Steve Magness exploded against Almaz Ayana on twitter

Run Doctor wrote:

Who has he ever trained? Nobody.

He should get his ass fired from Houston if he makes accusations and has no proof

This is funny to read when his athlete qualified for the semi-finals in the Olympics a few hours ago.

Oh, letsrun, how I love you.

George Hirsch wrote:

sdfsfgasfd wrote:

Who cares what you have against Magness, his observations are right. That race was absurdly doped. No way Huddle should have been so far back running such an incredible time.

Prove it.

Prove he's wrong.

Coach Cookie wrote:

Not a big fan of Magness but he is 100% right here. After this morning's 10k, the IAAF might as well sent out a memo that doping would be allowed in Rio. It was just ridiculous.

Prove to me that this is not a demonstration of exceptional talent.

Oh wait, you can't. Just like you can't prove that it was doping, either.

So present evidence or stop making accusations.

An excellent performance is not evidence of doping.

bobgob wrote:

Remind us again why Steve Magness is famous? Being a great coach? An excellent Journalist perhaps? No, he came to people's attention because of the accusations he made against Salazar and Rupp.

So why are you surprised he's accusing/insinuating that Ayana is doping?

It's what Magness is know for. It's what he does best.

I heard of his book way before any of that NOP crap. so, yeah, you are wrong.

It's not just Magness.

It's Sonia O'Sullivan, Paula Radcliffe, Charlotte Purdue, and on and on from athletes.

Look at well-respected journalist like Time Layden and you are seeing similar reactions.

You can disagree, but the feeling from many is that it is unbelievable. Blame the IOC and IAAF for allowing such a cynical attitude to take hold.

HRE wrote:

George Hirsch wrote:

Prove it.

Prove he's wrong.

My point is that just crying wolf all the time causes damage. There are plenty of instances of actual doping and actual corruption to motivate the sport's institutions to improve. They will either tackle the problem or not, but blanket statements that likely include false accusations are both unfair and misguided.

800 Coach 23 wrote:

Why is it that you American idiots feel the reference point for doping is the top American?

American basketball is so much ahead of the rest of the world that they must be doped. C'mon Magness..get a life. Huddle and the other top American women would not be able to put in one workout with these Ethiopian and Kenyan women.

NBA and NFL/MLB also are a joke. We already knew it.

For years we have been saying that Ma's athletes were all doped up. Almost everybody here said that Ma Junren doped up his athletes to the gills.

Renato Canova said that Ma Junren had his crew doing insanely workouts. The amount of quality/quantity workouts was massive. So, it was not only doping. It was doping+brutal training.

However, Chinese records were already OBLITERATED by Genzebe Dibaba and Almaz Ayana.

So, what kind of training are Ethiopians doing? there is not only "smart training". It's not enough.

Here is my recollection of Steve Magness -

* Ran 4:01 in high school 1600m while using medication for VCD

* Started complaining about vocal cord dysfunction

* Went to thyroid doctors and got medication for VCD

* Ran poorly in college, never improving upon his PR

* "Retired" because was on too many medication for vocal cord dysfunction

* Participated in NOP pre-Beijing camp in Houston as a rabbit, dropping out at 3200m after attempting to pace Kara Goucher in an 8km time trial. Adam Goucher had to jump in and finish off pacing duties while Magness faux puked on the infield

* Salazar was impressed with his passion, hires him as a volunteer assistant

* Magness sleeps with athlete in NOP

* Magness is fired

* Magness comes out against NOP/Salazar

* Magness almost loses job at Houston

* Magness writes a book and earns $40k/year at a dismal university that does not qualify to NCAA XC Nationals and has not coached a college woman of note

John McKim or Sean Wade is that you??

Time to let go of your bitterness.

Magness is a loser, a failure as a runner, and a lousy coach.

Maybe it's time for Steve to let go of his bitterness. Steve has never beat Sean Wade in a race. Ever.

clover wrote:

Run Doctor wrote:

Who has he ever trained? Nobody.

He should get his ass fired from Houston if he makes accusations and has no proof

This is funny to read when his athlete qualified for the semi-finals in the Olympics a few hours ago.

Oh, letsrun, how I love you.

He clearly knows about drug testing.

Crying wolf seems to be all that's left. When you have every agency that's supposed to control doping in the sport run by people whose concern is preserving the sport's image and taking bribes rather than identifying and removing cheaters the only recourse I can see is to make so much noise about the issue that the people concerned more with preserving the sport's image see that they've failed to do so and that the only way to restore the image is to go ahead and actually identify and remove PED users.

I don't know how much time you've spent on this board, but for years we've had people here asking, maybe even demanding, that people in the sport who know what's going on say something. Now that's begun happening and the counterpoint is "Prove it," or "S/he is just an attention whore."

Where Magness is clearly right is that there is NO trust. If there was we wouldn't have these sorts of discussions. Yes, it's unfair if this was a legitimate performance but that's not Magness' fault and he's making a legitimate point that many others who know the sport well are making..

clover wrote:

Run Doctor wrote:

Who has he ever trained? Nobody.

He should get his ass fired from Houston if he makes accusations and has no proof

This is funny to read when his athlete qualified for the semi-finals in the Olympics a few hours ago.

Oh, letsrun, how I love you.

Only on letsrun would there be more hate on a guy who has tried to clean up the sport than on an athlete who has turned in a highly questionable performance amidst major doping scandals from E. Africa.

Genzebe and Ayana have blown the doors off of distance running the past few years. It just does not seem possible that lightening can strike twice the way these two have come on the scene to run circles around the competition and take down previously doped WRs.

Crybabies are losing it. Waa waaa waaaaaa.

Ben L Wrong wrote:

He clearly knows about drug testing.

He knows what drug testing is, but he has no knowledge about the specifics of Almaz Ayana--her ethics, her training, her testing. She could be clean she could be cheating--Steve Magness has no more knowledge of her situation than you or I do. I respected him for speaking out initially about his particulars with Salazar, until I learned that he also failed to mention many other things that rather detracted against his own character. For him to now pontificate about an athlete with whom he has had no personal contact is utterly reprehensible to me. I was advocating for clean sport when Magness's parents were in diapers, and it breaks my heart that this sport has still not overcome the problem, but it is very frustrating to have people such as Magness who earn a living in the sport and bear some responsibility behaving so irresponsibly. I wish he would keep his mouth shut when he does not have specific knowledge.

His time-based accusations are no better than other people's gut checks. They are not helpful and undermine people making better arguments. He just tosses stuff out there. There is good reason to be concerned about doping in the sport. We should not turn a blind eye to the weakness of testing and how the various countries handle the issue (some not at all or corruptly). We also should not ignore concerning developments about coaches like Aden and how that might reflect on athletes who he coaches or athletes who were present. That said, there still can be great, clean runners. While a number of top runners may dope others can be clean. I just watch the sport with that in mind.

George Hirsch wrote:

Why doesn't someone ask him what he thinks is the fastest time someone should be allowed to run. His automatic accusations suggest a new rule--automatic disqualification to anyone who sets a world record, even if they have never failed a test.

Ben L Wrong wrote:

Because he's saying that testing is a joke (covered tests by NF's, IAAF bribery, silly excuses as "I didn't hear the doorbell", etc). Or inexistent for many East Africans -out of competition-.

And somehow, Rita Jeptoo managed to fail an out of competition test. In Kenya. How did that happen, Mr. Wrong?

This:

[/quote]

One of the best coaches in America. A fighter against doping.

But he doesn't only accuses the easy ones (Chinese/Moroccan athletes). He was against Alberto, too.[/quote]