Discuss
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I didn’t want to believe it at first. I’m a fan and have been following her for a while. she best chance for medal for US in 1500m. I’m also huge fan of Shalane Flanagan who seemed devastated (IG post: part 1 part 2)
But reading more on the science, I have some doubts on her innocence. Two papers that Steve Magness, Nike whistleblower, posted. Seems very unlike to test positive from eating a pork burrito. Study was with consumption of a lot of offal from uncastrated pig/boar.
For those who don’t know what’s going on https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2021/06/14/shelby-houlihan-doping-ban-nandrolone-olympic-trials/
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She is innocent in my opinion. I hope they can somehow turn this around before the olympic trials. Its devastating news for someone who has dedicated her whole life to running and reaching the olympics. The testing process has many flaws in it and suspending a young innocent girl before the olympics is a very serious decision.
Discuss
**To be pedantic, you didn’t link to anything. Nothing to discuss. **
She is innocent in my opinion. I hope they can somehow turn this around before the olympic trials. Its devastating news for someone who has dedicated her whole life to running and reaching the olympics. The testing process has many flaws in it and suspending a young innocent girl before the olympics is a very serious decision.
It’s already done, this was awhile ago as it had already gone to CAS and her appeal was tossed on Friday.
Didn’t she make some big improvements recently?
… The testing process has many flaws in it and suspending a young innocent girl before the olympics is a very serious decision.
Undoubtedly there are some flaws in the testing process but the bar is set very high before a positive result is presented.
Although reading your post I suspect you meant to write it in pink but forgot to change the colour.
Did not see the news on this yet. Definitely disappointing, she has a super likable personality
I’ve seen roughly 42 thousand doping explanations over the years and most strain believability, so I reckon I’m pretty jaded at this point.
2 things:
-I don’t believe she doesn’t know what nandrolone is. As an Olympic hopeful you should know all of these things. Heck I know this one and I’d need to knock 2 minutes off my 1500 time to be even close.
-in my own humble opinion, she should’ve been aware that it was theoretically possible to test positive via tainted meat. Contador tried this one years ago. I don’t know the actual likelihood but it’s not my job to know, it IS literally her job. Zzz
To be clear, I don’t know if she doped or not - my default is usually yes - but these two things popped into my head watching the video.
I thought this was a good and fair article from letsrun. It discusses a few recent positive/failed drug tests, which some were over turned. https://www.letsrun.com/...eal-is-unsuccessful/
I very much agree with the closing segment that regardless of who’s right the system needs to change:
“If the US food supply is tainted, then WADA and the AIU need to change the level needed to trigger a positive test or mandate that athletes not eat certain foods — or tell them if they do eat those foods and test positive, they are out of luck. What we have going on right now isn’t good for anyone. We can’t have the stars of the sport testing positive and then sometimes getting banned and sometimes not.
If you believe the athletes, then three different athletes did the same thing — went out to eat and had three different results. One missed no time (Ajee Wilson), one basically lost two years (Jarrion Lawson) and one seems poised to miss four.
We are certain of one thing, having people test positive and then be forced to put their careers on hold for months/years only to clear them later as was the case with Lawson is terribly unfair.”
At least from reading Schumacher’s post and Houlihan’s IG post, they are very carefully worded that she ate at a food truck, but not that she actually ate pork or offal.
But ultimately what got me was when Schumacher wrote “a substance called nandrolone, something that neither Shelby nor I had ever heard of.” (https://www.bowermantc.com/new-blog/2021/6/14/statement-from-coach-jerry-schumacher)
A world-famous coach had never in his entire life heard of nandrolone? That is just not believable, which immediately for me makes everything else he says not believable.
Isnt Nandralone the same drug top sprinters were caught , Ben Johnson?
FloTrack youtube has interviews from Houlihan, Flanagan, and Schumacher. All seem very believable, but I find extremely hard to believe they never heard of Nandralone?
I thought this was a good and fair article from letsrun. It discusses a few recent positive/failed drug tests, which some were over turned. https://www.letsrun.com/...eal-is-unsuccessful/
I very much agree with the closing segment that regardless of who’s right the system needs to change:
“If the US food supply is tainted, then WADA and the AIU need to change the level needed to trigger a positive test or mandate that athletes not eat certain foods — or tell them if they do eat those foods and test positive, they are out of luck. What we have going on right now isn’t good for anyone. We can’t have the stars of the sport testing positive and then sometimes getting banned and sometimes not.
If you believe the athletes, then three different athletes did the same thing — went out to eat and had three different results. One missed no time (Ajee Wilson), one basically lost two years (Jarrion Lawson) and one seems poised to miss four.
We are certain of one thing, having people test positive and then be forced to put their careers on hold for months/years only to clear them later as was the case with Lawson is terribly unfair.”
How often do athletes that pop blames something else rather than just face the music. We’ve seen it a ton in triathlon with Ostarine. No way in hell are you popping at 5ng/ml after a burrito unless it was shot up with Nandralone.
Ah, the old Alberto Contador “I ate a steak” routine. Hmm…we’ll have to see how this one pans out if there are whistleblower releases on this…it may be the reason why she is the top 1500 runner.
That said, it is not plausible to test all the food you eat & who can pass up a good Mexican food truck? It would be hard to think of having to live in paranoia all the time that no matter what you eat you could get something ingested that would get you popped. Then again, as a professional it is her job to make sure she is doing whatever she can to avoid it–but who would think of all things a Chalupa or burrito/taco would put you in that position? The amount and detection process is so super sensitive these days but it has to be, because those knowingly doing it are so crafty and know much about avoiding getting caught…seems there has to be a point where it will eventually catch someone if that is indeed the case here.
