans and journalists. Most every athlete that knows her and Jerry support Houlihan's character. Gabriela DeBues-Stafford left because of a lack of transparency and she thought she was at risk of her own violation for training together, but she said she only confirmed she never saw anything like doping at BTC.

Why do other athletes need to condemn her in order for you to believe it? they are under contracts with Nike, they have friends or friendly circles, it could be awkward for them. I'm disappointed in the lack of transparency here, but there's a reason people don't go public.

Thanks for trying but it looks like you got 10 out of 10 answers wrong.

Lol, what a surprise, you actually didn't want answers, just stirring the pot again.

I don't care about burritos, I'd absolutely smash it.

On the contrary, I genuinely would like thoughtful responses, or at least thought, rather than demonstrably wrong answers.

For example, "they don't have to ... lick her boots", but they do have to follow the guidance in the TD2021NA. A majority of the CAS panel ruled one way, while a minority did not. Why? The CAS report explains the majority ruling, but not the minority dissent.

And using the IRMS test is relevant to a positive test, as that is one of the criteria that says whether the positive test can become a violation on its own (AAF), or not (ATF). What does this mean in the TD2021NA: "The origin of the urinary 19-NA may not be established by GC/C/IRMS analysis ..." and if not for cases like Houlihan's, when would that apply? Because the WADA lab clearly used it when they reported the result as an AAF.

It's alarming to hear suggestions that individual CAS Panelists may not be completely neutral and will rule on the side of the one that picked them, and that fans would just accept that for granted. Neutrality among CAS panelists is their raison d'etre. How can anyone expect a fair trial if the judges are known not to be fair? A lack of neutrality essentially renders all CAS rulings a farce, as it is no longer decided on the merits of the case, and the rules, but on politics and favors. Any findings and conclusions found in the CAS report becomes instantly less valuable, as doubt is cast on whether the CAS panelists were neutral, or are ruling based on their own hidden agendas.

I asked why the AIU focused on pork meat and stomach, and the answer was "she ordered beef". How is that possibly a right answer? The AIU should have focused on beef then. Instead they ignored and rewrote the alleged claim of the athlete and rebutted claims the athlete did not make.

Why look to what athletes say? Shelby's competitors are the main stakeholders here. And I'm often told that athletes know a lot more than ignorant fans like me. The only athletes who have spoken on Shelby's case all vouched positively for her character, while no athlete has condemned Shelby as an intentional cheating doper. Why should I take the vitriol of fans seriously if the athletes don't share it?

Just to be clear, the AIU and CAS DID focus on beef. The fact that she ordered a carne asada burrito played largely into the CAS decision that it could not have come from the burrito because the burrito was more likely than not...beef.

I totally believe that athletes would stay silent on this case. Nike plays a huge role, and Shelby has many friends in the sport. Even Kara Goucher acknowledged that the reason she was hesitant to speak up about this case was because she "Liked Shelby and knows her family." Several members of the media said the same.

Also, it might be alarming, but it is literally a stone cold fact that Shelby and her team got to choose a panelist themselves. Literally a fact. Why would they chose someone who wouldn't side with her. If you are going to defend Shelby, you need to drop the 2-1 CAS decision as evidence full stop. It is not evidence.

Indeed, arbitrators are chosen for a reason, although they are neutral. For example, Nike here would have been well advised to choose an arbitrator who has a history of being a stickler for rules, who would insist that all suggestions mentioned in the rules (here: a 2nd opinion should be asked for) are always followed, no matter what.

WA on the other hand could just pick any regular arbitrator here, for the case was crystal clear: almost 3x of the legal limit, not even a remotely believable excuse, too much nandro even for stomach offal from an uncastrated boar, and of course a CIR indicative of synthetic nandro as found on amazon. That's why ultimately even Nike's lawyers with all their experience could not find a single arbitrator who in the end would not rule that Houlihan wasn't a cheat - recall that that was a 3 : 0 vote in favor of banning her for the full four years for intentional doping.

Regarding rekrunner's "questions": asked and answered all over again. No need to go back and beat the dead horse 24 more times. Rekrunner, read and try to understand the CAS report, the Supreme Court report, and Tucker's detailed analysis. Also try to understand and admit that they are all neutral and competent.

A lot of wisdom in this post.

I'm glad you cleared up that the AIU and the CAS addressed beef, but "beef" doesn't answer why they talked about "pork meat" and "pork stomach". Why talk about "pork meat" and "pork stomach" at all, since pork meat and pork stomach is not "beef", and these things are not what Shelby claimed caused the positive test. Shelby alleged it was from pork offal, and the AIU failed to fully rebut that claim. If the nandrolone came from a greasy pork burrito rather than a dry carne asada beef burrito, the AIU is correct that it was probably not from the pork meat itself, or the pork stomach itself. It would most likely from other organs, like liver and kidneys and heart, possibly ground and mixed in the chorizo, which are known, including by experts like Prof. Ayotte, to contain high amounts of nandrolone. While large amounts of pork meat would be required, only a small amount of organs would be required. Prof Ayotte studied subjects achieving 20-25x the amount found in Shelby's urine from pork organs. This looks like a blatant omission.

I get that you totally believe everyone is controlled by Nike, even Kara Goucher who left Nike and helped get their star coach banned for life, and smear NOP on worldwide TV. This partly responds to one of the 10 "bigger" questions, but then you'd have to believe all of her competitors are either friends with Shelby, or controlled by Nike.

I was not alarmed by the stone cold fact that Shelby chose one of the CAS panelist, but by the alarming suggestion that there exists any CAS members at all who would not rule in a fair way, based on the facts and evidence and rules. If literally 2 out of 3 of the CAS panelists are unfair, I cannot take anything in the CAS report seriously, or any CAS rulings for that matter. Don't we expect our judges to be fair? This makes me feel much more confident that my independent reading of the WADA documents are correct, as the AIU "experts" and WADA lab director will obviously be biased, and the CAS panelists apparently cannot be expected to be fair.