they are stuck with the start date but the end date was entirely in usada's control and that's where it failed massively. it should have been at least a 1 year ban and more like 2 or 3 and then the end date would cover racing season(s). you know that she is spinning it to her friends that it was all an innocent mistake.

No but they could have given her a year, which would still only be 1/4 the standard suspension since they seem to have bought her story of supplements tainted with steroids...

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

"Subsequent examination and testing of a supplement Paulson used revealed that it was contaminated with ostarine."

It sounds like they didn't just "buy her story"; they actually tested the supplement. Don't know how ostarine (not a steroid btw) got into an otc supplement though.

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Team Zoot
2019 Sponsors: Canyon Bikes, Garmin, Smith Optics, Gatorade, Zealios Skin Care & Sun Protection, Speedfill Products, Base Performance, Ottolock, Theragun, Boco Gear, ORR Carbon Wheel Systems, Giddy Up Multisport

If they can reduce her suspension to 6 months why can't they make it 9 months? 12 months? Start and finish when they choose ??? Guaranteed she'll be starting in St George.

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

why couldn't they? make it April to August or May to September for her. You could define the triathlon season for difference hemispheres. Sure she travel and do triathlons in December but make it harder for cheaters

Important lesson - If you decide to dope, have a canister of protein powder with your drug of choice sprinkled in it......just in case.... ;)

All joking aside, I get that she is banned and should be, but this all makes it sound like she wasn't doping knowingly.

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Team Zoot
2019 Sponsors: Canyon Bikes, Garmin, Smith Optics, Gatorade, Zealios Skin Care & Sun Protection, Speedfill Products, Base Performance, Ottolock, Theragun, Boco Gear, ORR Carbon Wheel Systems, Giddy Up Multisport

She works at Gold's Gym and is married to a dude that looks like the incredible hulk. Yeah, no doping going on in that household.

"Unknowingly"...right.

This is complete nonsense. The idea that a SARM accidentally fell into her legal supplement is preposterous. The only reasonable explanation is that she put it there.

I completely agree. I just found the quoted line in the article disturbingly interesting.

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Team Zoot
2019 Sponsors: Canyon Bikes, Garmin, Smith Optics, Gatorade, Zealios Skin Care & Sun Protection, Speedfill Products, Base Performance, Ottolock, Theragun, Boco Gear, ORR Carbon Wheel Systems, Giddy Up Multisport

Makes you wonder what kind of shit she was on when she did this one: http://www.ksl.com/...#lTDlbrj6XvprC47E.01

When are they going to get serious about the penalties for this stuff...common...

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Power Meter City
Your Power Meter Specialists

X2

"Ashley Paulson's sanction is October - April."

Isn't that the same ban Hincapie got ?

I see the smiley, but Rich Meeker tried to say he was the victim of a contaminated supplement, but an open container of whatever has no chain of custody. That's what Meeker had and they didn't buy it. On the other hand, Scott Moniger bought a sealed bottle of his supplement out of the same lot and submitted it for testing and based on those results his suspension was shorter.

As for the general outrage of her being suspended during the off season: The rules are the rules. The rules state that your suspension starts as soon as you accept the provisional suspension. So if she got tested in September and got the results in October, she can accept the provisional suspension and it counts as time served from that day in October. On the other hand, she had the choice to not accept it and continue racing until the final decision came down, but then the suspension would start when the final result came out. And any results from that period would get taken away also.

This next part is for the Slowtwitch community as a whole, not gibson00....

As a group, you guys really need to read the fucking USADA and WADA rules. Not only so you don't make stupid arguments, but maybe for your own benefit so you don't test positive for something your doctor prescribed that you didn't think to check on the USADA/WADA list. My absolute first thought when my doctor wants to prescribe something for me is whether or not it's on the banned list. Then I check it on my phone app before I go to the pharmacy. If you are half way serious about your sport and competitive enough that you might get tested it should be your first thought also. I'd also say that if you're going to post on the internet about DOPERS!, then it should be your first thought also, otherwise you're a hypocrite.

Regarding this particular case:

http://www.usada.org/...anti-doping-code.pdf

Specifically.

10.5.1.2
Contaminated Products
in cases where the athlete or other Person can establish no Significant fault or negligence and that the detected Prohibited Substance came from a Contaminated Product, then the period of Ineligibility shall be, at a minimum, a reprimand and no period of Ineligibility, and at a maximum, two years Ineligibility, depending on the athlete’s or other Person’s degree of fault.

Some people who get suspended really ARE dirty dopers. Probably the vast majority. But some people really did either do something stupid, or maybe just didn't do their due diligence when they picked something up at their local GNC. (Lots of things that will make you test positive in your local GNC BTW.) On the other hand, lots of people who really ARE dirty dopers try to claim contaminated supplement. Obviously as spectators we can't tell who is telling the truth and who isn't. But I'll bet that if you looked at the case evidence that even as a lay person we could probably look at the evidence for this particular case and see why USADA did what it did.

Assuming that USADA got it right and that it really was a contaminated supplement then I think that justice was done. If nothing else, her Kona result will get taken away. She has been punished and I think that 6 months for a mistake like that is reasonable. Not to mention that her reputation has taken a pretty big hit. The off season part is just the luck of the draw based on when she got tested.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

It was definitely meant tongue in cheek. :)
I actually hate the fact that the main focus of these sports is now doping, kind of depressing. I miss road racing in the 90's when it was just about training, racing, put the legs up and watch TDF....
Carry on......

