Fwen wrote:
How would joe or Jane rent a cop at an airport know enough to contact wada or USada. How would they even know what epo is and what it is used for?how much was he carrying?
You're seriously not that stupid are you? The TSA aren't rent-a-cops and they are not fools. Anything liquid in your bags they are going to know what it's for. If you're packing prescriptions drugs (EPO) without an actual prescription you've got
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/TOS.phpaproblem.
Music man wrote:
The TSA aren't rent-a-cops and they are not fools.
You are giving them way too much credit. They did get the Arab looking guy. I am sure that they don't racial profile.
I will acknowledge that I didn't read every post, so that being said, can he really call it retiring when he's getting banned/kicked out?
Guys and gals, TSA likely had nothing to do with it. Erythropoietin is not an illegal drug; it keeps people with renal failure, post chemo patients, etc. alive. It is however, a banned substance for athletes competing in sports governed by WADA, IOC, and IAAF (USADA, USOC, and USATF adhere to the code of these international sport governing bodies).
In the United States, sports doping is not a criminal offense and USADA does not press criminal charges. The pro athletes we hear of in lawsuits or facing criminal charges (Marion Jones serving 6 months, for example) are being convicted or sued for lying under oath, fraud, etc. This is not a personal opinion as to the extent to which doping is a "crime"; it is merely a statement of the legal aspects of the scenario. USADA cannot "arrest" anyone or "take them away in cuffs". What they can do is sanction an athlete and remove their eligibility to compete (personal and moral fallout aside).
So it would be foolish and pointless for Trafeh to "run for it" (no pun intended) - USADA/WADA would just say okay, see ya later, you're banned for xxx years. I surmise that someone FINALLY had some solid, concrete evidence against Trafeh, or just finally had the balls to blow the whistle, and tipped USADA. Based on that evidence, USADA intercepted him on this little mission of his. I imagine Trafeh strolling through the airport terminal and someone approaches him and says, "Hello, Mr. Mo Trafeh? I'm ______ _______, a doping control officer with United States Anti Doping Agency. May we have a word"? To which Mr. Trafeh responds, "Oh, Fuh........" Game over.
No, I don't have insider info. I just read a lot of the actual reporting on these things all the way back to the FESTINA scandal (98 Tour de France). Yes, in my parents' basement. With my DIH.
All that aside, what amazes me that it was apparently SO well known on the pro and semi pro circuit that Mo was dirty, but none of these elites or 2nd tier elites (absolutely not an insult, I respect these guys more than the ones with the big contracts) came forward.
Okay, back to World of Warcraft.
Music man wrote:
Fwen wrote:How would joe or Jane rent a cop at an airport know enough to contact wada or USada. How would they even know what epo is and what it is used for?how much was he carrying?
You're seriously not that stupid are you? The TSA aren't rent-a-cops and they are not fools. Anything liquid in your bags they are going to know what it's for. If you're packing prescriptions drugs (EPO) without an actual prescription you've got
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/TOS.phpaproblem.
Most TSA are decidedly average; it's a relatively low-paying job. I know people that work there. Most would have no idea what EPO is.
Except, if you want it to be any good, you need to keep it refrigerated. So I would speculate he tried to bring it through in a thermos on on ice. That's going to be hard to hide and generate some questions.
TSA wrote:
if you want it to be any good, you need to keep it refrigerated. So I would speculate he tried to bring it through in a thermos on on ice. That's going to be hard to hide and generate some questions.
That would be surprising if he did that, as epo is apparently so easy to get in the states.
I still wonder why anyone would bother though, as it's such a dumb thing to do.
Just drinking plenty of fresh carrot and green leafy juices every morning is much much better than any type of artificial synthetic drug.
The witch hunts are nothing more than bogus advertising of big pharma drugs that are not necessary and don't do anything to aid performance over what people can do with natural means.
J.R. wrote:
TSA wrote:if you want it to be any good, you need to keep it refrigerated. So I would speculate he tried to bring it through in a thermos on on ice. That's going to be hard to hide and generate some questions.
That would be surprising if he did that, as epo is apparently so easy to get in the states.
I still wonder why anyone would bother though, as it's such a dumb thing to do.
Just drinking plenty of fresh carrot and green leafy juices every morning is much much better than any type of artificial synthetic drug.
The witch hunts are nothing more than bogus advertising of big pharma drugs that are not necessary and don't do anything to aid performance over what people can do with natural means.
have you told lance armstrong and rashid ramzi?
