With 2-1/2 years remaining on Houlihan's suspension from athletics, the media continue to delegitimize her positive test and ignore the glaringly obvious PED use that caused it
Is the AIU testing pool based just on world ranking or are there other factors that go into who is/isn't in the RTP (and how often they're tested)? Because as I understand it world ranking is a combo of your time + the competitiveness of the race...so WOW those lowkey Bowerman time trials make a lot more sense now. Hit your performance bonuses while keeping your world ranking as low as possible. As far as I can tell Frerichs and Fisher are the only US BTC athletes in the AIU's testing pool (and Fisher is probably a very new addition). Woody Kincaid only had one USADA in competition test in 2019 (the year he broke 13). So I am assuming that test was at USAs, when he placed third, and he wasn't tested at that Bowerman time trial.
I don't get why the heck Tygart said that! Most US distance runners are not good enough to be tested by the AIU very often, if at all. His quote makes it sound like even if USADA catches someone, they're super open to writing it off as bogus "contamination". I do not understand the bending over backwards for Houlihan! Isn't 'one really bad apple' better for their bank accounts than making pretty much everybody look suspicious? USATF/USADA would have known about her ban right away, correct? So just start some rumors when Quigley left BTC that Shelby is a big bully or whatever. Seems easy enough! And why the constant 'our best distance runner ever'? No medals, no WMM wins, and Karissa is only a few seconds behind her in the 5k. Since she's still able to compete, isn't it better for nike/USATF if Karissa is the "clean" American record holder who is finally free of her mean old teammate? How much revenue from shoes, merch, tickets, TV viewership are these Shelby time trials generating? Or am I just naive and the sport doesn't actually run on any of those things and it is all about clicks? In that case, an article like the Oregonian one is perfect as it gets both sides to click...but I also can't imagine whoever wrote it is that smart??? Seems far more likely a pro-Nike puff piece as you said.
I hate that it seems like you need extensive knowledge and insider info (both of which I lack) to know who *might* be clean and who to root for in this sport. Clean Sport Collective podcast is unfortunately A LOT of softball questions and the @SportCampaign twitter has gone dark (kind of worried they got shut down!). So there are not a lot of resources for people short on time and expertise. Ross Tucker is fantastic, but with his stance on trans athletes I'm afraid that means no one in the running media will listen to a thing he says about doping. Do you have any other resources you recommend?
Another note, and I apologize if you've addressed this already, but do you ever think about toning the language down? It is just that you have a very important and (unfortunately) unique perspective, but I don't think the people with platforms to bring about any sort of change are able to parse out the stuff they disagree with to get to your core message and find common ground. Just trying to put myself in the shoes of a clean US pro or coach who is similarly outraged by the Shelby situation. What are they supposed to do??? As you said, retweeting without commentary is the perfect way to endorse something while protecting yourself from any blow back. But they can't really retweet this because it insults Chavez and Crouse. Chavez especially is not someone I'd want to piss off if I was trying to survive on the US pro circuit. Plus the story about Shalane. Not trying to be insulting, as this piece actually isn't that inflammatory, but as I said that seems to be how the running media would interpret things: If you retweet this article you're sexist, anti-trans, and probably racist too. There really aren't many other options because Tucker's article was in letsrun which has been branded a 'terrorist organization' exactly as you said! I just feel really bad for anyone out there who is actually clean, and I do (perhaps stupidly) think there are a least a couple...go Molly Huddle!!!
Strong, no BS, quite like it.
Street magicians the dopers ain't.
yes----needed the info from Ross Tucker--surprised the editors allowed such a puff piece into print--- https://www.letsrun.com/news/2022/04/sports-scientist-ross-tucker-tackles-our-biggest-unanswered-questions-about-the-shelby-houlihan-case/
Is the AIU testing pool based just on world ranking or are there other factors that go into who is/isn't in the RTP (and how often they're tested)? Because as I understand it world ranking is a combo of your time + the competitiveness of the race...so WOW those lowkey Bowerman time trials make a lot more sense now. Hit your performance bonuses while keeping your world ranking as low as possible. As far as I can tell Frerichs and Fisher are the only US BTC athletes in the AIU's testing pool (and Fisher is probably a very new addition). Woody Kincaid only had one USADA in competition test in 2019 (the year he broke 13). So I am assuming that test was at USAs, when he placed third, and he wasn't tested at that Bowerman time trial.
I don't get why the heck Tygart said that! Most US distance runners are not good enough to be tested by the AIU very often, if at all. His quote makes it sound like even if USADA catches someone, they're super open to writing it off as bogus "contamination". I do not understand the bending over backwards for Houlihan! Isn't 'one really bad apple' better for their bank accounts than making pretty much everybody look suspicious? USATF/USADA would have known about her ban right away, correct? So just start some rumors when Quigley left BTC that Shelby is a big bully or whatever. Seems easy enough! And why the constant 'our best distance runner ever'? No medals, no WMM wins, and Karissa is only a few seconds behind her in the 5k. Since she's still able to compete, isn't it better for nike/USATF if Karissa is the "clean" American record holder who is finally free of her mean old teammate? How much revenue from shoes, merch, tickets, TV viewership are these Shelby time trials generating? Or am I just naive and the sport doesn't actually run on any of those things and it is all about clicks? In that case, an article like the Oregonian one is perfect as it gets both sides to click...but I also can't imagine whoever wrote it is that smart??? Seems far more likely a pro-Nike puff piece as you said.
I hate that it seems like you need extensive knowledge and insider info (both of which I lack) to know who *might* be clean and who to root for in this sport. Clean Sport Collective podcast is unfortunately A LOT of softball questions and the @SportCampaign twitter has gone dark (kind of worried they got shut down!). So there are not a lot of resources for people short on time and expertise. Ross Tucker is fantastic, but with his stance on trans athletes I'm afraid that means no one in the running media will listen to a thing he says about doping. Do you have any other resources you recommend?
Another note, and I apologize if you've addressed this already, but do you ever think about toning the language down? It is just that you have a very important and (unfortunately) unique perspective, but I don't think the people with platforms to bring about any sort of change are able to parse out the stuff they disagree with to get to your core message and find common ground. Just trying to put myself in the shoes of a clean US pro or coach who is similarly outraged by the Shelby situation. What are they supposed to do??? As you said, retweeting without commentary is the perfect way to endorse something while protecting yourself from any blow back. But they can't really retweet this because it insults Chavez and Crouse. Chavez especially is not someone I'd want to piss off if I was trying to survive on the US pro circuit. Plus the story about Shalane. Not trying to be insulting, as this piece actually isn't that inflammatory, but as I said that seems to be how the running media would interpret things: If you retweet this article you're sexist, anti-trans, and probably racist too. There really aren't many other options because Tucker's article was in letsrun which has been branded a 'terrorist organization' exactly as you said! I just feel really bad for anyone out there who is actually clean, and I do (perhaps stupidly) think there are a least a couple...go Molly Huddle!!!
Good Lord! Can you say "unhinged"? You really need to get some medication.