Shelby Houlihan

Not again with Shelby Houlihan. Dayenu!

Not again with Shelby Houlihan. Dayenu!

It’s August, so why bring up the springtime Jewish holiday of Passover, the story of the telling of the Exodus? And what would Passover in any way have to do with yet another column about Shelby Houlihan?

Because one of the key words in the telling of the story is, in Hebrew, the word dayenu! – enough! You pronounce it like this: die-yay-nu! Emphasis on the yay, y’all.

The Washington Post devoted more than 4,000 words to a sob story posted Friday about Houlihan, about how her running career is in “purgatory” because she got tagged for doping and then claimed, absurdly, that it was because of a tainted burrito. That ridiculous defense got rejected but she keeps insisting on playing the victim, telling the Post, “I feel embarrassed, and I’m feeling ashamed, and all of these different emotions for having to serve a ban, even though I didn’t do anything. So that’s been really hard to navigate and work through.”

Americans insist they care about doping in sports. And then there's Shelby Houlihan

Americans insist they care about doping in sports. And then there's Shelby Houlihan

Americans love to pile on when athletes from other countries are accused of doping. Especially the Russians.

We can’t have a state-sponsored doping system here. We don’t have a state ministry of sport. But we for sure cheat. We are really, really good cheaters, too. See, for one, Lance Armstrong.

And then when our athletes do absurd things to flaunt the system, we don’t understand why others looking at us from abroad cry hypocrisy and double standards.

Time for Shelby Houlihan to come clean

Time for Shelby Houlihan to come clean

Two things ought to happen now that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has issued a technically detailed but, in the end, common-sense ruling in the matter of Shelby Houlihan, the American distance runner, banning her for four years for nandrolone — through January 2025 — while thoroughly rejecting the ridiculous burrito defense.

One, Houlihan ought to come clean.

Two, all the journalistic sheep who wanted to believe, who maybe still want to believe despite the overwhelming evidence against Houlihan, that there was no way, just no way, a white American distance runner affiliated with the Bowerman Track Club could test positive — all these people, and the readers they misled, ought to take a crash course in Doping 101 and the things people will say and do, meaning anything and everything, to avoid getting busted.

Critics of USATF again belie their racial if not racist animus. Enough

For more than nine years, since Max Siegel became chief executive of USA Track & Field, this space has pleaded for civility, dignity and respect in the way people in and around the sport talk to and with each other.

Too often — far too often — the rhetoric is otherwise. It has proven not just unconstructive but inflammatory.

Siegel, along with chief operating officer Renee Washington, are the only two Black executives in the U.S. Olympic landscape.

After all these years, it’s difficult if not impossible to believe there is not a racial — if not racist — undertone to the criticism. Because the substance if not the tone almost immediately turns angry and destructive, as it has in the latest crisis to beset American track and field, the doping ban handed U.S. middle-distance standout Shelby Houlihan, adjudged liable by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport after testing positive for impermissible levels of the anabolic steroid nandrolone.

Shelby Houlihan, meet World Anti-Doping Code section 10.14.3

Shelby Houlihan, meet World Anti-Doping Code section 10.14.3

Shelby Houlihan, American middle-distance standout and, now, per the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, violator of the anti-doping rules for having impermissible levels of the anabolic steroid nandrolone in her system, meet World Anti-Doping Code Section 10.14.

Specifically 10.14.3.

Houlihan announced Monday that the Athletics Integrity Unit had charged her with a nandrolone offense, and a unanimous CAS panel adjudged her liable. A CAS news release Tuesday confirmed the account. All the same, on Thursday, when the start lists for the U.S. track and field Trials were made public, there was Houlihan’s name — in both the women’s 1500 (heat 3) and the women’s 5000 (heat 1).

Intrigue! Drama! How could this be possible?

That’s not the question that matters. This is:

Will she run?

In the matter of Shelby Houlihan: white privilege confronts reality

In the matter of Shelby Houlihan: white privilege confronts reality

There’s an obvious point that seemingly no one else wants to say about Shelby Houlihan, the American middle-distance runner who has been suspended for four years. So it’s coming at you right here. Check your privilege, white people.

The running sites and even the mainstream press are full of stories that center on the facts of the case and the do-you-believe her or do-you-not. That’s not the issue.

All journalists — at least the decent or better ones — are trained to be skeptical, and after listening for more than 20 years now to athlete after athlete cry, sometimes literally, about circumstance and unfairness, please. Houlihan’s expressions of how much she loves running, how she didn’t get due process, all of that — that’s all noise.

Here’s why this case has struck a chord:

The running community in the United States tends to be white and middle- to upper-class. Shelby Houlihan fits that demographic precisely. The point is that seemingly no one in that circle thinks — or wants to think — that the nice, white distance runner would ever cheat. Never, ever.