Dear USATF: American Athletes Standing Up for Clean Sport is a Good Thing And Should Not be Silenced

We believe in the drugs, want them to dominate all of athletics! and are not going to tolerate any reasoned discussion saying that drugs aren't necessary.

rojo wrote:

I get why USATF doesn't want all of World Indoors to be talk about Russian dopers and if Brenda's quote gets picked up by the AP that's the story.

That being said, I had hoped 10 years ago that we were past the mentality of "Let's avoid the short term pain of drug talk" mindset as cleaning up the sport is the only way forward.

I think there is also the issue of a USA athlete, at a USA event, wearing a USA kit while disparaging another country. It might have went down differently at an invitational wearing your sponsor's kit and perhaps discussing doping in general. A Russian news outlet will pick up a story like that and make it about USATF disparaging Russia and turn Brenda into a villain as well. USATF as the NGB often has to be bureaucratic and political in ways athletes and fans don't always understand. Sometimes a young athlete will come on Letsrun and slam their coach, but if you have never been a coach an young athlete can't understand the decisions and/or the big picture a coach has to deal with. - Sometimes it helps to try and see both sides of a story.

You are an admitted doper - you took a known banned substance because it helped your performance. Not gray, but fully in the dope zone.Why do you get on a high horse like you're some anti-doping champion? When will you ask Bernie or Paula these tough questions on camera? Start the clock again...

I took a legal substance caffeine in legal amounts.

And I put an update in the first post of this thread to clarify one thing. While the topic was diverted from antidoping by just changing the subject at this press conference, Christa did allow multiple questions on doping. At USATF that wasn't the case, so overall these press conferences weren't the same.

I just believe as as strong anti doping advocate to allow on the err of letting the athletes speak on this subject.

Caffeine was on the prohibited list until 2004. You are a doper, plain and simple.

wejo wrote:

I took a legal substance caffeine in legal amounts.

And I put an update in the first post of this thread to clarify one thing. While the topic was diverted from antidoping by just changing the subject at this press conference, Christa did allow multiple questions on doping. At USATF that wasn't the case, so overall these press conferences weren't the same.

I just believe as as strong anti doping advocate to allow on the err of letting the athletes speak on this subject.

Honest question: if I take the cynical, but admittedly possible view that doping is rampant even among top American distance programs, why do I feel like I only hear about american sprinters' failed drug tests? Other countries' distance runners seem to fail far more drug tests than americans, but I still only hear about American sprinters failing tests. What American distance runners have failed tests?

The body language in the second part of the video was pretty telling, she was not comfortable with Brenda talking about that stuff.

This is why I think it's a mistake to focus only on Russia (and not the other problem countries) and we really don't want to hear a load of Americans sounding holier than thou bashing the Russians. This is the same folk who boycotted 1980 due to the invasion of Afghanistan then invaded it themselves.