Official: Paul Radcliffe statement

It will be interesting to see more details of the test emerge, for sure...

I see that Radcliffe has released her off scores.

One issue with PR only releasing her off scores is that a profile can be flagged even if the off score isn't above the threshold. That is a threshold for a computer, but a human analysis can make judgements also. For example, an off score change from 35 to 105 can be just as indicative, depending on it's timing and context.

Of course she has the "authority" to request WADA go back over her data. Any athlete could request WADA do that. They don't have to do it but don't pretend she couldn't go to WADA and say, "You have to have independent experts look at my blood data and issue a report." They don't have to do it, but if such a prominent athlete asks they may do it. She seems to be indicating that is the case. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Let's see what WADA comes out with.

Do you think WADA might be concerned there are allegations the most prominent marathoner in the world was cheating?

You act like she can't go to WADA and ask them to retest her stuff or issue a report when all she has to do is pick up the phone and make such a request but you act like she can somehow prevent someone from talking about her scores.

She told me in Beijing and tweeted yesterday that there is no super injunction. They are free to discuss her scores. The Sunday Times may fear a lawsuit or be bound by the leaker who said not to release names, but they can discuss her scores. She can't prevent them from opening their mouths.

The Sunday Times could have published an article accusing Paula of cheating but it didn't do that for whatever reason. Maybe that changes this Sunday but let's not pretend Paula can prevent them from doing anything.

António Cabral wrote:

Besides, it was very easy to detect if the warm of that day have some effect to higher the test values. It´s just to check what were the value and the effect of the high temperature on the other runners that were tested on the same occasion.

This point! Dehydration only affects Paula is essentially her defense. Not believable.

Paula Radcliffe to the Sunday times

"You print it and I sue you (and) you won't be getting any money back in future like Lance Armstrong - I promise you that."

Trying to pretend that the ST "is free to discuss her scores" is disingenuous.

Be a journalist wejo, not a fanboy with a typewriter.

When you are guilty it doesn't matter very much that you only almost got caught. The damage is done and you have to live with it just the same. That's why parents try so hard to teach their kids not to make these harmful mistakes.

Clerk, I could have a better idea about the situation after Vilamoura if I could see the INVESTIGATED VALUES, not the INTERPRETATION of the values.

If I know the level of Hgb, of Hct, her MCV, RBC, RDW, MPV, PDW, PCT, LPCR, WBC, MCH, MCHC, and something connected with LYM, GRAN, MID, in this case I could have my idea about her situation.

Till when I read numbers that are INTERPRETATION of the tests, sorry, but I don't have any confidence in final assertion, because in my life I faced too many differences after testing athletes clean, in different period of their training and in different conditions.

And, still another annotation.

Ashenden speaks about 111 as limit in case of altitude.

Again we speak about something so generic that doesn't mean anything.

What does it mean "altitude" ? Do you think the altitude in St. Moritz (1800m in Suisse) can produce the same effect of Iten (2400m) or Solulta (2700m) ?

Do you think the same altitude at 45° latitude or on the equator can have the same effect ?

Do you think that altitude in full summer or in spring can have the same effect ?

Do you think the same altitude with vegetation or without vegetation can have the same result ?

What about different irradiation, different humidity, different refraction ?

It's exactly when scientists of antidoping want to put some limit based on "generic studies" that, at the eyes of who normally coaches top athletes in those different conditions, they lose every scientific credibility in their assertions.

I repeat again : only studying the effects of different training (because in different periods of preparation), in different places (every altitude is different), and in longitudinal way, we can finally have the data connected with training and values, and only AFTER having these data we can finally see the effects of eventual doping.

A few things: 1) I have said I am compromised on this and think Paula is clean.

2) Journalists are threatened with suits all the time and print stuff. Paula can not stop them from printing something. Mike Rossi said he'd sue us and we printed the article.

In America the truth is an absolute defense against libel. The Sunday Times could print her values if they wanted and try and put them in context. They chose not to do this.

Another possibility for the lawsuit quote is if you compare me to the Russians (who I know are dirty) I'll sue you. Any comparisons to Lance aren't good but Lance eventually lost his lawsuit. A more favorable reading of her quote is she is saying they won't get their money back if they print she is dirty because she's not. Unlike Lance (who was dirty) she will win.

