On June 15, American middle distance runner Shelby Houlihan held a press conference over Zoom to announce she had tested positive for nandrolone, a banned substance, and would not be competing at the Running Shoes - Gear. She asserted her innocence and told the assembled media that contaminated pork from a burrito caused her positive test.
Through tears, Houlihan, 28, the American record holder in the 1500 and 5,000 meters, said she had never doped and had appealed her four-year ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Her appeal, however, had been rejected a few days earlier.
On September 1, the Athletics Integrity Unit, which tests athletes on behalf of World Athletics, released a 44-Published: Sep 01, 2021 8:02 PM EDT on the decision in Houlihan’s case. The report summarizes testimony from experts on both sides and includes witness statements from Houlihan’s Bowerman Track Club teammates Courtney Frerichs, Karissa Schweizer, and Matthew Centrowitz, as well as Bowerman coach Shalane Flanagan.
The report details why the three arbitrators on the CAS panel rejected Houlihan’s defense.
tested positive for nandrolone, a banned substance:
Houlihan’s attorneys said she must have consumed uncastrated boar meat to trigger a positive test. But the food truck in Beaverton, Oregon, where Houlihan ate, orders its pork from a Tyson plant that does not process boar meat. The panel found that Houlihan failed to establish that the burrito she ate contained boar offal.- The levels of nandrolone found in Houlihan’s urine sample were two to three times higher than they would have been from eating contaminated food. Houlihan testified that she ate about three-quarters of a burrito. A World Athletics expert witness testified that she would have had to eat roughly twice as much meat to have the levels of nandrolone in her system that she did.
- The panel found that neither the polygraph test nor the hair analysis sample Houlihan’s team conducted in her defense were “sufficient for the Athlete to rebut the presumption that the ADRV (anti-doping rule violation) was intentional.”
Houlihan’s ban lasts for four years, until January 13, 2025, unless she successfully appeals to a Swiss tribunal. That process could take months or years.
A Bowerman Track Club representative did not immediately return a message from Runner’s World seeking comment on the release of the CAS report.
Dr. Philip Skiba is a director of sports medicine for Advocate Medical Group in Chicago and was a consultant on Nike’s original Breaking2 project in 2017. He read today’s report and said in a phone call with Runner’s World, “There’s an extraordinarily small chance, basically zero, that this a false positive.”
page CAS report is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World McLaughlin-Levrone Sets WR in 400-Meter Hurdles, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
