thanks for this. this is the kind of analysis i'm keen to see. how much of meat with what concentration leaves how much in his blood over what length of time.
my question is about
the athlete was ultimately banned with levels of 1.5ng/mL (and 3.5mg/mL in B sample)
the change between ng and mg in A and B sample seems a lot to me? im guessing 3.5mg is microgrammes? so that would be ~300x less than the A sample?
I guess maybe the concentration reduces between sampling?
Say it with me: Athletes. Are. 100%. Responsible. For. What. They. Put. In. Their. Bodies. And. Tainted. Meat. Excuses. Are. BS.
Yes, Knighton is guilty. Interestingly, it sounds like Tara Davis and Tamara Clark are too (and Clark really kind of sucks now that I’m guessing she’s trying to run clean).
99% of the time, yes. But not a single person can actually control 100% of what goes into their body. Water, for example, contains trace amount of arsenic. If you had sensitive enough testing equipment, you’d test positive for trace amounts of arsenic simply from drinking water.. or any product that uses water. Most people would say they don’t want any arsenic in their body, yet they put arsenic into their body every single day. The recommended allowable concentration for arsenic in water by the WHO (and most states) is 10 ng/mL (usually listed as 10 ug/L which is equivalent). So, on one hand, I’m using an extreme example, but on the other hand, there’s literally 10x more arsenic in our water than Trenbolone in Knighton’s urine (which was unofficially said to be 1 ng/mL or less.)
We all want a cut and dry, black and white world with no ambiguity. So your position is natural. It’s easier to simply believe ‘everyone that has a drug in their body is guilty’ and move one. It may even be the most practical position, because you’re right the vast majority of the time.
Weird how USADA initially thought it was no way it came from meat though. Would be interesting to see the initial, unbiased report.
Indeed that was some strong wording. Strange then (if that was correctly stated by WADA!) that USADA moved into the other camp because of the arbitrator's ruling.
It doesn't appear that the arbitrator knows a lot about tren as contamination, but is very experienced in arbitration:
It is funny though that more than one pro athlete - in this case one that makes about 5 times as much as the average American household every year, just can't simply afford to buy better steaks right? Or is every cut of meat in this country loaded with crap? From New Jersey to Florida huh - what are the odds. Maybe I need to up my meat intake - might get back into race shape.
Or maybe, someone figured out certain performance enhancing substances that can be micro-dosed that if ever detected, could easily fall into the "possibly came from tainted meat" reasoning, knowing full well that the inherent nature of these drug tests simply has to allow for certain nuance and concessions.
Maybe WADA/USADA/AIU just needs to put "red meat" on the banned substance list just to avoid these unfortunate circumstances.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
It is funny though that more than one pro athlete - in this case one that makes about 5 times as much as the average American household every year, just can't simply afford to buy better steaks right? Or is every cut of meat in this country loaded with crap? From New Jersey to Florida huh - what are the odds. Maybe I need to up my meat intake - might get back into race shape.
Or maybe, someone figured out certain performance enhancing substances that can be micro-dosed that if ever detected, could easily fall into the "possibly came from tainted meat" reasoning, knowing full well that the inherent nature of these drug tests simply has to allow for certain nuance and concessions.
Maybe WADA/USADA/AIU just needs to put "red meat" on the banned substance list just to avoid these unfortunate circumstances.
Salvitore I think that you are on to something here. We have to wonder whether authorities need to re-investigate if micro-dosing is even the correct wording. Perhaps cheats are doing a lot on the faintest, infinitesimal scale doping and that is enough to gain some of the benefits but small enough to offer the tainted steak excuse as an out.
thanks for this. this is the kind of analysis i'm keen to see. how much of meat with what concentration leaves how much in his blood over what length of time.
my question is about
the athlete was ultimately banned with levels of 1.5ng/mL (and 3.5mg/mL in B sample)
the change between ng and mg in A and B sample seems a lot to me? im guessing 3.5mg is microgrammes? so that would be ~300x less than the A sample?
