Leave Barb alone wrote:
I would have made the same decision had I been in Barb's position. Rossi cheated, got away with it, and ran Boston. Her choices were:
a. DQ him. Only symbolic because he already ran Boston. Rossi is probably bluffing with the lawyering, but if he's not it would take lots of time and money to fight it.
b. Don't DQ the scumbag. Put in chip mats to assure this year's runners that it's legit. Work on this year's race rather than spend time on fighting a pointless battle from last year.
She made the sensible decision.
No, I believe the reason Barb McKeever chose not to DQ an obvious cheater like Mike Rossi from Rydal, PA was to cover up her own incompetence. It wasn't about avoiding a lawsuit to save money for the charity. If I recall correctly, when contacted about the allegations of cheating by Rossi, one of the Yassos reportedly talked about how hard it would be to cheat at LVM because of the design of the course. The reality, however, is that because of the way race management cut corners, LVM had always been one of the easiest courses to cheat on in the country. They had no timing mats other than at the start and finish. They had no official video anywhere on the course except the finish line. They had a fricking relay race going on at the same time as the race so people were walking on and off the course all over the place. What a joke!!! When Rossi's cheating came to light, McKeever should have apologized for letting the race become so slack that anyone could have cheated and BQ'd. In my opinion, this was all about Barb McKeever trying to save face by putting out a bullcrap statement about the evidence not being conclusive. Well, McKeever, if you don't think the undisputed evidence as discussed ad nauseum earlier in this thread conclusively proves that Mike Rossi cheated his way to a 3:11 at the 2014 LVM, then you are not qualified to have anything to do with running a Boston-qualifying marathon or any other road race for that matter.