I had an email exchange with her husband Gary and mentioned Lance and he made a quip about the "L word". He didn't like Paula and her being mentioned together. I joked he passed my lie detector test with his response on the "L word".

Antonio- It is good to get everything out there and Paula's claims will have to stand up to scrutiny of course which will happen over time. However, are you are saying she was tested 90 minutes after the race? That is within the 2 hours that WADA says people shouldn't be tested in so I'm not sure your version of events and her version of events means she is a liar. I assume they timestamp when a sample is taken so that could resolve this. She could be saying she was tested right after a race (within this two hour window) so what she said and you are saying aren't necessarily at odds.

I'm not sure but hopefully samples are time stamped because I assume one right after a race could have different results than 1.5 hours after a hot race vs a sedentary test. I trust scientists enough to figure this out.

I've posted a talk with Ross Tucker today. He tries to give some context to off-scores.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/09/wejo-speaks-paula-radcliffe-can-gain-credibility-with-more-transparency-science-of-sports-ross-tucker-says-paulas-explanations-are-plausible-but-more-info-is-needed-tucker-youre-not-dealin/

wejo wrote:

I've posted a talk with Ross Tucker today. He tries to give some context to off-scores.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/09/wejo-speaks-paula-radcliffe-can-gain-credibility-with-more-transparency-science-of-sports-ross-tucker-says-paulas-explanations-are-plausible-but-more-info-is-needed-tucker-youre-not-dealin/

From the above article:

The most impressive move Paula could make would be to get the expert hired by The Sunday Times Michael Ashenden on her side. If he looks at her values and says they pass the test, then it is ball-game over.

First, Ashenden has already weighted in. He's said that given her blood profile in those 3 tests there was only 1 in 1000 chance that she was not doping.

But, let's suppose for a moment that Ashenden did state that he believed that Paula was clean. That's hardly game over. Even if every expert testified that these levels could be explained by Paula's account, the 'game' wouldn't be over. Why?

1. We have to believe Paula's account: 'That she had been training at altitude, that she was on antibiotics that she's right about the account of her half marathon and on and on...

2. We know all too well that athletes can dope - prodigiously - and never test positive. (Or, test positive and be let off because of their importance to their sport...) Paula has run THREE minutes faster than doped East Africans have been able to. I'm sorry. Even if this turns out in Paula's favor, I will always be suspicious. I was when she ran it. The passage of time and the failure of anyone else to even come close to it has only increased my suspicion. I don't know why it hasn't increased yours, Wejo...

Wejo,

You've got a real bias and it's going to hurt when you discover she's not been honest.

Wada is a standards body, not a drugs tester. If I was this ignorant in my job, then I'd be an uber driver. C'mon, read the Wada docs. They are not difficult.

If ukad accommodated her, it's only because the IAAF is supporting her. Or, you know just contact Ashenden or Parisotto. But ohhh no.

[quote]Antonio- It is good to get everything out there and Paula's claims will have to stand up to scrutiny of course which will happen over time. However, are you are saying she was tested 90 minutes after the race? That is within the 2 hours that WADA says people shouldn't be tested in so I'm not sure your version of events and her version of events means she is a liar. I assume they timestamp when a sample is taken so that could resolve this. She could be saying she was tested right after a race (within this two hour window) so what she said and you are saying aren't necessarily at odds.[quote] She hasn't said that at all - she's said she was tested "immediately" - 90 minutes after isn't "immediately" in anybody's (even the most ardent fanboy's) book, and it was correct protocol at that time (2003). IAAF may have changed the protocols, but let's not forget that Radcliffe has been highly vocal in condemning multiple athletes who were tested using the SAME protocols.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Renato Canova wrote:

Clerk, I could have a better idea about the situation after Vilamoura if I could see the INVESTIGATED VALUES, not the INTERPRETATION of the values.

If I know the level of Hgb, of Hct, her MCV, RBC, RDW, MPV, PDW, PCT, LPCR, WBC, MCH, MCHC, and something connected with LYM, GRAN, MID, in this case I could have my idea about her situation.

Till when I read numbers that are INTERPRETATION of the tests, sorry, but I don't have any confidence in final assertion, because in my life I faced too many differences after testing athletes clean, in different period of their training and in different conditions.

