Hellebuyck is racing and stealing prize money

jill came down with two-fifty wrote:

Yeah well, I'm one of those guys who finished behind him in a couple of $$ races during his drug tear... and I really don't care anymore. Let it go, man. Dude shamed himself and his legacy forever- F it, and F him.

i, too, finished behind him when he was using. f**ker owes me a medal. eat sh!t eddy.

signed,

still bitter

Eddy has to be what 49 or 50 yrs old by now? Kind of sad there was no 40 yr old that could beat him that day.

Eddy did his time, and despite the EPO use, which only had very limited benefit on his already superlative form, helped a lot of runners who came to Albuquerque. He helped up and coming French runners of North African descent.

Example: Abdelghani Zouad, a decent french runner with a 32 minutes 10km best in his early 20's improved to 29:04 and a 4th place in the French road 10km in Aix en Provence. He also helped Zouad get down to 13.56 for track 5000 despite the fact that Zouad has no natural speed, with a top speed of only 59 seconds for a single 400 repetition on the track.

Eddy rented out rooms for $10 u.s. per night and helped legions of runners in Albuquerque. He is basically a good man with a huge heart. He made a mistake and paid dearly for it. And it is wrong to ask for money back, as we were never able to establish exactly when Eddy was on or off the juice.

This does not cancel out his EPO use, but Eddy had an altruistic side that not many people are prepared to acknowledge.

Ghost in Saudi,

www.kfupm.edu.sa

, apply today

100 somolianas !!

I agree that he should be able to take prize money now.

The bigger question is this:

Should Eddy be able to coach high school kids? Or, would you want your son our daughter being coached by someone whose A and B sample tested positive for performance enhancing drugs?

nokaman wrote:

Eddy has to be what 49 or 50 yrs old by now? Kind of sad there was no 40 yr old that could beat him that day.

Agreed. Eddy is 48 and ran 16:27 on a flat, fast course for that $100.

Give him his due for that.

Eddy had intentions of winning both the 10k and 5k on Sunday. He dropped out of the 10k after hitting 3 miles in about 16:05. He had inentions of taking both of the $100 awards.

Weren't he and his wife also accused of royally screwing over the foreign athletes they were "helping". Holding passports and crap like that??

"only limited benefit..."

ghost you're sucha freakin toolbag, i don't even know where to begin. if you were in front of me, i'd slap the $#it out of you...or perhaps you need it slapped into you, damn bro, thats the biggest weaksauce arguement i've ever heard of. how many athletes have the hellebuycks stolen money from?? i sure can't count them on my fingers (or toes also!) pretty sad to see someone so delusional that they'll hero worship a proven cheater, not to mention all the anecdotal evidence on eddy & co.

nothing to get over, and being "pissed" isn't what i'd call how i feel. disappointed that another athlete forever lives with an asterisk next to their name.i have no standing in this game. I do know athletes that lost to cheaters, and out of respect for them I don't think a former cheater should accept money. It's not a matter of justice, it's a matter of repentance. In that context "serving his time" is moot.I personally feel that someone caught cheating should either donate winnings or not accept the winnings. It's simply a personal feeling and would be applied the same whether it is EH or RJ or anyone else caught using.I think most know how hard we work to succeed clean. It's a terrible feeling to find out your competition didn't respect you or the sport enough that they put their own self-interest above honest competition.

No Seriously - Ur Racist wrote:

dotato wrote:

all the folks who finished behind his drug-using ass, thereby inhibiting better runners to advance their careers.

he's stolen from others, his penalty was that he couldn't race, how was restitution served?

Here's the link to the LetsRun posting of his ban, back in 2004.

http://www.letsrun.com/2004/hellebuyckcheat.php

He became eligible to run races again back in 2006. Get over it, it's 2009 already. Ur just pissed he's faster then you.

Most intelligent post of this thread and I am in agreement 100%. A class individual would refuse prize money and explain why to anyone that asks. But that would take some morals and a litle backbone which Eddy has little of. I am guessing here but I suspect the reason he dropped out of the 10k on Sunday was beacuse he knew breaking the masters 10k course record was out of his reach at the 3 mile mark.(thus no $100). The masters 5k course record was very soft (17 and change).

wejostriplet, esq. wrote:

I disagree. Have a "top white person" prize and see what happens.

It's called top American bonus, and it has been in effect for many years now. Think before you get burned.

glad meb, abdi, henry dennis, etc., have never accepted these bonuses. somebody should include them sometime, for some silly reason i thought they were included. guess you're so smart that i got burned....oh wait, you're a complete dumb@$!!!! good job moron, keep up the epic fail!

frtying wrote:

wejostriplet, esq. wrote:I disagree. Have a "top white person" prize and see what happens.

It's called top American bonus, and it has been in effect for many years now. Think before you get burned.

Did his records ever get taken off the books? I still see them listed on the USATF site for 40-44 year olds. Pretty tough records to beat; especially without drugs.

Message to Eddy,

Don't show your scrawny ass at any road race in Phoenix in the future. I will call you out as a drug cheat at any race I run. You have cheated too many people and you will pay for it.

The guy is an a$$, he took drugs for 20 years plus, and he took money from me for 20 years plus. Everyone on the circuit knew he was on drugs 20 years ago. He got caught ONCE. He is a dirtbag today, he was a dirtbag yesterday, and will be a dirtbag tomorrow.

Stop with the 'he did his time' bull$hit. He took thousands of dollars from people. If you were one of them, you'd never be so ignorant to make that statement. Of course, most on this board never raced him in their life.

Are you suggesting he is still doping so that he can win $100 prizes? If so, then I'd say he deserves it. That's a lot of dedication to the cause. I mean, drugs are expensive so there's no way he's breaking even.

Or maybe you're just saying that the performance-enhancing effects of EPO last 10 years. Which would certainly explain Lance Armstrong's comeback.

I don't deny what Eddy did was wrong, but the supposed benefit he obtained from his EPO use is greatly exaggerated, and the evidence points to a short time frame during the time he used it. And you do not make a greyhound out of a carthorse. The tragedy of all this is that Eddy could have run almost as well, arguably, without the EPO. His build and background would have been enough for that and he did not need to use drugs.

The question of how much he owes is a complicated one, and without knowing the exact time period of the EPO use, people can only make conjectures.

It is mind boggling to read the amount of venom directed at Eddy. Yes, he made a mistake, and he paid for it, but let the man get on with his life now. He is a family man with kids and does not need this type of hostility.

Ghost in Saudi,

www.kfupm.edu.sa

Great. Ghost, you are trying too hard to rationalize what Eddy did.

You say that we should leave Eddy alone and that he made a mistake... HE NEVER ADMITTED IT. Both his A and B samples tested positive and it clearly was NO secret to most people who knew him. I'm just saying that he never did pay for his mistakes.

He should be able to take all the prize money at local races he can grab now... that doesn't make him any less wrong for cheating and for not admitting it.

If he (or you, Ghost) don't like the heat, then maybe (and possibly you) should have taken all this in to consideration when he took a needle and injected himself with a performance enhancing drug(s) on multiple occassions.