Paula Radcliffe BBC news interview

That's a different claim than most sports stars are doping.
So are you amending your accusations to most record holders from 10+ years ago?

I'd be very surprised if most, if not all, the top sports stars in athletics, cycling, tennis, football, boxing, etc. are not doping. The financial rewards to be had are massive. Add to that there is no will to catch cheats from the governing bodies. Plus out-of-competition testing is easy to evade - just make sure you're not where you're supposed to be and you can get away with that twice a year.

Two of the biggest cheats in history Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones were doping for years but never failed a test.

[i]A_T  • August 21, 2015 6:59 PM BST 
I doubt there's a single clean athletics world record on the books. The men's distance records all date from 10+ years ago - the golden age of EPO - did mankind suddenly get slow?[/i]

That would surely suggest that doping is less prevalent than it was 10+ years ago.

Women will never equal men in any sports that require strength, speed, endurance or any physical attribute.

One often finds women that dominate their own sport are freaks(in a nice way) compared to a normal woman

A nice freak. was that one of your chat up lines Ebul? and did it bring success.
Getting back to the OP I thought that she came across very good, and very honest, in the interview.

Ni it did not akabula

I have always liked Paula and the same impression as you, so would be surprised if she is involved in doping ,but things cannot be covered up.

How long do they keep drugs tests for?

Florence Griffith-Joyner's re-tests would be interesting. I assume that's destroyed after all this time.

That would surely suggest that doping is less prevalent than it was 10+ years ago.

They're just using different drugs.

But they haven't improved so what would be the point of taking them?

Aug 21, 2015 -- 8:39PM, A_T wrote:

That would surely suggest that doping is less prevalent than it was 10+ years ago. They're just using different drugs.

What are they using now?

Sorry but I've tried to be fair but the level of ignorance on here is staggering. Where to start? Well the biggest crock of shiit is the following statement:


I doubt there's a single clean athletics world record on the books. The men's distance records all date from 10+ years ago - the golden age of EPO - did mankind suddenly get slow?


Complete and utter horse shiit which makes the eyes bleed. With this level of ignorance it is impossible to have a serious debate. It's easy to strip out the freak, one of almost certainly clean, records which are fantastical but were ground breaking for their day, Beamon, Coe, Johnson, Edwards, Bolt etc etc and it is equally easy to pick out the dodgy ones, Koch,Flo Jo, the chinese in the 90's.

Radcliffe almost certainly falls into the latter category but this is still opinion. What is wrong and verifiably so is the issue of records raised which is easy to disprove just by looking ata the actual records themselves. For examples the mesn marathon is a prime example. Radcliffe's records may be Beamonesque as indeed are Johnson's but hey that's what happens when you get someone who is way beyond their contemporaries when they get the right conditions at the right time but if it was as easy as flicking a switch then Radcliffe's big race record would be much better.

Of the well known British Athletes, Fatima Whitbread Linford and Alan Wells would be top of my suspect list, well ahead of Paula.  Paula was probably the most vocal athlete of her generation against drugs and for blood testing.

Apologies. Radcliffe almost certainy belongs to the former.

Agree with clydebank.

Post 1990 until the javelin was changed around 1998 I think, no one came close to Fatima's 86 and 87 efforts.  Fatima threw 76 and 77 metres to win gold in 86 and 87.  No one through over 70 metres in a global championship after 1990.  Fatima also improved substantially between 85 and 86.

Surely no `suspicion` needed with Christie?

Kathy Smallwood Cook was clean imo.  She looked like a woman running against blokes.  If she was clean she was robbed from being Britain's greatest ever female athlete, because virtually everyone who beat almost certainly was a cheat.

It is incredibly how nobody has come close to Jonathan Edward's trip jump record since, even more so he broke it twice on the same day, or that he never came close to it himself again.

