Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

RossiCheated wrote:

Gotta give Ken credit; he's over there breaking the marathon's balls on their Facebook page.

A guy says that running the marathon with friends is priceless. Ken tells him they can carpool together to the finish line.

The marathon posts that if you register early you can save $15. Ken says you can use the money to buy a caramel mochiato at Starbucks as you drive to the finish line.

Nearly every comment on there is busting their ass one way or another about Rossi. How stupid are these people to not have seen this coming and to not have figured out this would happen?

I am firmly in the camp that believes they knew he cheated and their decision had nothing to do with that. I think they tried to make a "least damage" decision and thought the promise to do better in the future and their ties to charity would be their shield against a backlash. Could they have been more wrong?

Laughingstock Via Marathon.

RossiCheated wrote:

Gotta give Ken credit; he's over there breaking the marathon's balls on their Facebook page.

A guy says that running the marathon with friends is priceless. Ken tells him they can carpool together to the finish line.

The marathon posts that if you register early you can save $15. Ken says you can use the money to buy a caramel mochiato at Starbucks as you drive to the finish line.

Nearly every comment on there is busting their ass one way or another about Rossi. How stupid are these people to not have seen this coming and to not have figured out this would happen?

I am firmly in the camp that believes they knew he cheated and their decision had nothing to do with that. I think they tried to make a "least damage" decision and thought the promise to do better in the future and their ties to charity would be their shield against a backlash. Could they have been more wrong?

Laughingstock Via Marathon.

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

Thank you to one person who gets it.

I haven't posted since I said I was done. But I have read along. It's funny watching everyone accuse me of trolling after all the time of Mike trolling them and me posting under only this registered name.

I'm done with Rossi. He means nothing to me. It sucks he got away with the cheating. He didn't really, but he'll always be able to brag to new friends and clients that he ran Boston. But he didn't get away with the bullying. And some that he tried to intimidate stood up to him and told him to fvck off.

But just because I am done with him doesn't mean I am not going to be critical of a race that turns a blind eye. I will still post on their FB page for two reasons.

1.) hurting their attendance, or possible sponsorship, might be the only thing the RD responds to. It happens all the time when celebrities start to lose endorsements.

2.) runners who are now registering thinking they can cheat and get a BQ need to be reminded year after year the wrath of hell that will come down upon them from the racing community if they cheat.

I know I am not part of your community, but I am getting back to the gym after a minor kidney operation and I may get into it. I have heard it can be very zen-like to run, as well as healthy. I only posted HERE because this is where Rossi was paying attention. If I knew he was on some other forums I would have post been there instead.

I'll be very curious to see if attendance takes a hit, or the marathon's high percentage of BQ's seems to suddenly decline. My guess is that there were many people cheating this race each year, and if there is any silver lining to this is that Rossi has made other cheaters think twice.

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

Thank you to one person who gets it.

I haven't posted since I said I was done. But I have read along. It's funny watching everyone accuse me of trolling after all the time of Mike trolling them and me posting under only this registered name.

I'm done with Rossi. He means nothing to me. It sucks he got away with the cheating. He didn't really, but he'll always be able to brag to new friends and clients that he ran Boston. But he didn't get away with the bullying. And some that he tried to intimidate stood up to him and told him to fvck off.

But just because I am done with him doesn't mean I am not going to be critical of a race that turns a blind eye. I will still post on their FB page for two reasons.

1.) hurting their attendance, or possible sponsorship, might be the only thing the RD responds to. It happens all the time when celebrities start to lose endorsements.

2.) runners who are now registering thinking they can cheat and get a BQ need to be reminded year after year the wrath of hell that will come down upon them from the racing community if they cheat.

I know I am not part of your community, but I am getting back to the gym after a minor kidney operation and I may get into it. I have heard it can be very zen-like to run, as well as healthy. I only posted HERE because this is where Rossi was paying attention. If I knew he was on some other forums I would have post been there instead.

I'll be very curious to see if attendance takes a hit, or the marathon's high percentage of BQ's seems to suddenly decline. My guess is that there were many people cheating this race each year, and if there is any silver lining to this is that Rossi has made other cheaters think twice.

mileage_man wrote:

Forensic Investigator wrote:

The "videos" are just as invalid for proving anything as the ridiculous "statistical analysis" that is often quoted here. Go back to your jogging and leave the scientific work to the experts.

(1) I don't jog, I run.

(2) There are several lines of statistical reasoning that have been developed on this thread. You call these (all of them?) 'ridiculous', but I have yet to see any serious criticisms of the primary lines of statistical argument.

For example, the number of locations photographed along the course was tabulated for the 100 runners who finished closest to Mr. Rossi. A Pearson's chi-squared test confirms the normality of this data. This justifies the use of a z-test, which indicates that the probability that Mr. Rossi was only photographed at the finish, assuming he ran the race, is about 1 in 11 thousand.

