top Canadian coach calls out drug cheats beating his athletes

was there wrote:

Theywillcontinuetocheat wrote:

Reminds me of how they appealed at the oua 3k to have their athletes reinstated from DQ and have other teams guys DQed.

That is not true. DQ was the result of a Jury of Appeal ruling and these can not be appealed, by definition.

Wouldn't the most accurate account of the story be that the Guelph coaches threatened to appeal against Wilkie and counter-appeal against any Guelph DQ, but were technically unable to appeal against Wilkie or counter-appeal Dulhanty's DQ?

Quite simply, the Guelph coaches threatened to retaliate as aggressively as possible - which, given the video of the race, seems absurd - but there was no avenue in which to retaliate at this particular meet.

According to whom did the guelph coaches "threaten to retaliate as aggressively as possible"? Given that no appeal was possible, this seems a bit of hyperbole. Sounds to me as if too many people take the whole SR "problem" a bit too personally and have emotional blinders on. Get over it already.

You are so right. This groundless badgering of SR will lead to the unintended consequence of increasing support for SR, who it can be argued, are being unfairly targeted.

I was there when they said this to the Queen's coaches, " it is proper etiquette to tell the other coaches you are putting in an appeal, and just so you know we will be appealing Alex Wilkie for un sportsmanlike conduct for giving Ross the finger"

So no it is not over the top bashing of SR, they blatantly formulated this plan, and well they may not of tried to appeal the DQ they did try to appeal to get the athletes who were involved DQ'd as well. so everyone loses.

Saw the OU 3K video, and yes some DQs were in order. It may easily have been talented young runners getting carried away. Nothing malicious. Just heat of the moment action that upon reflection after the event may have revealed a different way to go about things. This is true of all of the participants and not all involved were DQd.

With regard to carding, a top 10K runner received the nod for some funding. To not get funding would have been a perverse result in the case of an accomplished young runner with an excellent body of work to date, and many years of performance at the highest level. A committee making the call to give him funding did a good job. A committee has a duty to apply criteria, and in a case where an unintended result would arrive due to the strict interpretation of the criteria, make some subjective judgement calls. Thanks should be given to these hardworking volunteers.

Iknowwhathappened wrote:

they did try to appeal to get the athletes who were involved DQ'd as well. so everyone loses.

That is not true. The jury of appeal decision with the DQ was delivered after the end of the available time window to file any other appeals.

So right wrote:

With regard to carding, a top 10K runner received the nod for some funding. To not get funding would have been a perverse result in the case of an accomplished young runner with an excellent body of work to date, and many years of performance at the highest level. A committee making the call to give him funding did a good job. A committee has a duty to apply criteria, and in a case where an unintended result would arrive due to the strict interpretation of the criteria, make some subjective judgement calls. Thanks should be given to these hardworking volunteers.

Perverse?

How do you feel about these Speed River athletes being given special treatment while Alex Ullman doesn't get carded?

The main differences are that Ullman competed at the domestic Championships while Hendrikx and Allison lied on their applications and in their appeal.

Go read the Trackie thread, as you are clearly misinformed:

This top 10k runner applied for carding in the 5,000m. He received special treatment when the committee ignored their own criteria and changed his application after he submitted it. He couldn't possible have scored enough points to earn carding as he skipped the 10,000m champs and DNF'd his National Team race closest to Canadian Champs.

In the end, it looks like the Q4G committee changed their minds and did not nominate Aaron Hendrikx for carding, so be sure to take back your Thanks and replace it with criticism.

The intended result is to card the athletes who best met the published criteria. Aaron Hendrikx and Katrina Allison did not. They only got a special ministry card because they had the gall to lie repeatedly.

Inspired by Ghomeshi, Speed RIver athletes and coaches hold their silence

I don't see any legal reason why the appeals would be confidential. This relates to use of public funds and should be freely available. We're not talking about lawyer-client privilege or patient medical information.

All of this behavior (sketchy bids, OUA 3k, Q4G and other random stories I heard but ignored long ago) are adding up to a culture of winning = everything regardless of principles of fair play and respecting the spirit of the sport. This sort of behavior reveals cracks in the psyche of the organization indicating that they aren't confident enough in hard, smart work and fair play leading them to victory-- they must also resort to underhanded tactics.