18.29 +1.3 -  1. Jonathan EDWARDS 66 GBR F 1. Göteborg (SWE) 07.08.1995
18.01 +0.4 -  8. Jonathan EDWARDS 66 GBR F 1. Oslo (NOR) 09.07.1998
18.00 +1.3 -  9. Jonathan EDWARDS 66 GBR F 1. London (GBR) 27.08.1995   
17.99 +0.5 -  10. Jonathan EDWARDS 66 GBR F 1. Budapest (HUN) 23.08.1998
17.98 +1.8 -  12. Jonathan EDWARDS 66 GBR F 1. Salamanca (ESP) 18.07.1995

Hardly a one trick pony and the triple jump record is arguably the most likely men's WR to be broke next.
Gothenburg was a very fast track.  The women's CR was set in 1995 too

Again the slurs just don't smell right with Edwards. A decade at the top of the tree and subject to the slings and arrows of top level misfortune with a world record about seven years before he eventually won his olympic title. Never any great furore over his performances when in competition from other competitors. Another Coe as opposed to Koch in my view.

I believe he is clean, but that is still far off his own record, you would have thought it would at least have been challenged over the years, there have been plenty of fast tracks at meets since, the recording of times in the last two years alone however, with 6 breaking into the top 10 of all time, indicates maybe it's not far off going or being really challenged.

The other thing to take into account with the triple jump best performances is that there are several performers whose best is some way better than their next best and few put consistently top level performances together. Yes with the track and wind speed being perfect Edwards jumped a great jump in 93 but his name then crops up several times in the best jumps of all time even if he never hit the highest high again. Contrast that with someone like Harrison who jumped the second farthest in histoty and then his next best just about breaks into the top 20 jumps of all time.

It's easy to strip out the freak, one of almost certainly clean, records which are fantastical but were ground breaking for their day, Beamon, Coe, Johnson, Edwards, Bolt etc etc and it is equally easy to pick out the dodgy ones, Koch,Flo Jo, the chinese in the 90's.

Koch and Flo-Jo never failed tests - why are they suspect and the others get a pass?

Two of the most notorious dopers Armstrong and Marion Jones never failed a single test but admitted doping for years.

Gatlin: faster now at 33 than when he was caught doping? Do you think he's doing this clean? Noone seems to want to answer this question...

Surely no `suspicion` needed with Christie?

Christie is a proven doper and was extremely lucky not to get thrown out of the 88 final when the IOC vote went 11:10 in his favour. Had just enough friends it seems.

She categorically denies cheating:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34190297

"At the time of the recent Sunday Times coverage, I wrestled long and hard with a desire to speak out with the true facts concerning my position, and, to fully explain any fluctuations in my blood data."

No explanation given though.

http://www.paularadcliffe.com/statement-september-2015/

Paula explains.

I had been ill prior to the race and was taking strong antibiotics, which may have affected the data. ....Furthermore, they were all conducted following prolonged periods of altitude training,

blah blah blah

That illustrates the problem. No-one on this thread, still less the publicity-seeking MP on the select committee, has a clue if those explanations are plausible.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02638/paula-rad_2638318b.jpg

Will this come back to haunt her?

hmmmmmm

since she knew the Sunday Times was on about her she should have came out there and then and protested her innocence. She hoped it would all blow over and her name kept out of it.

Though she has plenty of time to come up with excuses and doctors who would support her in the meantime incase it ever did come out it was her.

Its always been one of those world records that people scratch their heads over not quite understanding it.

I obviously know as much as everyone else on here and that's very little but, like other posters, my gut instinct is that she is clean.
She just doesn't seem the type to cheat.

ramruma, if it was a Chinese or Russian athlete coming out with the excuses paula is coming out with would you just accept it and say fair enough no problems?

doubt it

she was smn who didn't have the kick on the track to win gold but was able to transfer her metronomic cadence to the road and maintain an incredible pace for the marathon distance albeit with that ungainly pecking style and just blew everyone away when on top form
unfortunately she could never reproduce this in the Olympics
but her WR is phenomenal and i believe she did it clean
would be disappointed were that not to be the case

Most track athletes are doping. It's the only way you can compete. It's either get with the program, or go and work in mcdonalds.

What made me laugh was the hypocrisy of the BBC coverage where they disparage runners like Gatlin while lauding the performances of other athletes who are just as suspicious.

never bought her smiley wholesome good girl image - all the more so with her strong "anti-drug" stance - why should that exempt h er from suspicion. this was the woman who took a dump live on tv, remember.

Lord Coe will make sure this doesn't get out.
Athletics will be finished if Radcliffe is found to have cheated.

No evidence to even suggest she's a cheat. Purely tittle tattle from those who can't help themselves.
Les Dawson portrayed them well with his Cissie and Ada sketches.