I guess maybe the concentration reduces between sampling?
Sorry, that was a typo. The ‘A’ sample was 1.5 ng/mL and B sample was 3.5 ng/mL. These are both nanograms (one billionth of a gram).
The absolute concentration theoretically should be the same in both samples because both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sample are from the same source. You pee into a cup, then you pour something like 60mL of that urine into your ‘A’ sample cup, and around 30mL into your ‘B’ sample cup. So it’s all the same urine collected at the same time.
At first, it’s odd to me that the ‘B’ sample is 2.333 times higher, but drug testing is complex. It’s not as simple as counting the number of ‘red’ m&m’s in a bowl. I don’t really know how it works to be honest. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples, I believe, are a safeguard against false positives due to the complex and imperfect testing & analysis process. I’ve also never looked at the reliability of drug detection procedure: For example, if you split that same urine into 100 samples and had it sent to different labs (equipment varies from lab to lab) with different people analyzing the results, how close would all the results be?
(I’m just asking questions in my head and reading papers on the internet to attempt to answer them the best I can… someone with experience working in a lab setting should be far more helpful on stuff like this).
I deal a lot with laboratory testing for environmental chemicals/pollutants, it's not apples to apples but the idea is the same and the scale of detection is similar. There's usually a prescribed and standardized method put forth by the EPA. I would imagine it's similar for WADA accredited labs (WADA method XYZ for detection of tren), there can be storage and human factors that do impact the results in these laboratory methods. Usually a duplicate "dup" sample is collected (same as A and B samples in athletics) at least once per sampling batch and is used to assess for laboratory accuracy with an acceptable level of deviation associated with each method.
That being said, I think what we are looking at here is a designer steroid synthesized from or with Tren. The designer of the drug probably found a way to produce an anabolic substance that rapidly decays to levels that would be low enough to claim meat contamination. I find it notable that Lawson and Knighton, two high level US athletes have tested positive for it but no Jamaicans sprinters have, where oxtail is much more heavily consumed.
It would be hard to believe that there hasn't been another designer steroid develope since "The Clear"; which would have continued in use well beyond 2003 if it weren't for Trevor Graham sending in that syringe to USADA.
Weird how USADA initially thought it was no way it came from meat though. Would be interesting to see the initial, unbiased report.
It’s not weird. With the 2021 trenbolone case I posted, it’s been established that cows implanted with trenbolone on average produce meat with trenbolone levels far too low to cause a positive. (So no, you can’t just microdose and blame it on meat). So, USADA correctly said something to the effect that it’s incredibly unlikely to be caused by meat contamination and issued the provisional suspension as they should’ve.
Then in preparation for arbitration, they actually found the meat source, tested it, and the trenbolone levels were high enough, that, in conjunction with Knighton’s sample, the meat contamination was in fact likely. That seems pretty straightforward that USADA just got new information during the hearing.
I have a hard time believing an established arbitrator could look at a typical meat source with normal trenbolone levels of .3-.7ng/g and still rule in Knighton’s favor. And USADA wouldn’t have changed their tune either- knowing the full report has to come out, and that the whole world is going to know soon. If the report comes out and the trenbolone levels of the meat were somewhat close to “normal” then put them on blast and don’t hold back.
Sorry, that was a typo. The ‘A’ sample was 1.5 ng/mL and B sample was 3.5 ng/mL. These are both nanograms (one billionth of a gram).
The absolute concentration theoretically should be the same in both samples because both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sample are from the same source. You pee into a cup, then you pour something like 60mL of that urine into your ‘A’ sample cup, and around 30mL into your ‘B’ sample cup. So it’s all the same urine collected at the same time.