I think the last year has begun to see the unraveling of the dominance of U of G/ SR. Previously, their winning of CIS XC and dominating CIS track distance events was a given. Now, the playing field has shifted with many schools challenging their dominance. The exposure of such behavior can only hurt their recruiting long term. Any sensible parent catching wind of such antics wouldn't dream of sending their kids (or at the very least would take a long hard look at other options) there regardless of their history of success. There are too many other good options (academically and athletically) to risk sending your child into a an environment that will potentially impact how they feel they need to behave to succeed (Note-- a small minority of parents might send there kids there because of said behavior but are these the type of individuals you want to attract?).

Don't get me wrong-- Guelph/ SR can and will continue to be good. However, I think the days of their outright mastery of the CIS are over (I don't think this year has been an aberration, but a signal of a trend).

Frankly, I am surprised no-one (officially) from SR or AO has addressed these issues and questions publicly. Not addressing them fuels the speculative fervor and encourages us to draw the most logical conclusion-- that there is actually something to hide.

-copied from Trackie

Would rather see some reasoned dialogue among the SR critics as opposed to groundless attacks. The criteria are subject to interpretation. That's why a committee is needed - to make some judgement calls.

The AO QFG application has the following language.

"placing in your event among Ontario athletes at the 2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships:"

How this is interpreted is subjective. Athletes submitting QFG applications and the committee deciding on carding could have interpreted "placing" to mean ranking, standing, or position - i.e where did you stand in relation to your peers in 2015 on the performance list? Running in the AO championships is not stated as an absolute.

Definitely some work needs to be done to clarify the criteria and the application. With the minds at work, as evidenced by the posts on this board, a resolution that satisfies all parties is doubtful.

Not adding up wrote:

The AO QFG application has the following language.

"placing in your event among Ontario athletes at the 2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships:"

How this is interpreted is subjective. Athletes submitting QFG applications and the committee deciding on carding could have interpreted "placing" to mean ranking, standing, or position - i.e where did you stand in relation to your peers in 2015 on the performance list? Running in the AO championships is not stated as an absolute.

What?

How do you go from 'placing in your event...at the 2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships' to 'provincial ranking based on a performance that did NOT place at the 2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships'?

Why would the criteria have explicitly specified the '2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships' if they didn't objectively mean the '2015 Ontario Senior Outdoor Championships'?

I suppose you'd also give a few Olympic medals to Radcliffe since it is really only subjective that the first athlete across the Olympic finish line get the Olympic gold rather than the athlete who has the fastest ranked time for the year.

It's explained. On the AO QFG application an athlete could just fill in where they would have placed in the AO champs based on their best 2015 time. The word "placing" on the application is subject to interpretation to possibly mean ranking, standing on a list, position relative to your peers in 2015 etc etc. (All recognized synonyms in the English language for the word placing.)

The application also states words to the effect "Must attach a copy of the AO Champs results"

Fine. The athlete attaches a copy of the AO results. Is their name in the results? Not if they didn't run AO Champs, but this isn't listed as an absolute requirement for applying for QFG carding.

If the application is "cleaned" up to make competing in AO Champs an absolute, then state this. Otherwise, it's smart to apply and let the committee and any appeals process sort out the funding going to the best athletes. The process worked well with regard to the 10K in 2015. Actually one could automatically assign, based on the 2015 times ranking list, cards to the top 2 athletes.

Not adding up wrote:

On the AO QFG application an athlete could just fill in where they would have placed in the AO champs based on their best 2015 time. The word "placing" on the application is subject to interpretation to possibly mean ranking, standing on a list, position relative to your peers in 2015 etc etc. (All recognized synonyms in the English language for the word placing.)

ally assign, based on the 2015 times ranking list, cards to the top 2 athletes.

You're joking, right?

Not adding up wrote:

Would rather see some reasoned dialogue among the SR critics as opposed to groundless attacks. The criteria are subject to interpretation. That's why a committee is needed - to make some judgement calls.

What Steve Boyd and myself (Steve Weiler) have posted publicly is very much grounded in a series of communications with committee members and based on their own raw data, as well as an official response from the ministry. Posts on trackie are directly quoting official responses from Athletics Ontario and a member of provincial parliament. The posts may be disjointed, but that's because it was an evolving process with several changes and a consistent effort on AO's part to hide information from the public. My very first communication with AO on this was requesting they post all details publicly; that was 2.5 months ago.

I believe we could have a better dialogue on this topic if all application data (with changes clearly indicated), exemption details (if any), and ministry appeals were publicly shared. The reason the parties involved refuse to disclose these details is because they are incriminating: they show evidence of fraud and inconsistent application of the carding criteria - selectively following some rules while ignoring others.