Are you aware of any valid criticisms of this line of statistical argument?

Here's an even stronger and simpler example - photo checkpoints. Apparently the evidence for this line of argument has been strengthened in my absence. But previously, each of the 20 runners who finished closest to Mr. Rossi had been seen at each of three photo checkpoints. Laplace's Rule of Succession suggests (along with common sense) that if you succeed at a given task 20 times in a row, a reasonable estimate for the probability of failure is 1/21. This estimate can be formally derived using Bayes' Theorem, assuming a prior of 50% for the probability success. So this suggests that the probability of Mr. Rossi missing all three checkpoints, assuming he is drawn from the same distribution as the 20 runners who finished closest to him (i.e. assuming that he ran the whole course, like they apparently did) is about (1/21)^3, or about 1 in 9 thousand.

It sounds like this line of argument has been strengthened since then, by expanding it to 5 checkpoints and increasing the number of runners whose photos were looked for. (Awesome work, by the way!!! I'd love a recap of what the new numbers are, i.e. how many runners were tested at each checkpoint and how many were seen.)

But in any case - are you aware of any valid criticisms of this line of statistical argument?

It is lazy and disingenuous to dismiss arguments as 'ridiculous' in the absence of valid criticism. The statistical arguments are strong and damning. They confirm what common sense tells all of us - that if you are the only one not to have your picture taken, and indeed most others around you have their pictures taken multiple times, then this must have taken really, really, implausibly bad luck...assuming you were actually there.

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

Thank you to one person who gets it.

I haven't posted since I said I was done. But I have read along. It's funny watching everyone accuse me of trolling after all the time of Mike trolling them and me posting under only this registered name.

I'm done with Rossi. He means nothing to me. It sucks he got away with the cheating. He didn't really, but he'll always be able to brag to new friends and clients that he ran Boston. But he didn't get away with the bullying. And some that he tried to intimidate stood up to him and told him to fvck off.

But just because I am done with him doesn't mean I am not going to be critical of a race that turns a blind eye. I will still post on their FB page for two reasons.

1.) hurting their attendance, or possible sponsorship, might be the only thing the RD responds to. It happens all the time when celebrities start to lose endorsements.

2.) runners who are now registering thinking they can cheat and get a BQ need to be reminded year after year the wrath of hell that will come down upon them from the racing community if they cheat.

I know I am not part of your community, but I am getting back to the gym after a minor kidney operation and I may get into it. I have heard it can be very zen-like to run, as well as healthy. I only posted HERE because this is where Rossi was paying attention. If I knew he was on some other forums I would have post been there instead.

I'll be very curious to see if attendance takes a hit, or the marathon's high percentage of BQ's seems to suddenly decline. My guess is that there were many people cheating this race each year, and if there is any silver lining to this is that Rossi has made other cheaters think twice.

Oh Ken, really? wrote:

LoserMikeRossi wrote:

Thank you to one person who gets it.

I haven't posted since I said I was done. But I have read along. It's funny watching everyone accuse me of trolling after all the time of Mike trolling them and me posting under only this registered name.

I'm done with Rossi. He means nothing to me. It sucks he got away with the cheating. He didn't really, but he'll always be able to brag to new friends and clients that he ran Boston. But he didn't get away with the bullying. And some that he tried to intimidate stood up to him and told him to fvck off.

But just because I am done with him doesn't mean I am not going to be critical of a race that turns a blind eye. I will still post on their FB page for two reasons.

1.) hurting their attendance, or possible sponsorship, might be the only thing the RD responds to. It happens all the time when celebrities start to lose endorsements.

2.) runners who are now registering thinking they can cheat and get a BQ need to be reminded year after year the wrath of hell that will come down upon them from the racing community if they cheat.

I know I am not part of your community, but I am getting back to the gym after a minor kidney operation and I may get into it. I have heard it can be very zen-like to run, as well as healthy. I only posted HERE because this is where Rossi was paying attention. If I knew he was on some other forums I would have post been there instead.

I'll be very curious to see if attendance takes a hit, or the marathon's high percentage of BQ's seems to suddenly decline. My guess is that there were many people cheating this race each year, and if there is any silver lining to this is that Rossi has made other cheaters think twice.

So you no longer care about Mike Rossi, but you are determined to fix a marathon that you will never, ever, ever in your life run?

One that has already announced they will have multiple mats plus a video system next year?

Yeah, sure Ken.

As sure as you eating too many cheeseburgers today.

We are all laughing at you, Ken. Laughing at your sick obsession.

You are a bigger laughingstock than Mike Rossi.

And you only have yourself to blame.

We are all laughing at you, Ken.

Let that sink in.