Mo Farah acknowledges Salazar did a lot for him: “He gave me self-belief, to make me think I belonged here."

on that sabadell sauce wrote:

High hopes wrote:

There's enough smoke around Mo that the questions should be asked. Salazar has a doping conviction to his name (albeit fit testing PEDs on his children rather than athletes, and there's the L-carnatine stuff which was murky and during which Mo was not entirely transparent (trying to tread carefully here). Btw, there's plenty of smoke around Jerry Schumacher as well - Houlihan's doping positive, Jager turning up on the Fancy Bears list, and him sending athletes to Doc Brown.

But for it all, I still err on the side that Mo wasn't doping. The main reason is that it's virtually impossible to cover-up something on this scale. Too many people have to be complicit and eventually, someone talks or makes a mistake. That's how all major doping busts happen. With Festina you had someone making a mistake transporting PEDs, with Lance Armstrong you had someone turn whistleblower. It wasn't the authorities catching these guys, it was the people involved either screwing up or cracking. With NOP, we've had very little. Magness basically showed Salazar pushed at the edges of the rules, Goucher showed that he behaved like an a$hole. Nobody has shown any even semi decent evidence of a doping conspiracy. And so many people would have to be involved in the acquisition and application of systematic PED use. And this was supposed to be happening in the US where there are plenty of outlets to report to if you have any evidence at all. I view this like the whole faked moon landings conspiracy: too many people would need to be involved to cover it up, and if you believe that would be easy, then you vastly overestimate the competence of both institutions and individuals.

Argument from incredulity. That you cannot imagine a PED conspiracy of this nature is not evidence it doesn’t exist. Nothing is impossible to cover up when everyone involved has a vested interest in ensuring the truth never comes to light.

Mo was like Bolt: too big to fail.

High hopes wrote:

on that sabadell sauce wrote:

Argument from incredulity. That you cannot imagine a PED conspiracy of this nature is not evidence it doesn’t exist. Nothing is impossible to cover up when everyone involved has a vested interest in ensuring the truth never comes to light.

Mo was like Bolt: too big to fail.

Oh, I can well imagine this sort of conspiracy. Indeed, I don't have to because we have seen them: Festina, Armstrong, Balco. The conspiracy isn't the problem, it's the cover up. Something like this is virtually impossible to cover up. Everyone in the Armstrong case had a vested interest but still Landis and others broke. Someone, somewhere in the chain would, at the very least, speak to a media outlet anonymously about what they were involved with. It's also been so long now that proximate threats to their careers are less of an issue. Like I said, this was happening in the US, not some tiny Kenyan village with doctors and middle men who don't speak English. If anything was happening we'd have heard *something* from someone involved. Unless you think Salazar is a one-man band.

And Mo wasn't too big to fail, he was nowhere near Bolt's level on a global scale. Yeah, he's a big deal in the UK, but I remember when he won that half marathon in Florida and he was interviewed on the local news and they thought he was a hobby jogger who had a good day. He wasn't a superstar that had to be protected at all costs.

Beaverton High wrote:

High hopes wrote:

Oh, I can well imagine this sort of conspiracy. Indeed, I don't have to because we have seen them: Festina, Armstrong, Balco. The conspiracy isn't the problem, it's the cover up. Something like this is virtually impossible to cover up. Everyone in the Armstrong case had a vested interest but still Landis and others broke. Someone, somewhere in the chain would, at the very least, speak to a media outlet anonymously about what they were involved with. It's also been so long now that proximate threats to their careers are less of an issue. Like I said, this was happening in the US, not some tiny Kenyan village with doctors and middle men who don't speak English. If anything was happening we'd have heard *something* from someone involved. Unless you think Salazar is a one-man band.

And Mo wasn't too big to fail, he was nowhere near Bolt's level on a global scale. Yeah, he's a big deal in the UK, but I remember when he won that half marathon in Florida and he was interviewed on the local news and they thought he was a hobby jogger who had a good day. He wasn't a superstar that had to be protected at all costs.

Close associates with Aden (multiple camps- including Sabadell before the epo bust) and MULTIPLE lies and mistruths wasn’t enough for you? How about training for years as a pro with mottram’s group, then all of a sudden going from 3:36 to 3:28 (pre supershoe)? If the world could only see what was on the two cellphones stolen from his room in Ethiopia…

High hopes wrote:

on that sabadell sauce wrote:

Argument from incredulity. That you cannot imagine a PED conspiracy of this nature is not evidence it doesn’t exist. Nothing is impossible to cover up when everyone involved has a vested interest in ensuring the truth never comes to light.

Mo was like Bolt: too big to fail.

Oh, I can well imagine this sort of conspiracy. Indeed, I don't have to because we have seen them: Festina, Armstrong, Balco. The conspiracy isn't the problem, it's the cover up. Something like this is virtually impossible to cover up. Everyone in the Armstrong case had a vested interest but still Landis and others broke. Someone, somewhere in the chain would, at the very least, speak to a media outlet anonymously about what they were involved with. It's also been so long now that proximate threats to their careers are less of an issue. Like I said, this was happening in the US, not some tiny Kenyan village with doctors and middle men who don't speak English. If anything was happening we'd have heard *something* from someone involved. Unless you think Salazar is a one-man band.

And Mo wasn't too big to fail, he was nowhere near Bolt's level on a global scale. Yeah, he's a big deal in the UK, but I remember when he won that half marathon in Florida and he was interviewed on the local news and they thought he was a hobby jogger who had a good day. He wasn't a superstar that had to be protected at all costs.

Beenaroundit wrote:

rojo wrote:

Props to MO for being honest and answering the question.

Before the interview today, I had been told he wouldn’t discuss Salazar. But when I ask, he answers openly. Did Salazar teach him a lot? “Yes,” he says. “You can’t forget what someone contributed to your career. And he gave me self-belief, to make me think I belonged here.”

I've never understood why there has been this outcry by some to demand that the guys who Salazar coached to turn his back on them. That doesn't make sense to me. What Salazar is accused of doing should greatly disappointment them but it doesn't undo what he did for them.

Link:www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/artic...

You can be super grateful for what he did, how he motivated you, but also know that you broke the rules.

My issue with Galen and Mo is if they can honestly look themselves in the mirror and say “I didn’t ever cheat” and “I wasn’t complicit in any of Alberto’s illegal (or unethical) experiments to help us win medals.”

It’s seems completely absurd to not believe that Galen and Mo were cheating, just because they didn’t have a positive test or because they were never convicted by a doping body.

Over time, people will learn what actually happened, and it is responsibility of those guys to be transparent, which to date, I don’t believe either of them has done. I fully believe they know A LOT more than what they’ve ever shared.

Until they choose to be more transparent, they shouldn’t be hailed as heroes in our sport. If they cheated, they kept a lot of people off Olympic teams and stole a lot of medals.