At first, it’s odd to me that the ‘B’ sample is 2.333 times higher, but drug testing is complex. It’s not as simple as counting the number of ‘red’ m&m’s in a bowl. I don’t really know how it works to be honest. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples, I believe, are a safeguard against false positives due to the complex and imperfect testing & analysis process. I’ve also never looked at the reliability of drug detection procedure: For example, if you split that same urine into 100 samples and had it sent to different labs (equipment varies from lab to lab) with different people analyzing the results, how close would all the results be?
(I’m just asking questions in my head and reading papers on the internet to attempt to answer them the best I can… someone with experience working in a lab setting should be far more helpful on stuff like this).
I deal a lot with laboratory testing for environmental chemicals/pollutants, it's not apples to apples but the idea is the same and the scale of detection is similar. There's usually a prescribed and standardized method put forth by the EPA. I would imagine it's similar for WADA accredited labs (WADA method XYZ for detection of tren), there can be storage and human factors that do impact the results in these laboratory methods. Usually a duplicate "dup" sample is collected (same as A and B samples in athletics) at least once per sampling batch and is used to assess for laboratory accuracy with an acceptable level of deviation associated with each method.
That being said, I think what we are looking at here is a designer steroid synthesized from or with Tren. The designer of the drug probably found a way to produce an anabolic substance that rapidly decays to levels that would be low enough to claim meat contamination. I find it notable that Lawson and Knighton, two high level US athletes have tested positive for it but no Jamaicans sprinters have, where oxtail is much more heavily consumed.
It would be hard to believe that there hasn't been another designer steroid develope since "The Clear"; which would have continued in use well beyond 2003 if it weren't for Trevor Graham sending in that syringe to USADA.
Thanks for posting! The only thing I question with that theory is that it seems now, you actually have to provide a sample of the meat. Otherwise they just use “normal” trenbolone levels in meat and since ‘normal’ Tren levels in meat are so low, you can’t actually test positive and claim contamination unless you also can provide a meat source. So the designer drug user would also have to eat oxtail they somehow know is contaminated with far higher than normal trenbolone every time they dose. That doesn’t seem feasible.
I deal a lot with laboratory testing for environmental chemicals/pollutants, it's not apples to apples but the idea is the same and the scale of detection is similar. There's usually a prescribed and standardized method put forth by the EPA. I would imagine it's similar for WADA accredited labs (WADA method XYZ for detection of tren), there can be storage and human factors that do impact the results in these laboratory methods. Usually a duplicate "dup" sample is collected (same as A and B samples in athletics) at least once per sampling batch and is used to assess for laboratory accuracy with an acceptable level of deviation associated with each method.
That being said, I think what we are looking at here is a designer steroid synthesized from or with Tren. The designer of the drug probably found a way to produce an anabolic substance that rapidly decays to levels that would be low enough to claim meat contamination. I find it notable that Lawson and Knighton, two high level US athletes have tested positive for it but no Jamaicans sprinters have, where oxtail is much more heavily consumed.
It would be hard to believe that there hasn't been another designer steroid develope since "The Clear"; which would have continued in use well beyond 2003 if it weren't for Trevor Graham sending in that syringe to USADA.
Thanks for posting! The only thing I question with that theory is that it seems now, you actually have to provide a sample of the meat. Otherwise they just use “normal” trenbolone levels in meat and since ‘normal’ Tren levels in meat are so low, you can’t actually test positive and claim contamination unless you also can provide a meat source. So the designer drug user would also have to eat oxtail they somehow know is contaminated with far higher than normal trenbolone every time they dose. That doesn’t seem feasible.
In the case of Knighton they didn't even need to satisfy that burden of proof, they weren't actually able to test the same batch/shipment, just that other samples obtained by USADA from the supplier tested positive for some level of tren (so this would be comparable to claiming contaminated supplements but not having anything from you batch test positive but having some level of contamination present in other batches).