Well at least she's now admitting that she is the "top British athlete" who couldn't be named in the Sunday Times article. The athlete with the highly suspect blood parameters according to two of the world's leading blood profile experts (they say that on three occasions her profile was so abnormal that there was only a 1000-1 chance of being natural).  One step at a time

No evidence to even suggest she's a cheat

have you been paying attention?

I have to say that I've long been a consistent advocate of Radcliffe's to the point that my stance has been if she was at it then I could no longer retain any interest in the sport because it must be completely riddled. However, I'm deeply uneasy about what has come out and indeed her explanation for it. Yes it is quite true that altitude training can affect the result but my understanding is that the levels are set at a sufficiently high enough level to take into account natural fluctuations with a degree of margin. I continue to hope she is clean but now I hope whereas before I was reasonably sure.

Two of her 'suspicious' tests were illegal after being taken too quickly after the race, one was marginally above expectation after running in 30°c heat

oh yes the heat, well known cause for failing dope tests 

You're not meant to take blood straight after intense exercises for a reason which is why they were not valid and especially when the body is over heated in warm weather.

no way shes doping,look how skinny she is ffs

GoBallistic


The athlete with the highly suspect blood parameters according to two of the world's leading blood profile experts (they say that on three occasions her profile was so abnormal that there was only a 1000-1 chance of being natural).


This is what she says:

“I welcome further investigation if it is necessary. However, multiple experts having already concluded contemporaneously and following the Sunday Times’ articles that there is simply no case to answer.

I think it hard to think of two such contradictory statements nor indeed an easier way of validating them. If she is telling the truth where do you get your 1000-1 comment from?

blood passports are a new science, but if you cant boost your blood at altitude then there is no
point putting in the training

as for 1000/1 shots .....they get busted everyday on here

Eeternaloptimist    08 Sep 15 23:34 
I think it hard to think of two such contradictory statements nor indeed an easier way of validating them. If she is telling the truth where do you get your 1000-1 comment from?

From the original Sunday Times article. "On three occasions during their career the athlete's test results were so abnormal that there was only a one in a thousand chance that they were natural".  Their source is Ashenden and Parisotto the two anti-doping experts who analysed the thousands of tests of all the athletes.  You can google their CVs.  Everyone can make their own minds up about which experts to believe.  I would argue that Ashenden and Parisotto would be independent and are happy to put their names / careers to the results

lance is laughing his  head off

Due to conditions not being consistent for every race the marathon is an event where you are going to get a wider range of times.

You can have an exceptional marathon runner who on one particular day is mentally and physically in perfect conditioning and the course and weather and some other factors were also optimum for producing a record head and shoulders above anything witnessed before. There is no comparison with other events in this respect.

paddletoe was Paula Radcliffe's world record all downhill hill then? (with a tailwind)

Sep 9, 2015 -- 9:02AM, xmoneyx wrote:

lance is laughing his

she was a BBC babe

amazing some dont see emperor has no clothes.

Say it aint so joe

It did not mean she was racing down a hill. Just that course and weather must be factors. And that mentally on that one particular day she could find something inside to keep her going.

on that one particular day she could find something inside to keep her going.

And when conditions for the marathon are never the same and the event is not run that often in varying degrees of favourable conditions the sample size is so small that it can produce one out of the ordinary performance.

What do people think of her body language when she has talked about this?

similar to lance Armstrong paddletoe I guess.

I don't think she would be able to deceitfully protest her innocence in the same way Armstrong did as their personalities are different. If she was willing to give some interviews which were not just prepared statement I think that would be a good sign she has nothing to hide.
My own feeling is that she is totally clean.

you have a 'feeling' based on her 'personality', but blood doping experts say its 1000/1 chance she is clean based on her blood passport

@brendanuk1 -- blood doping experts say its 1000/1 chance she is clean based on her blood passport

Is that what they are saying? Abnormal and unclean or doped are not the same things, and as Radcliffe says, there is no context.

Jesse Norman, MP who chairs the select committee, seems now to be rowing back slightly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34195458

I did not say that Brendan.