Even it if was reversed in an emergency CAS or reinstated–the mental blow to her would surely take her out of the game somewhat where she wouldn’t make the team. I hope whatever psychological blow is dealt to her for better or worse of the outcome down the road–that she stays strong and doesn’t do something as a result of depression. Has to be hard either way.
What level did she actually register and how is that in comparison to all the other tests she had?
I am cynical about claims regarding contaminated meat but if the levels are extremely low it is unlikely to have come from administered drugs. The levels are way higher.
she claims she got an on january 14 about failing a drug test on december 15 and then was able to figure out every meal she ate the week leading up to december 18 (not credible unless she keeps a food diary, which she doesn’t) and remembered that she at a pork burrito just 10 hours before the test (no receipt or credit card charge). of course they didn’t bother to test any meat from the supposed food truck (not that clean or dirty meat a month later would mean much) but just threw out there that her failed test was due to this burrito that they purely are guessing was tainted. you can’t make this up. i find it offensive that so many people are coming to her defense with cries of “she’s innocent!” how does anyone know that? they don’t. it would be much more credible to say something like “i have known her for x years and i never have seen her do anything remotely shady so i just can’t believe that she knowingly did anything wrong.”
she also posted: “I want to be very clear: I have never taken any performance enhancing substances.” The facts say otherwise even if it were unintentional.
Ah, the old Alberto Contador “I ate a steak” routine. Hmm…we’ll have to see how this one pans out if there are whistleblower releases on this…it may be the reason why she is the top 1500 runner.
That said, it is not plausible to test all the food you eat &** who can pass up a good Mexican food truck?** It would be hard to think of having to live in paranoia all the time that no matter what you eat you could get something ingested that would get you popped. Then again, as a professional it is her job to make sure she is doing whatever she can to avoid it–but who would think of all things a Chalupa or burrito/taco would put you in that position? The amount and detection process is so super sensitive these days but it has to be, because those knowingly doing it are so crafty and know much about avoiding getting caught…seems there has to be a point where it will eventually catch someone if that is indeed the case here.
Even it if was reversed in an emergency CAS or reinstated–the mental blow to her would surely take her out of the game somewhat where she wouldn’t make the team. I hope whatever psychological blow is dealt to her for better or worse of the outcome down the road–that she stays strong and doesn’t do something as a result of depression. Has to be hard either way.
The food style may be Mexican, but the truck is in Oregon. The pork that truck is sourcing is coming from the same farms/processors as the pork you’d get at the local supermarket or BBQ joint.
There are the issues with Clenbuterol contamination of pork in China and Mexico (and athletes are advised about this), but that meat isn’t getting to Beaverton. Feels a bit like they are trying to imply that a sketchy food truck was the problem, which is just diversionary.
Ah, the old Alberto Contador “I ate a steak” routine. Hmm…we’ll have to see how this one pans out if there are whistleblower releases on this…it may be the reason why she is the top 1500 runner.
That said, it is not plausible to test all the food you eat &** who can pass up a good Mexican food truck?** It would be hard to think of having to live in paranoia all the time that no matter what you eat you could get something ingested that would get you popped. Then again, as a professional it is her job to make sure she is doing whatever she can to avoid it–but who would think of all things a Chalupa or burrito/taco would put you in that position? The amount and detection process is so super sensitive these days but it has to be, because those knowingly doing it are so crafty and know much about avoiding getting caught…seems there has to be a point where it will eventually catch someone if that is indeed the case here.
Even it if was reversed in an emergency CAS or reinstated–the mental blow to her would surely take her out of the game somewhat where she wouldn’t make the team. I hope whatever psychological blow is dealt to her for better or worse of the outcome down the road–that she stays strong and doesn’t do something as a result of depression. Has to be hard either way.
The food style may be Mexican, but the truck is in Oregon. The pork that truck is sourcing is coming from the same farms/processors as the pork you’d get at the local supermarket or BBQ joint.
There are the issues with Clenbuterol contamination of pork in China and Mexico (and athletes are advised about this), but that meat isn’t getting to Beaverton. Feels a bit like they are trying to imply that a sketchy food truck was the problem, which is just diversionary.
100% this^^
She got a positive and did a google search of the drug in food and it came up with a case of pork offal in Mexico. They decide that eating a pork burrito in USA is close enough
She is innocent in my opinion. I hope they can somehow turn this around before the olympic trials. Its devastating news for someone who has dedicated her whole life to running and reaching the olympics. The testing process has many flaws in it and suspending a young innocent girl before the olympics is a very serious decision.
in what was is she innocent?
she had the elevated levels in her system. Unfortunate yes, but if you are a world class, professional athlete, perhaps you should have a bit more discipline that eating food truck burritos.
At some point, you either would conclude all the “tainted meat” stories are rubbish excuses, or the athletes and their coaches/managers are just not doing their job right and being really careful about controlling what the athletes are eating. When there are millions of dollars and Olympic medals on the line, the successful people are the ones doing all the little things.
So I truly feel bad for her, but also can say there were reasonable and arguably prudent things she could have been doing that would have prevented this.
"If the US food supply is tainted,
There’s really no evidence to say the US food supply is universally tainted. Go do 50,000 random tests of regular people and come back with some evidence.
And again, even if there is some fairly common positives, let’s look at what kind of stuff people were eating who tested positive. With the kind of money most of these athletes are making it shouldn’t be a problem (and arguably it should be a primary part of their job, it they truly want to be high performance) to be extremely careful about what they are eating and how they are sourcing it.