Advertisement

Blood Tests That Cleared Paula Radcliffe

Blood Tests That Cleared Paula Radcliffe

Sky News can reveal exclusively the blood test results that placed Paula Radcliffe at the heart of a doping scandal, but which she says exonerate her of any wrongdoing.

Radcliffe, who this week spoke out to deny doping, insists test results included in a leaked database were cleared by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and can all be explained by the circumstances in which they were taken.

She says the test results, seen by Sky News, all fall below normal levels for samples given following altitude training, and she believes this destroys the case against her.

Radcliffe's "off-scores", the measures used to gauge an athlete's blood values, in the three tests were 114.86, 109.86 and 109.3.

Anything above 103 recorded by a female athlete can be a trigger for investigation and target-testing, but the 'normal' threshold can rise for a number of reasons, including altitude training and tests taken immediately after extreme exertion.

Radcliffe says all three samples were taken after periods of altitude training and two, including the highest, were taken immediately after she had raced. Radcliffe says these factors explain the figures.

Sky News has learned that two of the figures also fall below the cut-off for altitude training recommended by the experts used by The Sunday Times, in a peer-reviewed paper.

In 2003 Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto, who worked closely with The Sunday Times, contributed to a paper in the journal Haematologica, which said the commonly used cut-off value for females training at altitude is 111.7, higher than two of Radcliffe's test scores.

She says the third, which gave the highest reading of 114.86, can be explained by circumstances that would now render it invalid.

It came from a sample taken immediately after a half-marathon in 29C heat in Portugal. The World Anti-Doping Association now considers any samples taken within two hours of competition as invalid, because exertion can affect blood values.

Radcliffe believes that without this crucial context, the experts could not reach an informed conclusion on her blood values based purely on the information in the database.

Speaking to Sky News, Radcliffe said the test results were followed up and cleared by the IAAF at the time they were given, and she has since had independent expert advice that clears her name.

She also stressed that her case demonstrates the complexities of analysing blood values, and the difficulty of drawing conclusions without the full context.

"This data needed to be looked at in context by the right experts so I requested WADA go back and go over again all of this data.

"UK Anti-Doping can do that as well.

"I know that the IAAF have done that, I have requested that independent experts do that and I have those reports.

"I had to wait to get those in place but I'm very glad I have them. They can tell me you don't have three values that crossed any threshold, not when you apply the context of whether the test followed a period of altitude training or was carried out at altitude.

"Not when you apply whether the two hour rule - that it cannot be used within two hours of hard competition or hard training - is not valid. That rules out two of the tests they are referring to, and the other is not above the threshold."

The three tests are drawn from an IAAF database of athlete’s blood samples leaked to The Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD.

According to the newspaper, the test results, which they attributed to "a top British athlete", were "highly unusual" and "abnormal".

It said one of the test results could be attributed "to an illicit blood transfusion, but this is only a suspicion and certainly not proven by the results".

This week Radcliffe revealed that she is the British athlete in question, and categorically denied cheating at any stage of her career.