Coach is on the right track with this. Oxygen vector doping really screws with a few of those acronyms he posted. If Paula had them pre-WADA, it would be very informative. It took a few years to get WADA testing up and running, so I don't think Paula would have the WADA-standard values.

Of course, if she was clean, then there would be no problem publishing the data. Instead, there are many, many, many problems and weak excuses.

pop_pop!_v2.0 wrote:

Wejo,

You've got a real bias and it's going to hurt when you discover she's not been honest.

Wada is a standards body, not a drugs tester. If I was this ignorant in my job, then I'd be an uber driver. C'mon, read the Wada docs. They are not difficult.

If ukad accommodated her, it's only because the IAAF is supporting her. Or, you know just contact Ashenden or Parisotto. But ohhh no.

I take it all back. A standards body should get into testing athletes by request while her NADO, UKAD, is telling athletes to keep everything secret because transparency is a bad thing.

It is like sending a plumber to fix a leaky roof. There's water somehow involved.

It just highlight what a sh!t show the IAAF operates.

The context behind her unusual blood result following the half marathon world champs was explained years ago in her autobiography (from Russ Tucker's Twitter):

https://twitter.com/scienceofsport/status/642229103266033664

I'm loving the fact that more people believe Antio Cabral's mental recollection of a two hour period of time during what would have been a relatively insignficant series of events (to him) 12 years ago, published on an internet forum, compared to the statement made by someone for whom accuracy and truthfulness in her accounts would make the difference between being pilloried and ostracised by the world athletics community and being potentially exonerated.

As others have said, it will be trivial to prove Paula's point - the doping tests extractions of blood and urine will be precisely time stamped as part of the recording process. I find it very hard to believe that, with the level of journalistic scrutiny around, Paula would make a deliberate and easily disprovable lie one of the cornerstones of her defence.

This debate is straying too far into the technical aspects of the science and the focus has been lost. And now we're even going down the blind alley of people's personal accounts of weather conditions on a day more than 10 years ago...!

The crucial point I think we need to return to is surely this:-

If Paula was clean and her data was considered to be not a matter for concern by the authorities at the time and everything was signed of as satisfactory then why is she handling it so badly today ? Why the lack of transparency, the fidgety-interviews, threats to ST, the lengthy pre-prepared statement ?

This is simply not the conduct of someone who should be relaxed safe in the knowledge that everything is in order and they have nothing to worry about.

Jimbo68 wrote:

This debate is straying too far into the technical aspects of the science and the focus has been lost. And now we're even going down the blind alley of people's personal accounts of weather conditions on a day more than 10 years ago...!

The crucial point I think we need to return to is surely this:-

If Paula was clean and her data was considered to be not a matter for concern by the authorities at the time and everything was signed of as satisfactory then why is she handling it so badly today ? Why the lack of transparency, the fidgety-interviews, threats to ST, the lengthy pre-prepared statement ?

This is simply not the conduct of someone who should be relaxed safe in the knowledge that everything is in order and they have nothing to worry about.

Best case scenario (from her POV) is that she is following the advice of very expensive lawyers. Hopefully for her they are not acting in their own interest with the goal of maximizing fees. I do think that if she is innocent, she could have cleared this whole thing up before it even became an issue. As soon as she knew she was implicated, she could have been completely transparent and explained the reasons behind her test results. This is what one would normally expect from a clean athlete. The delaying, withholding information, attacking the messenger etc is out of character with her previous anti-doping stance and is making her look like she has something to hide.

Jimbo68 wrote:

This is simply not the conduct of someone who should be relaxed safe in the knowledge that everything is in order and they have nothing to worry about.

You've clearly never been involved in employment tribunals, disputes, legal work etc.

It's incredibly typical for someone accused of something that they did not do to be incredibly anxious and nervous about how they present their case because they value so highly their own propriety.

We all know that you can't prove your innocence in doping in sport. She undoubtedly knows that too. Her response is exactly what I would expect from someone who is petrified that she will not be able to convince everyone of her innocence, even though she is innocent.

The only way everyone can have her innocence proved is to have a video tape of her every activity from 1990 to when she retired. That doesn't exist, so there is no proof. The protestations of the innocent sound the same as the protestations of the guilty, not because the innocent have something to hide, but because the guilty copy the innocent. That doesn't stop the protestations of the innocent being valid.