Full Shelby Houlihan Report is Out from CAS

Money Man Wondering wrote:

Seeing as Shelby is responsible for all the legal fees here in the conclusion, how much do you think this is costing her? Will Nike foot the bill? What’s the cost on something like this??

Keep reading. World Athletics agreed to pay their costs despite not needing to.

Since the CAS (rightfully) reviewed this case on the grounds of probabilities, can we also include one more variable in the calculation that i haven't seen come up. We're not talking about some also-ran that this happened to.

What are the odds that all of the magical scenarios line up to get nandrolone into the meat supply, at the specific food truck on that day, the mistaken order, and the timing of the drug test 10 hours later... and wait for it... this all happens to the newly minted Amercian record holder in the 1500 and 5000.

If you choose to accept that all of these facts are plausible, you are not looking at this objectively.

America's fury wrote:

They keep throwing the term "authentic" around. What exactly do they mean by that?

The repeated use of the term "authentic" is supposed to conjure up images of Brown people. Brown people, as all racist White people know, are responsible for all of White people's problems. These disgusting, uncivilized Brown people living in a White city such as Eugene are to blame for a poor White girl getting caught cheating. Judging by the reactions in her social media and, unfortunately, LRC, using the term "authentic" worked as intended.

Lest We Forget wrote:

America's fury wrote:

They keep throwing the term "authentic" around. What exactly do they mean by that?

The repeated use of the term "authentic" is supposed to conjure up images of Brown people. Brown people, as all racist White people know, are responsible for all of White people's problems. These disgusting, uncivilized Brown people living in a White city such as Eugene are to blame for a poor White girl getting caught cheating. Judging by the reactions in her social media and, unfortunately, LRC, using the term "authentic" worked as intended.

Russians are white.

I'm sorry, high hopes, you really cant fix stupid.

rojo, let it go. insanely expensive lawyers have tried to blow smoke over shelby. High hopes has done you a great favour by explaining it, but you still peck at the edges.

its dumb.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK wrote:

A black man like OJ Simpson with a dream team of lawyers can be found Not Guilty.

How guilty is Shelby who has Nike lawyers and Doctors behind her and still can’t get off?

This conviction is an indictment against not only Shelby but BTC.

Any Coach that had no idea that Shelby was doping should be fired immediately for their ignorance of what is going on in the program.

Jerry knew. This is why he was outraged. The man is fighting for his job and his reputation. He lost his fight to many of us as his reputation is forever tarnished.

People do not want to believe that one of their own is dirty. Nike loves all attention.

Wouldn't she have the exact excuse if she ate a hot dog at a baseball game the night before?

The food truck does not sell any boar burritos. What she is saying is that boar could have gotten mixed with pork. But that same possibility applies to any pork product one eats. She is not saying I ate X and that could lead to a positive test. She is saying I ate X but it really could have been Y and lead to a positive test. X could be other pork products or beef or a Clif Bar. She would still be able to say that the pork or beef or Clif Bar was really accidentally infected with boar.

The food truck identified where it got the meat. It is insane to think that the food truck was lying or somehow is slaughtering their own pigs/boars. So this situation is not any different than anyone eating pork from a restaurant or at home. This wasn't some person on the side of the road with a slaughtered pig's head next to them selling pickled pigs feet.

It's perfectly fine to generalize small studies provided that

1) you are generalizing on sound biological principles. In this case case, the diet of the pig determines the IRMS delta. Shelby's witnesses had good points that we don't really know the diet of the pigs served at the truck, especially in light of the pandemic. We understand the difference between C3 and C4 plants and how they contribute to IRMS deltas -- we don't need to run a detailed study for every possible case. Otherwise you could never say anything with any confidence as real world scenarios are always different from controlled studies.

2) You don't overstate your confidence in the effect size. Yes, a study of 5 people is small but that doesn't mean you can't learn anything from it, especially since 40% of the people were 'falsely positive.' That suggests the test is not super reliable! Maybe you got really unlucky and the test is 99% reliable and you just hit that 1% twice out of 5 trials, but it should raise your skepticism!

What it shouldn't do it make you say: "well, it's a small sample size so it's not going to shake my confidence in the test." You're effectively discarding the data for no reason.

The only result of such a finding should be to LOWER your confidence in the test and make you demand more rigorous studies. You are operating from an assumption that the test is perfect and forcing others to disprove it -- that's the inverse of the skepticism required for good science. You see a result with 40% false positive, you immediately are suspicious of the test.

P.S. You definitely can generalize from a sample of 5 sometimes if the effect size is large and the physical mechanism makes sense. Throw 5 people out of an airplane with no parachute and all 5 die, you're going to tell me that the danger skydiving with no parachute needs a larger sample size?[/quote]

Haha! You final point is a good one. There are very rare cases where the causal path is so obvious that generalising from the small sample is fine. That's not the case for the pig offal/nandrolone though so it doesn't help Houlihan.

I'm not going to dismiss the two false positives found in that study, but you simply cannot conclude that the IRMS test has a 40% false positivity rate on the basis of that research - it's notable that the authors themselves never use that language. It's a call for further research. Again, you can qualify the findings of the study even further: the two false positives were both male, and both ate roasted wild boar meet. Who knows what the accuracy is like for women, or if the meat is prepared in a different way?