If you're reading this thread, you'll probably enjoy this pic:
http://www.start2finish.com/2011/Photo/r091711.jpg
Stranger than fiction folks!
me... wrote:
have you told lance armstrong and rashid ramzi?
No, but I did tell you.
J.R. wrote:
Just drinking plenty of fresh carrot and green leafy juices every morning is much much better than any type of artificial synthetic drug.
Haha, classic, one of your best yet. Better, as in better for your health, yes. Better, as in helping you run faster (compared to an artificial synthetic PED), no.
Millions of $ in scientific testing etc and athlete use tells us you're wrong.
You forum rats make me crazy. Every, and I do mean every, professional runner who has been around for more than a few years has had to make a choice about drugs. And it's not as easy as you think it should be. The pressure can be quite intense and comes from many directions, some of which are unexpected and can come as a shock.
What really gets me is how you message board people are so quick to crucify someone who made the wrong choice, yet you are the same people pressuring athletes to use by berating them when they do not preform. If I have a few great races, I'm on drugs. If I have a bad race, I'm all washed up. How can I win?
I don't want to defend the use of drugs because I'm strongly against them myself, but I would like people to be more understanding. Sometimes the prevalence at high levels of competition makes it seem like less of a big deal. Imagine you are at a work training session where everyone who scores above 90 on the test gets a $1000 bonus. Just before the test your manager starts handing out a cheat sheet with all the answers. All your other coworkers take the cheat sheet and are laughing and joking about it like it's no big deal. What would you do? Really think about it. Would you actually give up the $1000 just because you think it's wrong even though everyone else seems okay with it?
I wish people would give runners their support instead of ridiculing them when they aren't running well. It's really hard to maintain a peak and even harder to get back to your peak. Trying to get back is where a lot of people give in to the temptation of using. Some of us just retire rather than face it. One of my friends continues to fight the clean fight, but is constantly chastised on this forum for not preforming like he once did. Fans need to understand that most people can't stay at their peak for long periods of time. Turning your back on them would be like all the Kobe fans saying he was washed up after his 50+ game streak ended and he went back to scoring 30 points a game.
mob wrote:
What really gets me is how you message board people are so quick to crucify someone who made the wrong choice,
only the idiots berate an individual athlete like mo for choosing to dope
the problem is that the 'smart' fans and people who have worked in pro sport know what's going on behind the scenes
all the time the illusion of clean pro sport and effective drug testing is maintained
it's a charade and the sooner the whole thing is exposed for what it is the better
J.R. wrote:
Just drinking plenty of fresh carrot and green leafy juices every morning is much much better than any type of artificial synthetic drug.
Haha, classic. wrote:
Haha, classic, one of your best yet. Better, as in better for your health, yes.
Thank you.
Better, as in helping you run faster (compared to an artificial synthetic PED), no.
Actually, YES.
All other things being equal, better health = faster.
Synthetic drugs either have no effect, or more often cause decrease in performance due to the problems they cause. You can look inside of any hospital and see people getting worse AND DYING because of the drugs.
More drugs = worse health = decrease in performance.
Millions of $ in scientific testing etd and athlete use tells us you're wrong.
What you mean to say is millions of bogus advertisements foisted upon a well conditioned and ignorant public that readily thinks how they are told to by the corporate media.
just sayin wrote:
mob wrote:What really gets me is how you message board people are so quick to crucify someone who made the wrong choice,
only the idiots berate an individual athlete like mo for choosing to dope
the problem is that the 'smart' fans and people who have worked in pro sport know what's going on behind the scenes
all the time the illusion of clean pro sport and effective drug testing is maintained
it's a charade and the sooner the whole thing is exposed for what it is the better
No. The idiots are the people defending and/or supporting a drug cheat.
And that is exactly what you are doing. Mo is a big boy and made a decision all on his own. He is now dealing with the consequences of his decision.
I hate the ins lizard wrote:
[quote]just sayin wrote:
[quote]mob wrote:
No. The idiots are the people defending and/or supporting a drug cheat.
And that is exactly what you are doing. Mo is a big boy and made a decision all on his own. He is now dealing with the consequences of his decision.
maybe that was badly phrased
what i meant was
the bigger picture of what is going on in pro sport is more important than an individual athlete's decision to dope and the fallout from that
doping is rife and will remain so
I just want to be clear that I do not know Mo well and I was not defending him or defending drugs or cheating. I was just saying how I think it's crazy that the same people who demand superman results will jump on the guys back when he gives them what they want. It seems what most of you really want is a blindfold.
this is actually exactly how they caught eddy hellybuyck (sp?), so you're probably not that farfetched. still stupid as can be though, he has zero obligation to allow them to search his bag, so he must have been caught by the TSA or, more likely, Customs & Border Patrol as he passed through immigration (much stronger security there than w/ TSA. whoever is the CBP officer who busted him deserves a bonus for doing so.