Probably had daily lessons at Nike on how to answer doping questions


Obviously here blood results are completely off the scale otherwise she'd show them. Unbelievable someone can go on about transparency then refuse to show their own stats

I've always liked her so I hope she's clean. But she hasn't helped herself by writing a 170 page defence (what's the saying "thou doth protest too much")

I'd be pretty confident she is telling the truth. And i don't see anything wrong with a 170 page defence in the circumstances. It is after all a very complicated subject.

where is this 170 page defence ?

athletics was finished long ago I'm afraid, public lost its confidence. Fact they let them back into the sport once they have served a SUSPENSE IS FARCICAL.

Was Paula given a magic potion that she wasn't aware of what was in it.

lies,damned lies & statistics
there will always be 'experts' who can give plausible 'explanations' on both sides of the coin
would be surprised if this were irrefutably provable either way
but now it's out will always be the no smoke w/o fire brigade
think her reputation will now be forever sullied in some peoples estimation
shame how winning at all costs has besmirched athletics & cycling

Newsnight now

I havnt followed this story or read this thread, but I have caught bits in the news.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of imperfect tests or potential c heating the position she is now in is pretty clear.
She said the other day that all this was besmirching her career.
Now she says she refuses to provide the evidence or go back to the committee.

Well she might be correct that there are flaws in the system, but I'm afraid you can't have both legacy and opaqueness.
If you want legacy then you have to disprove allegations by putting your case forward, that includes the results and how errors might have occurred.

What is worrying (not to me because I think athletics is 5hit) is the nature of her defence. You don't finger point in complaint and then go defensive normally unless there's reason to do so.

Paula whining horribly now - of course she's the victim in all this - forgetting that she has brought this on herself with her statement when noone else was interested in an obscure parliamentary hearing. She needs to get herself some new crisis managers. And unlike other athletes she won't release her data - and yet again she's the heroine here standing up for what's right.

why won't she release her data? "I don't need to. I'm clean". Okaaaay!

I don't really see what good releasing the data would do. Who would be trusted to interpret it ? The Sunday Times already has the data anyway, doesn't it ?
She can't prove her innocence, people will just point at Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones and say "ah, but they never failed tests". You can see that attitude on this thread.
In many peoples eyes, she can only be proved guilty, not innocent.

She was ADVISED by the World Anti Doping Authority not to release her data because of people like you, people who wouldn't understand the results and would jump to the wrong conclusion, and you're not the only one, every one is suddenly a structural engineer when it comes to 911 twin towers collapse, everyone was suddenly Colombo when Madeline McCann went missing, everyone is suddenly a sports scientist when an athlete's blood data is released, everyone adds 2 and 2 and come up with the wrong answer.

Won't wash I'm afraid. Mo Farah and Jo Pavey published their data - they had nothing to hide - noone expert or not saw anything wrong.

Won't wash I'm afraid. Mo Farah and Jo Pavey published their data

So do you now believe Farah is a clean athlete ?

SH

She may very well be in the right, she may never have cheated and potential irregularities easily explained.
The problem is that she wants her legacy in tact but also wants to decide the scrutiny of the evidence (in part, I believe she has already provided reasonable reasoning, but thats for others to determine)
She can not chose whether her legacy remains in tact, tht is determined by the collective given the evidence, being cagey doesnt do her the justice she very well may deserve.
There will be people who only see the refusal.

He will need to analyise the results first.

Your last post A_T highlights the point further.
She has already said she is happy for her blood data to be analysed by independent bodies/experts but not released to the public.

She's admitted 3 extreme results and given an explanation for them but is still adamant she won't release all the data.

I think it's a disgrace she has taken this stance.

I thought she was guilty as soon as i'd seen the interview and she just continues to dig herself an even deeper hole. I find it hard to believe anyone looking at the current situation trusts she is clean

There's nothing else for it. She's going to have to go on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Sep 9, 2015 -- 10:16AM, maleuk01. wrote:

paddletoe was Paula Radcliffe's world record all downhill hill then? (with a tailwind)

I ran the London marathon that same day.  Conditions were perfect for fast running.  No wind, started cool then warmed up by midday (though PR started 45 mins before the men at 9am so was finished at quarter past eleven).

