Chooomsky wrote:
I am having my linguistics class look at your posts. Maybe someday your racism will become part of history! That's a positive way of looking at this thread!
I would love to hear what your students have to say about the thread, and this might even justify reading 12+ pages of posts on this. Please let us know.
Chooomsky wrote:
I am having my linguistics class look at your posts. Maybe someday your racism will become part of history! That's a positive way of looking at this thread!
Sooo...thinking that this race may have been fixed (for some pretty obvious reasons) is now racism?
Okaayyyyyy....
What the What wrote:
Chooomsky wrote:I am having my linguistics class look at your posts. Maybe someday your racism will become part of history! That's a positive way of looking at this thread!
Sooo...thinking that this race may have been fixed (for some pretty obvious reasons) is now racism?
Okaayyyyyy....
Just to be clear, I responded to this because I thought it would be interesting to hear what the linguistic students thought of the thread in general. I don't necessarily agree that the nonsensical conspiracy notion is racially motivated.
What the What wrote:
Chooomsky wrote:I am having my linguistics class look at your posts. Maybe someday your racism will become part of history! That's a positive way of looking at this thread!
Sooo...thinking that this race may have been fixed (for some pretty obvious reasons) is now racism?
Okaayyyyyy....
I think they are referring to the Africans being "dumb" and so would go along with this "conspiracy". But as my post points out the Africans would not do this because they are DUMBER than white people it is because the are SMARTER than white people and they "know the score". Of course this can be seen has racism against white people but to prove this we would have to prove there was a conspiracy, diiffcult to do.
Honestly, nobody in the general population really cares. Meb's win wasn't on the top of the news sites I just viewed. It isn't even in the top of Google News' sport section: you have to scroll down to find the story. If there was a "fix" shouldn't it be front and center everywhere?
I think the funny thing is that Ryan Hall basically told us the results were fixed, no? He said he impacted the race by telling others to slow down. That's the very definition of a fix. The question is whether he did it because he/others were paid to do so...or if they were just fixing the race because they wanted to see those results for everyone else. Either way, that was a fix.
Don't forget that Franklin Chepkwony slowed up at the end too. Is it really possible that both of them simultaneously bonked right when they were about to reel in Meb. Come on, seriously?
Hall was only talking about the other Americans (none of whom were likely to podium), and they could have simply ignored him.
Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:
And he ran sub-5 minute pace over the last 1.2 miles. I'm sorry, but that is not "struggling" at the end of a marathon. He was still averaging close to 2:08 pace over the last five miles of the race!
And I haven't checked Chebet's splits, but let's assume that you're right that Chebet ran "29:30 uphill from 30-40k." Uhhh....it's not hard to see why any runner--even a 2:05 marathoner--might struggle to close after running that hard for 10 kilometers at the end of a marathon. Instead of going for the most logical explanation (he got tired after running so hard), you figure he must be part of an (unnamed) conspiracy.
So, from these two paragraphs, Chebet ran out of gas while Meb Keflezighi was maintaining his pace. Yet, Chebet just about maintained the gap until the end (just lost 3s over more than 2 km). I'd love to bonk this way. Most people slow down when they run out of gas.
Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:
That defies credulity. That the 10-12 athletes in this field all - to a man - had bad days is a22 lso beyond belief, especially as the women benefited from the excellent weather to run fast times.They did not all have bad days. Chebet, Chepkwony, Shafar, and Geneti all ran times that would have won the majority of the Boston marathons over the past 15 years. And, no, the conditions yesterday were nothing like those in the 2011 race, where the runners were pushed by a 20 mph tailwind. The average wind speed yesterday was under 2 mph.
They did all have a bad day except for Chebet and Chepkwony. Do you think Micah Kogo is pleased with a 2:17? The two top stars with a DNF? What happened to Gebregziabher Gebremariam or Tilahun Regassa?