I just read spy books wrote:
Guys and gals, TSA likely had nothing to do with it. Erythropoietin is not an illegal drug; it keeps people with renal failure, post chemo patients, etc. alive. It is however, a banned substance for athletes competing in sports governed by WADA, IOC, and IAAF (USADA, USOC, and USATF adhere to the code of these international sport governing bodies).
In the United States, sports doping is not a criminal offense and USADA does not press criminal charges. The pro athletes we hear of in lawsuits or facing criminal charges (Marion Jones serving 6 months, for example) are being convicted or sued for lying under oath, fraud, etc. This is not a personal opinion as to the extent to which doping is a "crime"; it is merely a statement of the legal aspects of the scenario. USADA cannot "arrest" anyone or "take them away in cuffs". What they can do is sanction an athlete and remove their eligibility to compete (personal and moral fallout aside).
So it would be foolish and pointless for Trafeh to "run for it" (no pun intended) - USADA/WADA would just say okay, see ya later, you're banned for xxx years. I surmise that someone FINALLY had some solid, concrete evidence against Trafeh, or just finally had the balls to blow the whistle, and tipped USADA. Based on that evidence, USADA intercepted him on this little mission of his. I imagine Trafeh strolling through the airport terminal and someone approaches him and says, "Hello, Mr. Mo Trafeh? I'm ______ _______, a doping control officer with United States Anti Doping Agency. May we have a word"? To which Mr. Trafeh responds, "Oh, Fuh........" Game over.
No, I don't have insider info. I just read a lot of the actual reporting on these things all the way back to the FESTINA scandal (98 Tour de France). Yes, in my parents' basement. With my DIH.
All that aside, what amazes me that it was apparently SO well known on the pro and semi pro circuit that Mo was dirty, but none of these elites or 2nd tier elites (absolutely not an insult, I respect these guys more than the ones with the big contracts) came forward.
Okay, back to World of Warcraft.
Harry Carey wrote:
For a long time now, I have sat on the sidelines watching the BroJos throw cringe-worthy, supposedly "tough" questions at athletes, and this time I really have to weigh in.
Most of the people on this thread--including *especially* Rojo and Wejo--are misrecognizing what is wrong with the questions that Trafeh found "insulting." In fact, Trafeh's irritated response is part of what's allowing people to think that what's at issue here is some choice between "nice"(read: easy) questions and "mean" (read: tough) questions, where "mean" equals hard-hitting skeptical journalism and "nice" equals fawning puff-piece journalism.
But what's wrong with the questions sent to Trafeh wasn't that they were "mean" or "tough" or lacked "tact."
What's wrong with them is that *they were all leading questions.* As a journalist, as a lawyer, as a teacher--and I'm sure in many other professions--you learn early on that simply making a statement and then adding "right?" to it effectively forecloses the very dialogue you are trying to establish. Not only are you asking a question to which there is only one of two possible, monosyllabic answers ("yes" or "no"), but by forcing the interviewee only to engage with the statement you yourself have made, you radically curb any interesting elaboration from the get-go.
Again, this is not about being "tactful" or "nice" (but it is about recognizing that you can ask "tough" questions that aren't leading ones!). This is about recognizing that this is a situation about which your knowledge (and the knowledge of your readers) is severely limited--it's why you're asking questions in the first place--and because of that you cannot know the extent of what you don't know; and as a result, you cannot know every question you need to ask.
Good interviewing, which *is* "tough" interviewing, is not just about barreling down one line of inquiry as forcefully as possible. It's about following one path in order to uncover others. Leading questions, yes-or-no questions, statements masquerading as questions because they end with "right?"--these are precisely the opposite ways of accomplishing that. And this is why "why?" and "how?" questions are so valued--a basic point, but one that clearly needs emphasizing based on the "interview" that was posed to Trafeh.
The reason all of this is so frustrating for fans both of the sport and of Letsrun is that club-footed questions like the ones posed to Trafeh, under the guise of being "tough," are so transparently leading that someone like Trafeh has no incentive to engage with them. So an opportunity to learn more about an episode that is fairly significant within the current landscape of doping and USA track and field is effectively lost. We end up learning nothing that we don't already know.
+1
Did anyone else watch the Chris Derrick interview and think that he was biting his tongue and just dying to call out Rupp when he was talking about the few others he had suspicions about?
