Radcliffe blood values released

larkim wrote:

She says "never cheated". I think that's a fairly clear and umambiguous statement to be honest. It encompasses "I never took a banned substance" because that is cheating. It includes "I never blood doped" because that is cheating. It includes "I never fiddled a test" because that is cheating.

She doesn't need to give a list of things she didn't do. She says she never cheated, and that means she never took anything or did anything which is prohibited.

I disagree. Cheating is subject to interpretation, for all we know, in her mind blood doping isn't cheating. It would be much better to say "I never blood doped, took EPO or any banned PEDS." Remember, Bill Clinton did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky.

Why does the home page say that 'Sky news claim she is now exonerated'?

It doesn't say anything of the sort it just reports statements and factual data. No opinion is given.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

All of those things are cheating, clear and simple. Cheating isn't just not getting caught, or cheating at a level which is discoverable. It's cheating, its breaking the rules as written.

Not even Clinton's lawyers could argue "Well, she did take EPO, but that wasn't cheating".

larkim wrote:

We'll have to agree to disagree.

All of those things are cheating, clear and simple. Cheating isn't just not getting caught, or cheating at a level which is discoverable. It's cheating, its breaking the rules as written.

Not even Clinton's lawyers could argue "Well, she did take EPO, but that wasn't cheating".

Ummmm. Yeah they could. Paula statement was as vague as anyones.

Very misleading wrote:

Why does the home page say that 'Sky news claim she is now exonerated'?

It doesn't say anything of the sort it just reports statements and factual data. No opinion is given.

Exactly that. Sky don't say any such thing anywhere, they've just given their article a bizarrely confusing title implying something to the effect that these are the suspicious blood test numbers that the IAAF looked into and cleared her on at the time.

larkim wrote:

She says "never cheated".

Word for word:

(watch the video)

Effin limeys wrote:

larkim wrote:

We'll have to agree to disagree.

All of those things are cheating, clear and simple. Cheating isn't just not getting caught, or cheating at a level which is discoverable. It's cheating, its breaking the rules as written.

Not even Clinton's lawyers could argue "Well, she did take EPO, but that wasn't cheating".

Ummmm. Yeah they could. Paula statement was as vague as anyones.

Written by a PR firm that specializes in 'official' non-statements -- just like the one Farah and Salazar used. Interesting, yes?

So, is Paula Radcliffe the only female marathon runner that ever trained at altitude and raced hot races? What are Kara Goucher's numbers? In the 80's, 90's? How about Shalane? Desi?

Deena, what were your values or is Radcliffe a major red flag because she is above the threshold?

What else do they've up there sleeves? and who is this dude?

I don't have time to read the paper, but there are sets of cutoffs in table 2: One for hre and one for hr. Depending on which is the relevant one here (or accurate model, I guess...) she could have had two scores very close to 1 in 1000 chance of a false positive and one over that. This is most likely the source of the discrepancy between Paula's portrayal of her scores and of Ashenden's.

This is going to get very interesting.

I corrected the LRC headline about 40 minutes ago. I read it and told Rojo it wasn't accurate.

The Sky News headline is sensationalist in Radclife's favor, but I'd say the Sunday Times was sensationalist in the other direction or at least cast a lot of suspicion without releasing values and test results themselves. Headlines won't sort this out, the full blood profile being analyzed will.

I assume in due course all of the values will come out with experts assessing her full profile. I do see how people just discussing a single score and a threshhold gives some credence to the idea that values can be misinterpreted (in either direction).

We need independent experts looking at Paula's full profile. After talking to Paula in Beijing I was confident this would all get out there and be discussed. People want this to be all sorted out instantly but I do think it takes more analysis than that. Otherwise people would be sanctioned for doping by computers.

The Sky headline is clearly wrong, since Paula has spent weeks telling us that you can't prove you are clean by publishing blood test results.

Paula is correct. The system can be beat. If the "imaginary" threshold is 114, and Paula is at 114.9, and someone else is at 113.2, does mean the lower value person is not the one who is doing everything possible to beat the system. The higher value person is likely to be cleaner.

I have an epileptic dog. It took six-months for the neurologist to dial in his doses, and adjust the drugs the dog took to minimize seizures. She said that every animal is different, and no single dose value works for every animal, even when accounting for weight, and age. Physiology is a primary determining factor.

Is there a pictures or files or evidence showing Paula's values or are the numbers just what Sky News and journalists have published?

One thing I would like to see more emphasis on in doping discussions is the known risk factors of EPO use, especially among women--blood clots, heart disease, seizures, even, ironically, severe anemia. (Off topic, but related_ I just saw this article on human growth hormone, linking it to Alzheimer's:

http://www.nature.com/news/autopsies-reveal-signs-of-alzheimer-s-in-growth-hormone-patients-1.18331

and we already know what several years of steroid use does in terms heart disease, diabetes, bone weakness, etc.)

Surely most athletes know these risks. So one question pertaining to Radcliffe would be whether she is the type of person who was willing to risk her life, and her future as a parent, for fast times.

I fixed the text under the homepage headline as it was Sky News not Paula talking about the threshhold,

Does anyone know if these scores are HR or HRE scores? If they are HR scores then none of the scores are above the 1/1000 threshhold for an altitude athlete. Are we missing something or making this too simplisitic? Sky News talks about 111.7 which is the 1/100 threshhold for an altitude athlete on the HR scale so I think they are saying these are HR scores.

The Sunday Times talked about 3 scores being above 1/1000. Can anyone rectify that?

I think this whole thing today shows this is pretty complicated and I can see the argument for keeping values private even if I disagree with it. I assume we're supposed to be looking at an HR/HRE score for an altitude athlete, but am not positive. Sky News indicates that. People's blood profiles over time are important. I heard your off score can get tailored specifically to the athlete. Having said that, we still need everything to come out. An off score is not a full-profile. Full blood profiles of all of Paula's tests over time with experts analyzing them. I think that is what WADA is doing and Paula indicated in her statement independent experts had looked at her values.

The ST specifically said they were using OFF-hr on the basis that it had no medical implications (according to Ashenden) so I think we can assume that is what Paula has released. It would be better if she had let the ST add her to their display then we would know we are looking at comparable data but its understandable at this stage that she went somewhere else.

What exactly would 'clear' Paula Radcliffe?

People are accusing her of taking drugs based on the fact that she ran fast times for the marathon. There is nothing that can convince cynics that she was a clean athlete.

I never for a moment thought PR was doping until the last few weeks and now I've no idea what to believe. Will say my suspicions are raised as much by some of her strange responses to the allegations as much as the Sunday Times story itself. She was never shy of calling for investigations and transparency when other allegations arose (e.g. NOP) but has seemed to try hard to shut this story down rather than get to the bottom of it, as I would have expected her to do from her previously strong anti-doping statements. I can't see the consistency in having your blood frozen so that future tests can be done on it and then decrying subsequent analysis of your blood which raises questions and say you were cleared at the time in your defence. This doesn't make her 'guilty' - the responses I find strange could well be borne of a defensiveness engendered by a fear that her reputation is being unfairly tarnished. Nonetheless there are lots of questions still to be answered.

Can Wejo or anyone answer the following questions:

Did PR know about her elevated blood reading after the Portugal half-marathon at the time? It seems it went to be discussed by IAAF officials - would she be have been notified of the concerns?

Did any other runner whose sample was taken after the same race show elevated blood values?