This is a good article from her personal physio; very highly regarded and reliable http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/sep/09/paula-radcliffe-physical-therapist-defends-reputation-gerard-hartmann-blood-doping

To compare PR to Lance Armstrong is ridiculous.  He was surrounded by a team and sport who were complicit in the "omerta".  People knew he worked with the leading doping doctor, Michele Ferrari, and plenty spoke out who knew the truth, but were attacked quite severely by Team Lance.  As more and more came out (Andreu, Landis, Hamilton etc), the weight became so overwhelming that he had to fess up.  There is nothing like this with Radcliffe.  Not a single person who can offer even a shred of suspicion or evidence over dodgy behaviour re. doping.

Anyone who follows the sport, knows that Radcliffe has been setting records since she was 14.  She was world junior cross country champion age 19 beating the dodgy Chinese world 10000m record holder.  Was she doping then?  Or how about when she won the English schools 1500m the year before.  Her's was no sudden leap to world class.  She's been at or near the top for 20 years.  Compare to FloJo who went from average track runner to WR breaker inside 18 months.  Look at photos of the before & after and you'll see how her body shape and bulk changed dramatically in that time.  There is zero chance that she wasn't part of a heavy steroid programme (plus she died at 34).

As for the 1000-1 chance of PR's readings being natural.  Surely the world record holder in any sport would be a 1000-1 outlier.  Bolt is probably a million to one athlete.

not sure that because someone is super fit that there pr readings would be completely out of sync with any others - if this was the case then surely the medical experts would have qualified their remarks to indicate this

she has supposedly always recognised her public image & been prepared to be open and transparent therefore surely revealing all of the data is in her own best interests

whatever else it doesn't bode well for the sport and of the prevalence of cheating within athletics generally - cheating has of course gone on for years for those not able to remember the like of Lasse Viren and others so people shouldn't be overly surprised that it is probably endemic

a very reliable article from her personal physio?

“Between 2001 and 2008 I worked with her almost exclusively and in that period, I never in my life saw anything but an athlete who deplored and fought against performance-enhancing drugs in sport. She was very against anyone who’d take advantage. Her principles are for clean sport.

If your an advocate for clean sport why would you insist test results are hidden  in the IAAF cupboard.
All official tests athletes take should be published imo They have PR teams that can answer questions. It not like she has to peronally respond to every daily mail reader who posts a comment on twitter

You are right that she should have allowed her results to be made public, but she probably felt that they would be "analysed" by people who had no idea what they were looking at, and concluded that she must be guilty because there were variations, which were caused by a variety of factors (taken just after races, during altitude training, when on period etc).

The release should have been done alongside an expert view to explain any anomalies.  A mistake I'm sure she regrets now.  As such, it's just turned into a free for all from the "they're all at it" brigade on the internet.

Some will always believe her, just as some will never believe her.  Unfortunately, we have the platforms now for anyone to state their opinion regardless of whether they know or understand anything or not.  Surely the safest recourse, is to uphold the rule of law that someone is innocent until proven guilty?

Surely the safest recourse, is to uphold the rule of law that someone is innocent until proven guilty?

flo jo never found guilty of anything, so should be celebrated as an outstanding clean athlete much like Paula? You are finding flo jo guilty by interpreting photos of her and the fact she died at 34

blood data now revealed.

Hardly Brendan. Flo Jo stands accused because approaching 30 her performances improved by amazing amounts. That doesn't happen at world level and certainly not in sprint events.

Some data revealed.

some?

this zazu clown is as thick as a whale omelette 

this thread is reminiscent of the classic Lance thread on here where his supporters were in denial until the very last

I heard her husband interviewed on bbc5 live and he came across as very convincing in the reasons why they did want the blood tests revealed.
In 2002/3 when Radcliffe won a marathon and track 5000 and 10000 metre titles within a very short period a French newspaper raised doubts about her. At the time she challenged them to take a blood sample at any time going into her next marathon event and give them persmission to have her bloods freezed so they could be retested again anytime in the future if new science became available.

this zazu clown is as thick as a whale omelette  Cry

I never warmed to her - she won big-money marathons but not many medals for us fat UK nationalist couch-potato critics. However, any test after the extreme conditions of a marathon are bound to be off-scale.  Apart from criticising her PR advisors - keep your eyes wide open and look honest - she's done OK.  Shame her agent-planned future career is permanently handicapped.  You should have been like Mo (birth-place/physically credible) and won the bloody medals.  You've got the money already.

Paula declared innocent by IAAF and UKAD. Free the Radcliffe one!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/34948287