I think you really need to re-read the criteria and application form.

No one (including the criteria you haven't really read) is suggesting competing at the AO Championships is mandatory. It's just that not doing so means you miss out on a whole bunch of points that others are getting, making it harder for you to get enough points to qualify for carding. It's even harder to get enough points relative to your peers when you also don't compete at the Canadian Championships.

It's hard to believe that after all the other past discussions, someone (ie you) still think it's valid to take one's PB and insert it in results from a championship race and declare that is where you would have finished. (The requirement to attach results refers to all the races cited above on the form that you actually competed in. It's hard to believe you are actually that dense.)

Can you clarify where it is stated that the term 'placing' is in any way subjective beyond meaning that is where you actually placed in that specific race?

Since you get points through a combination of:

- your top two performances

- your placing at AOs

- your placing at Nationals

if you are giving up the points from the last two, you'd have to be running damn fast to get enough points from your performances to beat those athletes that are actually showing up to race championship events.

Not impossible, but no one has provided any evidence that this has actually been done.

Nick Falk is the lowest ranked male receiving a 'normal' Q4G card; he scored 94.329 total points. The nominated athlete scores range between ~94-102.

For an athlete to score higher than Falk despite skipping their Ontario Championships without National Team exemption would require them to score >74.329 performance points (assuming they placed 1st at AC Champs for full 20 points there). Let's just call it 74.

The highest performances scores are in the low 50s, with a very tight range of 49-53. 49 represents the minimum (98% of standard, divided by 2). The best Q4G nominees are ~10% above the minimum standard. Our hypothetical athlete scoring 74 if ~50% above the minimum standard.

What would it take to score 74 performance points? Using Proudfoot (born 1992, applying in 5,000m) as an example:

Performance Score = (AC standard/Top 2 average) x (100/2)

74 = (809.43/Y) x 50

Y = (809.43 x 50)/74

Y = 546.91

Y = to outscore Nick Falk despite skipping his event at AO Champs, Proudfoot would need to average 9:06.91 for his top two 5,000m performances, shaving over 3 minutes off the World Record.

metric assassin wrote:

[quote]Not adding up wrote:

I believe we could have a better dialogue on this topic if all application data (with changes clearly indicated), exemption details (if any), and ministry appeals were publicly shared. The reason the parties involved refuse to disclose these details is because they are incriminating: they show evidence of fraud and inconsistent application of the carding criteria - selectively following some rules while ignoring others.

This. AO knowingly frauded the system to allow SR athletes carding. They assumed no one would notice or say anything. AO is as much to blame for caving to the pressure from SR. Will someone actually have the audacity to bring a lawsuit and have people charged for fraud? Probably not. Now digressing to my lawyer side of self...when the scrutinized party remains silent, it is judgmental to assume they are hiding something. They don't owe anyone an explanation; and perhaps they are just tired of the scrutiny, and an explanation (regardless of what's said) will automatically stir up more scrutiny amongst a judgmental populace full of idiots. It's sometimes a no win situation, even if they're innocent, so silence is the best option to exercise in order to shut the people up so everyone can move on with their lives.....However, I am positive that this situation is based on knowingly committing fraud, and that is the reason for the silence. If they opened up, then they would give the courts incriminating evidence against them if a fraud lawsuit arised.

Well, I thank you for producing the absolutely best possible defense of SR's behaviour in relation this and other matters. I would quickly point out, however, that this defense is still incredibly weak. Imagine for one second what kind of a hash we would make of sports admin if the only standard we held ourselves to was the of being "well intentioned" in support of our athletes' interests.

SR's approach only "works" as long as they are the only one's adopting it. Imagine what would happen if we all tried to screw each other, and justified it terms of "well intentioned advocacy" on behalf of our athletes? Imagine if we continued to view all procedural regulations as mere suggestions, at least when adhering to them conflicted with the perceived best interests of our own athletes? Committees like this one would be made up entirely of people trying to manipulate them, and the vetting of applications would degenerate into mutual back-scratching, all at the expense of any individual athlete not fortunate (or cynical) enough to belong to one of our clubs.

If and end can be put to this crap, it absolutely should, for the good of the sport.

Exactly.

Athletics Ontario needs to make things right, not just for future carding but releasing all details of the 2015-2016 Quest for Gold carding.