Radcliffe says she's not releasing blood values

no way no how wrote:

There's no way she's going to talk to Wejo. Even if they're friends, he's a member of the media. She still hasn't answered the question of whether or not she's the British athlete with suspicious blood values and there's no way she's going to put herself in a position where she'll have to answer it or lie. The only interviews you'll see her in are BBC nonsense where the questions are agreed upon and she doesn't have to address the tough questions about her suspicious blood values.

I agree that Radcliffe won't talk to WeJo as a journalist. It's possible she'll talk to him as a friend, but that would have to be with a strict understanding that he doesn't say anything publicly about the conversation, in which case none of us are going to hear about it.

Very unfortunate situation all the way around. I hope someone can convince her to release her blood values, whatever they may be, and that she makes some kind of genuine effort to explain them if they appear anomalous.

[I've never been a fan of Radcliffe the public personality and I've always assumed she used PEDs, but I respect her success as a runner and I think the current situation is bad for everyone.]

Clearly she has adopted this new stance on the blood data because there is a major issue with hers

So she isn't going to be releasing any data and will want to move on from this controversy

The BBC interview following a long silence on the matter was evidence enough that she is the star athlete

Also I expect she will be much less outspoken on the anti doping issues going forward now that she has been somewhat in the spotlight herself

She has Coe on side so with an ally like that, who is also a darling of the great British public, she can virtually sweep this under the carpet. Even if Kimmage or someone else were to leak the info they would still chose to side with her and Coe, Cram, Foster, etc, especially if it were Kimmage speaking out against her as many British still tend to look down on and treat with disdain an Irish person speaking out against one of their favored ones.

Interesting that Maurice Greene and the British host had a long informal interview with Coe on Eurosport prior to yesterday evenings events and doping, releasing blood values, etc wasn't even mentioned.

I think you can safely assume Cram and Foster take a dim view on Paula and the serious lack of integrity she has shown in recent weeks. They know, she knows they know and they resent the threat of litigation if they dare comment or even question her situation, which as pundits is part of their job description. One thing that struck me about the interview she gave to the BBC is the audience she was addressing. It wasn't the athletics community (she can't fool them) but the regular Joe that watches athletics once every two years.

Under Carpet Sweeper wrote:

She has Coe on side so with an ally like that, who is also a darling of the great British public, she can virtually sweep this under the carpet. Even if Kimmage or someone else were to leak the info they would still chose to side with her and Coe, Cram, Foster, etc, especially if it were Kimmage speaking out against her as many British still tend to look down on and treat with disdain an Irish person speaking out against one of their favored ones.

Interesting that Maurice Greene and the British host had a long informal interview with Coe on Eurosport prior to yesterday evenings events and doping, releasing blood values, etc wasn't even mentioned.

Under Carpet Sweeper wrote:

Interesting that Maurice Greene and the British host had a long informal interview with Coe on Eurosport prior to yesterday evenings events and doping, releasing blood values, etc wasn't even mentioned.

An honest question: what is so interesting about that? Coe has already made great public effort to attack any notion their sport is nothing more than the WWE.

Too bad it is mostly the WWE at this point. The Bolt/Gatlin story is so obviously scripted it's a joke. I feel sad for the few clean athletes that make it to that level.

it stinks wrote:

I think you can safely assume Cram and Foster take a dim view on Paula and the serious lack of integrity she has shown in recent weeks.

Yeah but, haven't they said they don't think anyone's blood values should be released because they think idiots like us and "so-called doping experts" (Coe's words) like Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto will misinterpret them

Yeah but... wrote:

"so-called doping experts" (Coe's words) like Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto will misinterpret them

Should read ""so-called experts".

observer.. wrote:

I expect she will be much less outspoken on anti doping issues going forward now that she has been somewhat in the spotlight herself

Seems that she will have to be. I wonder if wejo will be, too. I wonder if we'll all be less interested in talking about track and field, for that matter. I don't feel the thrill in seeing a great performance that I once did.

pop_pop! wrote:

Under Carpet Sweeper wrote:

Interesting that Maurice Greene and the British host had a long informal interview with Coe on Eurosport prior to yesterday evenings events and doping, releasing blood values, etc wasn't even mentioned.

An honest question: what is so interesting about that? Coe has already made great public effort to attack any notion their sport is nothing more than the WWE.

Too bad it is mostly the WWE at this point. The Bolt/Gatlin story is so obviously scripted it's a joke. I feel sad for the few clean athletes that make it to that level.

It's interesting that he didn't because the few clean athletes you feel sad for would be expecting him to do so during an extended interview, but each to their own.