All this while all the US runners were having an excellent race except Ryan Hall, many breaking their PB. See
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/untold-story-american-teamwork-ryan-hall-helped-meb-keflezighi-win-boston/.
grox wrote:
All this while all the US runners were having an excellent race except Ryan Hall, many breaking their PB. See
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/untold-story-american-teamwork-ryan-hall-helped-meb-keflezighi-win-boston/.
Or the Kenyan women's winner setting a course record.
Yet the foreign men were the only one's struggling out there.
Kenyan Women - Course record
American Men - All PB's (except Hall)
Foreign Men - ohhh uhhh we all goofed up?
ConspiracyTheorist wrote:
I think the funny thing is that Ryan Hall basically told us the results were fixed, no? He said he impacted the race by telling others to slow down. That's the very definition of a fix. The question is whether he did it because he/others were paid to do so...or if they were just fixing the race because they wanted to see those results for everyone else. Either way, that was a fix.
Exactly. Not the worse type of fix. And the other competitors are still responsible for not doing something more sensible. But the fact that the US runners brag about using lame tactics to slow down better runners and that some people here seem to think that was bright takes my breath away. How about winning fairly? Wouldn't that be impressive?
grox wrote:
ConspiracyTheorist wrote:I think the funny thing is that Ryan Hall basically told us the results were fixed, no? He said he impacted the race by telling others to slow down. That's the very definition of a fix. The question is whether he did it because he/others were paid to do so...or if they were just fixing the race because they wanted to see those results for everyone else. Either way, that was a fix.
Exactly. Not the worse type of fix. And the other competitors are still responsible for not doing something more sensible. But the fact that the US runners brag about using lame tactics to slow down better runners and that some people here seem to think that was bright takes my breath away. How about winning fairly? Wouldn't that be impressive?
Ryan Hall knew half the story - the promoters wanted an American win. What was left out was that the 10-12 guys most likley to win were told they'd get a "performance bonus" of $85k (i.e. $160k for 2nd versus $150k for first) if an American finished ahead of them in 1rst. A simple, cheap fix that makes everybody think, "Boston Strong!".
I thought it was fix and kinda still do... but when I read this post, I can accept this answer, it's believable....I will never believe Meb had the ability to win this race, only in a dream world.....there are only 2 out comes I can believe. fix or what skeptic wrote....
Good write up by the Skeptic
the skeptic wrote:
Perhaps what happened was more of a noble gesture rather than a planned conspiracy.
- Meb was running well today.
- The competitors spontaneously decided to let him go out of a gesture of humanity.
- They caught up with him at the end to make the race more believable and exciting, but then clearly then had to back off at the end again to make certain that Meb won.
Is this so hard to believe? Last year's winner gave his medal back to Boston.
So letting Meb win is a similar sentiment. Like giving the win back to Boston. They would feel lame if they took that away from Boston at the very end. It would be sort of embarrassing.
Unlike Americans, East Africans have a little thing known as "honor" and "humanity". To them it's not all about the dollars.
I hate to say this, but I'm starting to think that the whack-job nutty loony conspiracy-heads might just have a point.
BUT: here's the problem.
Imagine for the sake of argument that the fix was in. Imagine that the BAA (or their black ops spokesman) had a private conversation with the dozen-odd top Kenyans and Ethiopians, the gist of which was, "Let an American win."
We know, now, that Meb had a career day and ran a PR, with no wind aid, that nobody could possibly have anticipated. He ran a hard, solid, daring, impeccable race, given the hand he was dealt. Nobody can possibly imagine that HE was part of the conspiracy. So he went out there and did something that he wasn't expected to do. He might have run exactly the same hard, daring race, for example, and then seriously died in the final mile or two. Or, more likely, he might have not run nearly as well. Or, still another option, Ryan Hall might have NOT gone out hard but have merely been part of the lead group for the first twenty miles, even as Meb struggled.