My assumption is that WADA has access to technical data that supports the accuracy of the IRMS test. I just can't believe that any statutory body would take decisions based on a test that has a high level of inaccuracy. The organisation would have no legitimacy to act

pull yourself up by your bootstraps wrote:

pg 30 "The fact that IBP/Tyson (the plant where the food truck in Beaverton

bought the pork meat from) does not operate a boar kill plant. Thus, it is

“near zero chance” that any boar meat would get mixed with

conventional fresh pork products"

I think the use of the word "authentic" is supposed to conjure up a racist thought, that is buritto truck was serving illegal/untested meat.

Please explain how that is a racist thought. Thank you.

was-a-happy-seed wrote:

As Ms Houlihan has been charged with a sports crime, drug enforcement has decided she was guilty—and she was treated as such with the burden of proving innocence resting solely on herself. She, like others in her position, should have had an easier time dealing with the arbitration system, but as we can see, that’s not the reality. Ms Houlihan had a very difficult time trying to prove her innocence, and failed.

That probably was a long, expensive bill trying to fight, even if that gets tucked into NIKE opex.

Has the dear woman, if she's truly innocent, filed a lawsuit against any of the hordes of persons involved in this catastrophic sequence of events? Will she file a lawsuit against either the polygrapher or the hair tester for providing incompetent or negligent testimony as expert witnesses?

If she is truly guilty, I hope anyone she displaced from a podium or from higher winnings or a higher finish sues her.

I'm utterly baffled at the unwillingness of Rojo to call a spade a spade here. Houlihan cheated, and got caught. Yet he is obsessing over rules pettifoggery and points so minor, so contingent upon a raft of improbabilities. This despite, as others have noted, a ready willingness to condemn any African who gets busted. I recall even reading him saying of certain past athletes that he didn't need any evidence to know they doped.

Is it because Rojo is afraid of incurring Nike's wrath, and losing his access if he does his freaking job? Quit being a hack and a shill and admit that Houlihan is a liar and a fraud who got exactly what she deserved.

ofa lon teh

Bail Bond Leon wrote: Please explain how that is a racist thought. Thank you.

Even though your question is likely not in good faith, I'll bite. It's racist in the same way that White women make sure to tell 911 that the person they're calling about is a "Black man." Though it may be technically correct, it's understood what is implied. And it has the added bonus of plausible deniability because folks like you cannot or will not understand or acknowledge the nuances of racism in such behavior and just say "Well he WAS Black" and "Well it WAS authentic." Intelligent adults have the ability to go beyond first-order thinking. If you agree that cross burning and nooses are symbolic of racism then you agree that semiotics is needed to understand some of the more opaque features of racism. Using the term "authentic" is a perfect example of this.

Some questions for Courtney:

In relation to the burrito incident, what did you witness that evening?

What were the circumstances leading up to the incident?

Can you recount the dialogue that occurred in order of what was said from receiving the burrito back to the time of placing the order?

Did anyone else see what happened to Shelby? Who?

What did you do after witnessing Shelby eat a purportedly wrong burrito?

Did you say anything to Shelby in response to what you witnessed?

Did you say anything to the employees of the burrito truck in response to what you witnessed?

Did you report this to anyone in management? To whom? When? How did the subject of the allegation react to your response?

Did you ask for a refund for presumably receiving the wrong order, or a voucher for another meal?

Did you tell anyone about the incident that evening? Who?

Are you aware of any other complaints about this person or this burrito truck?

All of the testimony from the women from that night (Shelby, Courtney, and Courtney’s sister) is very clear that only looking back on it did they think they must have gotten the wrong food. At the time, none of them seems to have raised the issue.

If I was going to dope I would just “contaminate” on purpose some of my supplements. Then I would have a convenient way of explaining why I turned positive. Wouldn't that be an easy way to get out of a ban? Then you don’t need to rely on any crazy meat stories.

High hopes wrote:

I'm not going to dismiss the two false positives found in that study, but you simply cannot conclude that the IRMS test has a 40% false positivity rate on the basis of that research - it's notable that the authors themselves never use that language. It's a call for further research. Again, you can qualify the findings of the study even further: the two false positives were both male, and both ate roasted wild boar meet. Who knows what the accuracy is like for women, or if the meat is prepared in a different way?

My assumption is that WADA has access to technical data that supports the accuracy of the IRMS test. I just can't believe that any statutory body would take decisions based on a test that has a high level of inaccuracy. The organisation would have no legitimacy to act

Agreed, '40% false positives' is an over-interpretation. Besides, it's only 40% false positive IF the subject is known to have eaten wild boar meat directly before the test.

The Shelby case basically hinged on the low probability that she actually ate the meat. If she could prove with more likelihood she ate pig (at least) then I think the validity of the test is more important.

The technical document is fairly clear, in retrospect, they can determine if the metabolites are exogenous using IRMS (agreed). BUT If you use the boar meat excuse, the IRMS deltas could vary widely depending on the (mostly unknown) diet of the boar so there is much more uncertainty about the exogenous-ness. You either have to do the kinetic study (I don't understand the specifics still, wish I had a protocol) OR scrutinize the boar consumption alibi. Doing the latter makes more sense as consuming that meat is pretty rare....

The "authentic" Mexican food truck is racist. Implying that the third world Mexican's food quality and safety isn't up to the standards of other places.

Giving as detailed description as possible of the person you are calling 911 about is not racist, it's common sense.

The report reads like people got together to get their stories straight.

Also, Centro got a booty call from Houlihan that same night. Was she tested at his place?