Additionally, you wouldn't even need to eat the oxtail/contaminated meat, just have receipts for buying it...plus testimony from your mom and girlfriend. I'd be curious if you examined Knighton's credit card records if there would be a pattern of eating/buying a meal at this establishment, once a week/month.
More of this should become clear (pun intended) once the full decision is released.
Thanks for posting! The only thing I question with that theory is that it seems now, you actually have to provide a sample of the meat. Otherwise they just use “normal” trenbolone levels in meat and since ‘normal’ Tren levels in meat are so low, you can’t actually test positive and claim contamination unless you also can provide a meat source. So the designer drug user would also have to eat oxtail they somehow know is contaminated with far higher than normal trenbolone every time they dose. That doesn’t seem feasible.
In the case of Knighton they didn't even need to satisfy that burden of proof, they weren't actually able to test the same batch/shipment, just that other samples obtained by USADA from the supplier tested positive for some level of tren (so this would be comparable to claiming contaminated supplements but not having anything from you batch test positive but having some level of contamination present in other batches).
Additionally, you wouldn't even need to eat the oxtail/contaminated meat, just have receipts for buying it...plus testimony from your mom and girlfriend. I'd be curious if you examined Knighton's credit card records if there would be a pattern of eating/buying a meal at this establishment, once a week/month.
More of this should become clear (pun intended) once the full decision is released.
I think you missed my point. A lot of normal meat would test positive for trace amounts of trenbolone. Normal muscle, according the study I had posted, leaves .3-.7ng/g of free Tren residue. So the meat tested would need to be far, far higher than that. (And I’m assuming the batch they tested was otherwise the arbitrator wouldn’t have ruled in his favor).
It’d be much easier to claim contamination from liver or bile-containing dishes like Papaitan since the trenbolone levels in liver/bile are way higher than muscle & fat. In other words, oxtail is a poor excuse under ‘normal circumstances’. If they really wanted to dope under the guise of meat contamination why not buy liver weekly (and claim it’s for the wonderful health benefits of organ meats) or go to a Filipino restaurant for Papaitan?
Thanks for posting! The only thing I question with that theory is that it seems now, you actually have to provide a sample of the meat. Otherwise they just use “normal” trenbolone levels in meat and since ‘normal’ Tren levels in meat are so low, you can’t actually test positive and claim contamination unless you also can provide a meat source. So the designer drug user would also have to eat oxtail they somehow know is contaminated with far higher than normal trenbolone every time they dose. That doesn’t seem feasible.
In the case of Knighton they didn't even need to satisfy that burden of proof, they weren't actually able to test the same batch/shipment, just that other samples obtained by USADA from the supplier tested positive for some level of tren (so this would be comparable to claiming contaminated supplements but not having anything from you batch test positive but having some level of contamination present in other batches).
Additionally, you wouldn't even need to eat the oxtail/contaminated meat, just have receipts for buying it...plus testimony from your mom and girlfriend. I'd be curious if you examined Knighton's credit card records if there would be a pattern of eating/buying a meal at this establishment, once a week/month.
More of this should become clear (pun intended) once the full decision is released.
Sorry, that was a typo. The ‘A’ sample was 1.5 ng/mL and B sample was 3.5 ng/mL. These are both nanograms (one billionth of a gram).
The absolute concentration theoretically should be the same in both samples because both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sample are from the same source. You pee into a cup, then you pour something like 60mL of that urine into your ‘A’ sample cup, and around 30mL into your ‘B’ sample cup. So it’s all the same urine collected at the same time.
At first, it’s odd to me that the ‘B’ sample is 2.333 times higher, but drug testing is complex. It’s not as simple as counting the number of ‘red’ m&m’s in a bowl. I don’t really know how it works to be honest. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples, I believe, are a safeguard against false positives due to the complex and imperfect testing & analysis process. I’ve also never looked at the reliability of drug detection procedure: For example, if you split that same urine into 100 samples and had it sent to different labs (equipment varies from lab to lab) with different people analyzing the results, how close would all the results be?
