Mark Block is in Monaco As We Speak - $50 For 1st Person To Take Picture of Him in Monaco!!

And do you really think Nike cares? Haha all Nike wants is results. If you wear a Nike jersey and win every race they are happy. Nike doesn't care how you win. They just want young athletes to see Nike gear winning. Plus when an athlete gets busted nobody says, "Oh that Nike athlete got busted." They say the athlete's name and that's it.

Welcome to the world of big business. If businesses cared about what was best for the populace and having good morals we wouldn't have sweat shops.

rojo,

you're joking right ? pay for a picture in this day and age. you have 1,000s of retired dirty old guys giving letsrun.com free videos and pictures for every meet. at least we do.

web master jam III point II wrote:

rojo,

you're joking right ? pay for a picture in this day and age. you have 1,000s of retired dirty old guys giving letsrun.com free videos and pictures for every meet. at least we do.

Did you read the thread? He wants a picture of Mark Block. Do you know who Mark Block is? He's not an athlete. To get this photo, someone in the stands who knows what Block looks like would have to keep an eye out or actively look for him at the meet and then follow him to take a good photo. I wouldn't bother for anything less than $50.

It's not like Block is out there on the track racing the 100 or doing the high jump.

How do you think Peter Parker made money when he took photos of himself as Spiderman?

I'm not sure how anyone can be against what they are doing unless you are an athlete that is also doping and wants to keep it that way. It's obviously unethical and bad for the sport.

They can't. Canadian swim coach Cecil Russell served jail time in 1998ish as part of a steroids ring, getting a reduced sentence for testifying against others in the ring even though he literally helped dispose of bodies as part of the ring. Shortly after he got out of jail, he was coaching in Spain, and got arrested and convicted of dealing ectasy. When he finished serving that jail time, he was officially barred from coaching in Canada but was still a regular on the pool deck for a Canadian club where his wife was officially listed as the head coach.

It took until 2011 for Canada to actually succeed in banning him from competition pool decks in the country, and because he's got a reputation for being a good coach even when his swimmers aren't doping, he'll probably show up coaching in China or Brazil at some point if he can get legal permission to do so.

I can't remember the whole list of meets people have mentioned Block attending, but I wonder if any other person has attended all those meets in a purely speculative(?) role.

Wondering what does banned mean? I see and individual from the Balco Scandal who I thought was nanned from coaching for life " working " with people all the time :-0

Rupp was at Monaco wasn't he?

Its almost like Letsrun is uhm stalking Mark Block. It is not illegal for him to be at a track meet or even in the Nike box(though it may from a PR standpoint reflect poorly on Nike). None of that is prohibited by the terms of the ban. Nor is it illegal for Block to tweet athletes or for athletes to be tweeting him. Hey, if you can you have track coaches coaching athletes from prison why is this more scandalous than Block attending a track meet? Is Letsrun going to follow Block from meet to meet all over the country and the world snapping pictures of him under the guise of doing journalism?

SoSo wrote:

Is Letsrun going to follow Block from meet to meet all over the country and the world snapping pictures of him under the guise of doing journalism?

I hope so. Thank you letsrun, please do not drop this. Enough of us, somehow effectively expressing our outrage together, might make a change.

SoSo wrote:

It is not illegal for him to be at a track meet or even in the Nike box(though it may from a PR standpoint reflect poorly on Nike). None of that is prohibited by the terms of the ban.

So you think he's spending tens of thousands just travelling as a fan? Or he just likes to vacation in Philly in April, Jamaican in May, Eugene in May and Monaco in July.

The terms of the ban may not be specific enough, but give me a break. What about the photo seemingly showing him having access to the tunnel in Jamaica?

Seems like coaching/agent stuff to anyone with a brain.

The thing that is wrong is that you or anyone would think it's ok.

The list of people who follow on twitter (he doesn't have a lot of followers) is almost a who's who..

https://twitter.com/#

!/TheMarkBlock/followers

I thought about going down to the meet as I'm not too far away but decided not to. Lol, I wish I had seen this post now, the trip would have paid for itself!

