Sunday Musings: Athlete Loses Olympic Dream Over Burrito

Here we go again. A holier than thou drug testing organisation has banned a U.S. world champion runner from competing this summer in Tokyo, after a false positive on a steroid test late last year. Should the drug testing Agency and the Olympic Committee have retested her?

Shelby Houlihan - © 2021 Sky News

U.S. Olympic champion runner Shelby Houlihan banned after false positive steroid test…

The Mort family - © libertyunyielding.comI thought we had covered this issue a long time ago, when I posted a story about a woman in the U.S. who had her hospital room raided and her newborn baby seized by Child Welfare after testing positive for opiates on a routine maternity ward screening…

I reported: “Seems the Jameson Health System Hospital, where Elizabeth Mort delivered her daughter in April, 2010, discovered what it thought was evidence of drug use shortly after the birth and, instead of talking to the mother about it, called the local the Lawrence County child welfare agency. The agency swooped in without warning the day the family arrived home from the hospital and seized the infant girl, Isabella, leaving the parents in an information vacuum.

“Well… The hospital finally admitted that the test result was a false positive and the little boy was returned to his parents (see photo, above left) five days later. But imagine the trauma and confusion for both the parents and the child at this critical time of bonding! No amount of money could ever compensate the family for that. Nevertheless, the Morts filed a lawsuit – not against the hospital, but against the child welfare agency – and won big.”

As a result, a few months later, a new species of Poppy was announced whose edible seeds did not cause false positives on opiate drug tests.

What really shocked me was, my sources claimed that only about 50 percent of MDs were aware of the potential problem at that time. Let’s hope makers of edible products containing Poppy seeds as well as the other 50 percent of MDs are now aware of both the cause and the remedy!

But it’s happening again!

A U.S. track and field star has been banned from participating in the olympics due to a false positive test for the banned anabolic steroid Nandrolone last December.

The runner, Shelby Houlihan, insisted she’s clean, and even tried to prove it by providing hair samples and taking a polygraph test, but WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) refused to overturn its original ban.

“In the following 5 days after being notified, I put together a food log of everything that I consumed the week of that December 15th test. We concluded that the most likely explanation was a burrito purchased and consumed approximately 10 hours before that drug test from an authentic Mexican food truck that serves pig offal near my house in Beaverton, Oregon,” explained Houlihan in a recent Instagram post.

To make the WADA and Olympic Organization rulings against her even more ridiculous, Houlihan continues: “I have since learned that it has long been understood by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) that eating pork can lead to a false positive for Nandrolone, since certain types of pigs produce it naturally in high amounts. Pig organ meat (offal) has the highest levels of Nandrolone.”
In desperation, Houlihan filed for a court injunction that would have let her compete – but was refused.

The world record holder in the 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters asserted she doesn’t cheat and has no motivation to cheat: “I want to be very clear. I have never taken any performance enhancing substances. And that includes that of which I am being accused. I believe in the sport and pushing your body to the limit just to see where the limit is. I’m not interested in cheating. I don’t do this for the accolades, money, or for people to know my name. I do this because I love it.”

So why won’t the Olympic and WADA officials reverse themselves? Sheer, pig-headed ‘zero tolerance’ BS. That’s the only explanation. They’re more concerned about their own image than the lifelong dreams of a perfectly drug-free Olympic champion. (Of course, there are co0nspiracy theorists who will say the fix was in against Houlihan, financed and arranged by those backing other runners who might just have a chance at a medal this summer if Houlihan is out of the running. But that’s for another post, on some other blog.

My take

What has happened to Houlihan is just as big an injustice as the seizure of the Morts’ newborn son. At least Children’s Services admitted their mistake in the Morts’ case and did the right thing.

I can’t understand why the officials who issued the ban against Houlihan didn’t (and won’t) retest her. As I said in the previous paragraph, there’s no sane, logical reason why not. It’s simply the corporate ego of a high-level, high-profile organization caught in a booboo. They don’t want people to think they’re capable of making a mistake, in spite of the fact that they’re set up, run and staffed by woefully fallible mere human beings.

Muse on that!

~ Maggie J.