(I’m just asking questions in my head and reading papers on the internet to attempt to answer them the best I can… someone with experience working in a lab setting should be far more helpful on stuff like this).
I deal a lot with laboratory testing for environmental chemicals/pollutants, it's not apples to apples but the idea is the same and the scale of detection is similar. There's usually a prescribed and standardized method put forth by the EPA. I would imagine it's similar for WADA accredited labs (WADA method XYZ for detection of tren), there can be storage and human factors that do impact the results in these laboratory methods. Usually a duplicate "dup" sample is collected (same as A and B samples in athletics) at least once per sampling batch and is used to assess for laboratory accuracy with an acceptable level of deviation associated with each method.
That being said, I think what we are looking at here is a designer steroid synthesized from or with Tren. The designer of the drug probably found a way to produce an anabolic substance that rapidly decays to levels that would be low enough to claim meat contamination. I find it notable that Lawson and Knighton, two high level US athletes have tested positive for it but no Jamaicans sprinters have, where oxtail is much more heavily consumed.
It would be hard to believe that there hasn't been another designer steroid develope since "The Clear"; which would have continued in use well beyond 2003 if it weren't for Trevor Graham sending in that syringe to USADA.
Does Jamaica import its oxtail from the USA? Does it produce its oxtail locally? Does it import it from another country that prohibits such chemicals from being in its food supply.
thanks for this. this is the kind of analysis i'm keen to see. how much of meat with what concentration leaves how much in his blood over what length of time.
my question is about
the athlete was ultimately banned with levels of 1.5ng/mL (and 3.5mg/mL in B sample)
the change between ng and mg in A and B sample seems a lot to me? im guessing 3.5mg is microgrammes? so that would be ~300x less than the A sample?
I guess maybe the concentration reduces between sampling?
Say it with me: Athletes. Are. 100%. Responsible. For. What. They. Put. In. Their. Bodies. And. Tainted. Meat. Excuses. Are. BS.
Yes, Knighton is guilty. Interestingly, it sounds like Tara Davis and Tamara Clark are too (and Clark really kind of sucks now that I’m guessing she’s trying to run clean).
Tamara Clark who just ran her 3rd fastest 100m time kinda sucks? Unsure what you mean with Tara too, she was admittedly guilty of weed, no-one denied that. If you're saying she was masking and was doping, then why is she even better now, if the "she's trying to be clean" argument is what you're using for Tamara?
no, he got the USATF pass. I'm not naive when it comes to former athletes doping (including those never caught). But him getting the "bolt pass" implied Bolt was caught, but used a BS excuse to get off. I don't think Bolt was ever caught or officially accused.
A pass was back in the days before the Nados when Regina Jacobs tested positive at the American trials in 1997 and instead of the result being announced and a ban being placed on her, she instead said that she had taken ill and quietly withdrew from the world championships.
Furthermore, if the Americans were to have the power with Usada to quash a positive test for one of their own, you might do well to ask yourself why they neglected to do so for either Gatlin or Gay, both of whom tested positive at domestic fixtures at the height of their careers.
i explained this years ago for gatlin. at the time him and powell both shared the WR at 9.77 and they were supposed to have big showdowns that season. Gatlin tested hot at the kansas relays i believe it was sometime in april.
he was supposed to have his first big showdown at PRE, but opted to have two heats with him in one and powell in the other, thus the first ducking. then the next one was supposed to be it gateshead or something like that, and he pulled out the last minute, then next was in london i believe, and ducked him again. I was saying then that if he keeps ducking powell nike is going to get pissed and give him a ban, and boom all the sudden he is dirty for not playing his role in the rivalry.
2) Go to foreign restaurant and order an unusual cut of meat. This increases the likelihood of the meat coming from abroad.
3) Keep the receipt, the athlete does not even have to eat the meal.