Rojo - Thank you for doing a story on this.

Doping in our sport is out of control at the moment. The fact that someone who is BANNED can show up in the VIP box, get caught and then show up at a DL meet is a disgrace.

Non-story. Brojos trying to create controversy. What a bunch of crappy journalists. Who cares? Who really cares?

The Brojos trying to make a big deal out of this is embarrassing and cringe-worthy. And it is people like them that the vast majority of sports-watching Americans think distance runners are tools.

Good job guys. I hope you continue to defend the drug cheats in the sport. You guys want to keep saying that no one cares, well of course the cheaters dont care but the people that are clean care alot. This sport is all about cheaters and people covering up cheating so its about time someone decided to expose the sport for what it is. We as parents have to tell our child that the only way to make it to the olympics is to be a cheater. Its not right

Come on really... wrote:

Non-story. Brojos trying to create controversy. What a bunch of crappy journalists. Who cares? Who really cares?

The Brojos trying to make a big deal out of this is embarrassing and cringe-worthy. And it is people like them that the vast majority of sports-watching Americans think distance runners are tools.

Yes you are right it's embarrassing and cringeworthy - embarrassing and cringeworthy for the sport. And yes a lot of people like yourself don't have the guts to stomach that the truth come out

Throughout history, people and organizations are often faced with embarrassing and cringeworthy information and human nature's tendency is over look it.

You don't have to look back too far for examples. People in Major League baseball, the people at Penn State, they all had embarrassing and cringeworthy stuff going on amongst them but they chose to just ignore it so the organization wouldn't take a publicity hit.

I always think back to baseball and wonder - what were the journalists doing?

"But we can't go after the guys hitting 70 homers as there is no proof."

"We cant say anything about Sandusky as the DA didn't prosecute."

I promise you one thing, if this was the NFL, Block would have a ban like Sean Payton's and people like Carmelita Jeter and Jason Richardson would be banned for associating with him.

You don't think it's a big deal that Block - who was at the heart of the Balco scandal and was a guy who doped his own world champion wife -is still jetting around to meet after meet? Are you a moron?

Do you realize that the United States won three individual track gold medals (not field) in Daegu last year and two of them were won by people that have dinner with a doping mastermind?

And Tiger Woods gets slammed for having gone to some massage guy 5 years ago. Yet these guys go out to eat with Block, who travels around the globe following them, two weeks before the Olympics?

Who will continue this investigation? USADA, USATF, Nike internal? Or will the media have to dig further?

Capriotti, Chris Layne, Starks, Block, Wells should all be questioned under oath. There is more to be revealed...

The Nike, Capriotti, Starks and Wells relationship smells fishy. Starks and Wells represented Marion Jones. Now Starks works for Nike and Wells is a VIP at Nike events. Would you want the agents of the biggest fraud in T&F and Nike history to be associated with you in ANY way?

In 2006, Starks was involved in a physical fight related to the Justin Gatlin doping issue. Nike settled the case for $3.9 million:

http://www.kval.com/news/local/39388887.html

Chris Layne and Block definitely have a working relationship despite Block's ban. What good is a ban if he can continue to make a living and enjoy the perks of the sport? USADA needs to enforce their ban. There ought to be consequences for Block and anyone that works with him in the sport- despite the ban. Maybe Chirs Layne is loyal to his former/ current boss, but why is Nike still loyal to Block?

With these cheats working the decision makers at Nike and possibly other sponsors, the clean athletes are losing on sponsorship money. The clean athletes already lose out prize money to those using PEDs, so a loss on the sponsorship creates a double whammy!

Let's CLEAN IT UP!!! First step, let's recognize the mess we have! Kudos to LETSRUN for being bold and committed enough to take this on. No one is hurt from knowing the truth...unless you have something to hide.

Even though I was spoofing and satirizing the sport in writing Fear and Loathing at the Olympic Trials, there was a modicum of truth in the drugs bit. Thank God for Evan MFJ !

Kudos to my employers, the Brojos-although they officially deny all ties- for bringing to light something that would be swept under the mondo carpet.