Paula: Why I’m innocent
Radcliffe says testing’s at fault for unusual results
PAULA RADCLIFFE has explained in detail for the first time how efforts to clarify why she recorded three highly unusual blood tests in her career initially raised more questions than answers.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the 41-year-old also details why she now believes she is as close as she can ever come to proving she never took drugs.
THE ALLEGATIONS
Radcliffe’s flawless reputation was first plunged into doubt a year ago when German broadcaster ARD cited a list originating inside athletics’ world governing body, the IAAF, that contained names of athletes who had given ‘suspicious’ samples.
The list, on which Radcliffe’s name appeared, was far from proof of doping and in Radcliffe’s case there was no further information at all. In August, The Sunday Times alleged that ‘a top British athlete’ had given three blood tests that were so ‘abnormal’ there was only a one-in-a-1,000 chance they were natural. It was Radcliffe but she was not named publicly. But it was common knowledge within athletics and when she believed she was ‘outed’ by a Commons Select Committee, she launched a staunch defence.
UNUSUAL SCORES
The natural ‘off-score’ level for an elite female athlete is 103 and Radcliffe, at different times, recorded levels of 115, 110 and 109.
THE INITIAL REBUTTAL
In her statement, Radcliffe appeared to suggest that altitude training had been a major factor in those tests.
In her statement she said: ‘They were all conducted following prolonged periods of altitude training, which is today recognised as significantly impacting blood figures and is therefore taken into account when interpreting blood data. There are also other reasons why the [figures] may be considered unreliable.’
Radcliffe also said none of the unusual scores ‘occurred around any of my best performances or races’. She also wrote: ‘None of my blood test scores are anywhere near the 1-in-1,000 threshold as was claimed by the Sunday Times.’
A CONTRADICTION
The MoS learned that some of Radcliffe’s blood data, not in the public domain, appeared to contradict any assertion that altitude was an explanation.
This newspaper established that the three unusual scores had been recorded on October 4, 2003 at the half-marathon world championships in Vilamoura, Portugal (the 115 reading, or 114.87 to be precise), on August 6, 2005 at the athletics world championships in Helsinki (109.87) and in an out-of-competition test in Monte Carlo on February 7, 2012 (109.35).
The MoS also discovered Radcliffe had given blood samples on October 2, 2003 in Portugal and on August 5, 2005 in Helsinki that effectively ruled out altitude being a primary factor.
THE SCIENCE
An off-score of 82 recorded on October 2, 2003 meant an off-score of 115 two days later wasn’t down to altitude (or else the 82 would have been far higher); and an off-score of 92 on August 5, 2005 meant an off-score of 109 the next day wasn’t down to altitude for the same reasons. (Radcliffe believes and the IAAF report agrees, that testing too close to the end of a race can give a higher off-score).
The issue of whether the irregular off-scores happened in proximity to major races was also cloudy because the high off-score in October 2003 came on the day Radcliffe won the half-marathon world championships by a margin of 67 seconds; and the high off-score in 2005 was at the world championships meeting in Helsinki, on the day she ran the 10,000m (finishing ninth) and eight days before she won the marathon on August 14, 2005. On the day she actually won the marathon, she was blood-tested again and produced a far more regular off-score of 102.
The issue of whether the three unusual scores were 1-in-1000 normality arose because an academic paper from 2003 had laid out the threshold for ‘typical’ off-scores for female athletes at sea level, and Radcliffe’s three unusual scores all exceeded those.
THE CLARIFICATION
In an interview with The MoS, Radcliffe explained in detail how the confusion arose. They were speaking in the knowledge that the IAAF were preparing to release a statement explaining why historic blood scores should never be used as evidence of doping.
That IAAF statement also stressed that Radcliffe had been subject to all the necessary checks required after posting unusual results, including extra urine tests for EPO (all negative), extra tests to see if she had used illegal blood transfusions (all negative) and retrospective tests years later on old samples using new technology (negative).
Radcliffe said there had never been the intention to claim altitude was directly responsible for high off-scores, aside from in 2012. She said: ‘For me, altitude was only the primary factor in the 2012 off score.’
Radcliffe also said it was her intention in her statements to highlight that altitude training can impact off-score and therefore personal circumstances for specific individual tests must be taken i nto consideration before drawing conclusions.
‘I was acting for other athletes as well in my statement and trying to say look, you cannot say that all of these athletes who have ever thrown up atypical results have all been doping,’ she said.
WAS THE TEST ‘FAULTY’?
Radcliffe also called into question whether the pre-race off-score level of 82 on October 2, 2003 was even accurate and provided The MoS with a complete blood profile taken that day at a hospital in Faro that showed unusually low levels of red blood cells. ‘That isn’t right, there’s no way I could win the championships if it was that low, so that is artificially low,’ she told us.
In effect, Radcliffe says testing procedures at that time might have led to errors due to faulty equipment. ‘But you can’t prove that’s erroneous, that’s the whole problem,’ she said. ‘It happened so long ago now that you can’t go back, I can’t even walk into Faro hospital and say show me how your machine works because they’ll have changed them now.’
We have contacted the hospital in Faro to ask them if they believe their procedures were incorrect. They have yet to respond.
A GOOD RACE?
On the issue of saying none of the high off-scores had been around any of her best performances or races, Radcliffe says only two of the strange off-scores were on the days of races. One was on the day of a half-marathon win where she in any case disputes the pre-race off-score. The other was at the 2005 World Championships.
‘That is immediately after the 10K… an event I came ninth in,’ she said.
The issue of what does and doesn’t constitute a 1-in-1000 chance of being a normal off-score, Radcliffe says, is blurred by the fact the experts looking at data for the Sunday Times, had incomplete information on which to make their assessments. The IAAF back this up.