4) Profit. Ajee Wilson, Jarrion Lawson and Knighton all did this successfully. Houlihan messed up though.
^^^^ Exactly ^^^^
Don't forget Claye who - like Wilson and Lawson - also got away without getting his steak or burrito tested.
Houlihan/BTC triple messed up:
- too unlikely to have eaten uncastrated boar
- too much nandrolone to have come from stomach offal
- artificial nandrolone not matching her own carbon signature
Had she taken half as much, and clen or tren instead of nandro...
They will have their ducks in a row next time (like the above mentioned).
Yeah it seems like the sprint world is a lot more sophisticated in it's knowledge of how to a) throw "contaminated meat" into the mix which creates enough ambiguity to the results and b) not have enough in your system it's blatantly obvious how it got there.
This is why I have always believed and maintained that Houlihan was acting alone with the precursors she was almost certainly using. I guess that she thought she could just throw out the "tainted meat" logic but completely overlooked the details such as
1) was it plausible it could get into the meat she claimed it came from (I don't think she was expecting to be tested in this time period the weird transition from zero testing during covid to some testing starting again) and was only left with the "I ordered a burrito but was given the wrong meat and it turned out to be an offal one with contaminated boar in it but I ate in anyway" howler.
2) She was so unsophisticated that she also had zero idea exactly how much nandrolone was going to be created from the amounts of stuff she was taking. That's why she ended up with a massive amount (not plausible levels that could sit in a scientifically grey zone like Lawson, Wilson, Knighton) in her system which didn't work with her burrito story because the amount of meat that would have needed to have been in the burrito was some ridiculous amount like a pound (can't remember off the top of my head but I know it was like 3 times the normal amount of meat that can fit in a damn burrito).
Her story just reeks of a complete novice who probably heard about something and thought there was no way anything could go wrong. Knightons story reeks of an inner circle that knows exactly what to do and how to get away with it.
It is funny though that more than one pro athlete - in this case one that makes about 5 times as much as the average American household every year, just can't simply afford to buy better steaks right? Or is every cut of meat in this country loaded with crap? From New Jersey to Florida huh - what are the odds. Maybe I need to up my meat intake - might get back into race shape.
Or maybe, someone figured out certain performance enhancing substances that can be micro-dosed that if ever detected, could easily fall into the "possibly came from tainted meat" reasoning, knowing full well that the inherent nature of these drug tests simply has to allow for certain nuance and concessions.
Maybe WADA/USADA/AIU just needs to put "red meat" on the banned substance list just to avoid these unfortunate circumstances.
Salvitore I think that you are on to something here. We have to wonder whether authorities need to re-investigate if micro-dosing is even the correct wording. Perhaps cheats are doing a lot on the faintest, infinitesimal scale doping and that is enough to gain some of the benefits but small enough to offer the tainted steak excuse as an out.
doing research you will find out that micro dosing at the banning level wouldnt give you any performance enhancement, so why micro if it wouldnt work? well thats where the TUEs and other things come in.
using igf-lr3 will greatly enhance the effects of androgens and anabolics, so micro dosing with igf-lr3 will allow the small amounts to give an athletic boost while not testing hot. then then TUEs, usually its the thyroid ones, again this facilitates cell intake of insulin which also helps the effects of the androgens/anabalics, then as we saw with alberto having people IV L-carnatine, this in conjunction with this cocktail also makes micro doses boost there effects, not to mention the thousands of SARMS and other peptides out there that activate or suppress certain hormones. i just read the other day and its old news already....taking powder form of anavar sublingual at small doses, has a greater effect than larger dosages in oral form and its out of your system in about 6 hrs.
from the guy who posted about the swiss dude with 1.5 and 3.5 ng/mL....according to this page, a 50mg shows a 2.14ng/mL and is the recommended dosage for women. so lets say a micro dose is 25mg injections, but with all the cocktails of peptides, TUEs and SARMS it gives you the effect of say taking 100mg.....
