"My guess is she's been suspected since 2007 which gives her a year before that."

A year or two ago does not qualify as "long suspected" for somebody who competed in the 1984 Olympics. But the point is we shouldn't have to guess at the timeframe: It's part of Shaffer's job to provide relevant information like that. It wouldn't have been hard to add a line saying "I first heard rumors about this back in XWZ." Better yet, she'd have given some idea of who she heard it from. None of that would be proof of anything, but it'd certainly be better than passing off an unsubstantiated allegation as an established fact.