There are certain blood levels that aren't possible in healthy individuals, hematocrit over 50% for example. Further, people vary in the amount of hematocrit and hemoglobin they have naturally, some are around 40% hematocrit and others might be at 46%. An athlete at 40% hemo. has more flow delivery than the person at 46%, therefore requiring less red blood cells. Anyway, people only vary so much in there baseline levels. If you start at 40% hem, there is nothing that can get you to 48% hem. Not even if you moved to the moon with a potted plant. Point is that there are blood changes that can't be explained normally, and that is with an added safety buffer. Unfortunately, a lot of dirty athletes get away because we have to protect clean ones.

no way no how wrote:

There's no way she's going to talk to Wejo. Even if they're friends, he's a member of the media. She still hasn't answered the question of whether or not she's the British athlete with suspicious blood values and there's no way she's going to put herself in a position where she'll have to answer it or lie. The only interviews you'll see her in are BBC nonsense where the questions are agreed upon and she doesn't have to address the tough questions about her suspicious blood values.

I don't think that she'll talk to Weldon, either. But I still think that he should ask her the kinds of questions that he would ask others, like Gatlin (recently) or Regina Jacobs (a long time ago). She may very well refuse to answer, evade questions, or continue to assert that the public is too stupid to understand test results that, in any event, shouldn't be revealed unless they can prove that she was clean. But there's still value in asking. Even the gentle questions of the BBC interviewer elicited some useful information about her.

Sorry, I have worked in a Haematology lab, haematocrit can be over 50% in healthy people who aren't doping.

I had iron deficient anaemia a few years ago and would test my own blood to monitor my recovery, a friend of mine donated blood for an experiment and had well over 50% HCT.

I think the highest naturally recorded adult HCT level is about 60% in a cross country skiier. Just looking online shows normal value ranges up at, or near to, 50% for men, when dehydrated that would rise.

As a brit athletic fan, i'm finding it impossible to watch the BBC coverage now. All the talk about Gatlin and other suspicious foreign athletes by commentators when there are so many questions about british athletes not being asked and the unbelievable hypocrisy of a certain commentator. Its sad but the top elite end is now something that only brings up questions and suspicion. The lack of intent to bring the cheats to justice and rid the sport of drugs has ruined it as a spectacle. BBC can only be viewed now if you are a distant fan with no real understanding of whats going on .

I completely agree, I don't see why Coe came out saying that they were under attack, they should be able to publically defend every abnormal blood value that they didn't decide they needed to follow up on.

That could be done whilst keeping the data anonymous.

I think the future they should announce that all blood test results will be public, only the numbers related to doping though. Then this kind of leak will never happen again, as it will be public knowledge anyway!

NUFCrichard wrote:

I think the future they should announce that all blood test results will be public, only the numbers related to doping though. Then this kind of leak will never happen again, as it will be public knowledge anyway!

I read somewhere that blood tests are only about 90% reliable. Is that correct?

If that is the case it will erode public confidence even further, as anyone can test positive at any time, even Robinson Crusoe.

NUFCrichard wrote:

Sorry, I have worked in a Haematology lab, haematocrit can be over 50% in healthy people who aren't doping.

I had iron deficient anaemia a few years ago and would test my own blood to monitor my recovery, a friend of mine donated blood for an experiment and had well over 50% HCT.

I think the highest naturally recorded adult HCT level is about 60% in a cross country skiier. Just looking online shows normal value ranges up at, or near to, 50% for men, when dehydrated that would rise.

You are right. But the biological passport/blood tests under discussion were more complicated and they were not just looking at hematocrit reading.

From:

"The specific markers the module tests for include haematocrit, haemoglobin, red blood cell count, percentage of reticulocytes, reticulocytes count, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular haemoglobin, mean red cell distribution width, and immature reticulocyte fraction."

The famous British athlete under question in this case had abnormal readings when looking at all of these different parameters together, indicating a less than 1 in 1000 chance that these readings were not a result of doping. This was on no less than three different blood test results and allegedly the athlete was never tested for blood boosting drugs as they should have have been as a result of these tests. This is pretty damning for whoever the athlete is.

One has to feel for guys such as Seppelt, or Kimmage. They are up against a very powerful organization that is the IAAF should they want to uncover the extent of doping practices in Track and Field. Time will tell I suppose but the odds do seem to be stacked against them.

Probably like some others on this thread I won't be following any IAAF events such as the world champs/diamond league until they have become more transparent about what has been going on wrt the doping issue.

Rational realist wrote:

This is pretty damning for whoever the athlete is.

Is it the athlete's responsibility or the governing body's? I mean is this normal?

I think you can safely assume nothing of the sort about Foster and Cram. It's obvious that british athletics has a small and definite clique of insiders who will not ask hard questions of their own.

On twitter, Paula gave props to Ohuruogu for making the 400 finals. This spurred a few comments about her blood values and how she's biased against non-british dopers. The whole BBC bias is unreal. How could they justify supporting Ohuruogu and not Gatlin?