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The AIU announced the suspension during a virtual press conference Monday,Sports Illustratedreported.On Twitter the following day, the AIUsaidthat the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the unit’s charge in banning the athlete due to “the Presence of a Nandrolone metabolite, a violation of @WorldAthletics Anti-Doping Rules.” The AIU said Houlihan tested positive on Dec. 15, in a ban effective Jan. 14, 2021.
“I want to be very clear. I have never taken any performance enhancing substances. And that includes that of which I am being accused,” the 28-year-old runner said.
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According toSI, Houlihan took the out-of-competition drug test in December, which returned with a result of 5 ng/mL of nandrolone. She said onInstagramthat she consumed a burrito containing pork near her home in Oregon about 10 hours before the test, which she alleges produced the positive result.
“Although my levels were consistent with those of subjects in studies who were tested 10 hours after eating this source and WADA technical guidelines require the lab to consider it when analyzing nandrolone, the lab never accounted for this possibility,” she said during the Monday press conference,SIreports.
“Instead, they simply concluded that I was a cheater and that a steroid was ingested orally, but not regularly,” the athlete alleged. “I believe my explanation fits the facts much better — because it’s true. I also believe it was dismissed without proper due process.”
Paul Greene, a lawyer for Global Sports Advocates, says pig meat has the potential to serve as a source for nandrolone, which heightens muscle mass, according to the outlet.
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“Throughout this process we were confident that the truth would lead to justice,” wrote Houlihan’s Bowerman Track Club coach Jerry Schumacher in aletter on the group’s website. “What I’ve come to learn instead is that anti-doping authorities are okay with convicting innocent athletes so long as nine out of ten convictions are legitimate. That is wrong.
Bowerman Track Club coach Shalane Flanagan said in a lengthyInstagrampost on Monday, “I am devastated. I am gutted. I am broken. I am overwhelmed. I am sad. I am angry. I am so so mad.”
source: people.com