In regard to USADA/WADA...I too have a hard time believing that some supplement she was taking just happened to have a SARM in it. That's a pretty newsworthy happening, if so. I'm inclined to believe it's just haphazard enforcement of too relaxed rules...ya know, like usual.

However...how in the world does USAT give an athlete currently suspended for doping a pro card!? That is my bigger gripe because, sadly, I'm getting what I expect out of USADA.

for someone who so indignantly and self-righteously is telling everyone else to look at the rules, you might want to read them a little bit more closely yourself. as the rules expressly state, in the case of a contaminated product (which i find dubious but let's just assume it actually was), the penalty is a suspension of 0 to 2 years. 6 months, when that 6 months is almost entirely in the past and entirely the off-season, is a nothing penalty. this isn't the case of some 50-year MOP first timer getting nailed for some drug she has been taking for years for real health reasons. this is a narcissistic cheater who knew exactly what she was doing and should have gotten at least 1 year and probably 2 years (assuming it was just a case of a contaminated product, which i highly doubt given where she works). a suspension that occurs in the past and during a time when one isn't even racing isn't even a suspension. why not just give her a 1 year suspension but let her start and stop it whenever she wants to she can toll it around races she wants to do? that's about how ridiculous this one was.

Looks like WTC races sho her as 30, so I'm guessing that's the 30-34 AG and not her exact age?

I think there is something else that is fishy about her times though.

It's hardly unheard of for supplement manufactures to purposely add illegal drugs into their supplements to make them more effective... everything from amphetamines to steroids to viagra. Hence why athletes should be VERY careful about what they take.

There is so much wrong with this I don't know quite where to start. First, just because the rules are incredibly lax doesn't mean the rules are right and that justice was done. That's part of the point of a message board, for people to complain about injustice in general and unjust rules or application of rules in particular.

Second, what you quoted is not a very clear or specific rule, and in many ways raises more questions than it answers. What is the standard by which fault and negligence are established? Do we merely take an athlete at his/her word that a supplement was contaminated? Does the athlete have to supply that supplement? Does it need to be opened or unopened?

Third, as has already been mentioned, there's a total range of penalties for the violation of this rule. It's anything from "reprimand" to "two years", so why is it not okay for people to suggest outrage when this penalty was closer to the former than the latter?

Finally, I can't even understand your reasoning as you Why do you assume that USADA got it right? Why do you think this was a "mistake"? I say it's completely ridiculous for a "lay person", as you say, or any reasonable person, to believe that a SARM like ostarine worked its way into an otherwise legal supplement and this person was the unwitting victim of a contaminated supplement. Absurd. By the way, you can't buy a SARM at GNC, or at any retail outlet domestically. These are drugs that crop up on super shady secondhand pharmacological web sites and end up being traded around at the local Gold's Gym.

I would have expected a bit more indignant outrage from you, and frankly, I'm shocked to see you on the other side of the fence.

Right. Supplement manufacturers operating in the shadows on shady foreign pharmacies. Or those sold under the counter at Gold's Gym, maybe. Show me a company operating on American soil selling products at any kind of reputable retailer that is sneaking illegal stims or viagra into nutritional supplements, getting away with it, and continuing operations. Maybe you're right, but this seems ludicrous to me.

Precisely...x1000

I did read the rules that I posted and 6 months IS between 0 and 2 years. In fact, it's 6 months MORE than they could have legally suspended her for.

Did you ever consider that USADA looked at all the evidence and made a reasonable decision based on that evidence?

Nobody here who's spouting off about what punishment this person deserves has seen that evidence. Neither have I of course. My beef here is that everybody seems to be filled with righteous indignation, but without any of the facts to back it up. If you want to say that the rules should be different and that even in the case of contaminated supplements it should be 2 years or 4 years or life, fine. But that is different than complaining about what USADA did because they DID follow their rules. If somebody thinks that the penalty for jay walking should be death then their rage at the "liberal courts" for not imposing that penalty is misplaced. That's my beef. In a recent case a friend of mine said "he should be banned for life". Well, those aren't the fucking rules. Look at the sanction list on the USADA web site. Do you see a pattern of leniency? I don't. I see a lot of four year bans.

Maybe, just maybe a 6 month ban in this case is reasonable.

Let me put this a different way. Let's say you or me or somebody you know took something that is not supposed to contain any banned substances, but actually honest to god was contaminated with an illegal substance. Like it came from the same factory as "Anabol shredder" and they didn't do a good job cleaning the vats between batches. Strict liability in the USADA code demands that you have to punished of course, but there is some leeway. With the absolute knowledge (this is a hypothetical mind you) that this person did not knowingly dope, what is your punishment?

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/11/17707934-deadly-workout-supplement-jack3d-outside-fdas-reach?lite


http://www.fda.gov/...ations/ucm445476.htm


http://www.fda.gov/...hFraud/ucm234523.htm




There's plenty more out there, just google around a bit. I totally agree though it is ludicrous but supplements are the wild west with virtually no regulation.