All of those options were the LIKELY options. Nobody could go into a "fixer" scenario--the BAA, I mean--anticipating that Meb would ran as he actually ran. His terrific day helps spawn conspiracy theories, but it also contains enough Cinderella story to COVER for a conspiracy.
But again: what Meb did (the PR, the very early breakaway) was, in essence, entirely unlikely and unforseeable.
So what happens, you conspiracy theorists, in the case of the other much more likely scenarios that I've laid out? What sort of conversation does the fixer have with the East Africans? How does it work? It's easy to suggest that they were told "Let an American win!," but it's much harder to imagine how that scenario works out in a satisfying way, with no CLEAR evidence of East African runners throwing it.
In other words, imagine the likely scenario: Meb and Ryan both hanging with the pack until 20 miles with neither of them making a decisive move. Imagine that one or the other of them is having the sort of day that Hall actually had yesterday, and falls off the pace. What are the "fixed" runners supposed to do? Just....lag?
Come on. That's silly. The problem with the conspiracy theory is that it can't stand up to reasonable counterfactual analysis. In ANY scenario but the one that actually took place this year--Meb having an amazing, unexpected breakaway PR--the fix would have been painfully evident. You'd have a bunch of East Africans at 20 miles, with Meb gone and Hall right there, and they're all waiting, waiting...nobody making a move. Suppose Hall falls off, or threatens to, at THAT point? Are they ALL supposed to slow?
But that is what would have had to happen, and it is what the fixer would have had to anticipate as a likely outcome and explain to those he "fixed."
That just seems unlikely to me. The likelihood of the race seeming to have been thrown would be too high.
troofiness wrote:
grox wrote:Exactly. Not the worse type of fix. And the other competitors are still responsible for not doing something more sensible. But the fact that the US runners brag about using lame tactics to slow down better runners and that some people here seem to think that was bright takes my breath away. How about winning fairly? Wouldn't that be impressive?
Ryan Hall knew half the story - the promoters wanted an American win. What was left out was that the 10-12 guys most likley to win were told they'd get a "performance bonus" of $85k (i.e. $160k for 2nd versus $150k for first) if an American finished ahead of them in 1rst. A simple, cheap fix that makes everybody think, "Boston Strong!".
Dude! What a brilliant theory! Until you spend ten seconds thinking it through.
If you're saying that the runners were all told that #2 would get a huge bonus if he let an American runner finish #1, you would have had an absolute zoo of a race. You'd have half a dozen East Africans in the final few miles, buzzing around whatever American was left, just waiting to step RIGHT behind him and claim the #2 (rather than the #3, 4, 5, etc.) spot.
That's idiotic. That theory goes down in flames.
I like the skeptic's theory.
grox wrote:
So, from these two paragraphs, Chebet ran out of gas while Meb Keflezighi was maintaining his pace. Yet, Chebet just about maintained the gap until the end (just lost 3s over more than 2 km). I'd love to bonk this way. Most people slow down when they run out of gas.
Wait...so now the problem is that Chebet did not slow down enough? One consistently amusing characteristic of you Boston-Marathon-Truthers is that you all constantly adjust your "theory" when someone points out that an aspect of it does not make sense. Eventually, your conspiracy theory takes a form that is logically inconsistent with what you argued a few posts earlier. But that doesn't seem to bother you. All that matters is that somehow, someway, you justify the conclusion that the race was fixed. It really is like conversing with someone who suffers from mental illness.
In any event, you apparently believe that the only plausible outcomes for Chebet were either to (a) maintain 4:30 per mile pace or (b) collapse to 6-minute or 7-minute miles. Yet again, you make strange assumptions that belie a lack of familiarity with elite racing. You're projecting your own (surely non-elite) racing performances onto elite athletes.
Trollie McSockpuppet wrote:
That defies credulity. That the 10-12 athletes in this field all - to a man - had bad days is a22 lso beyond belief, especially as the women benefited from the excellent weather to run fast times.They did not all have bad days. Chebet, Chepkwony, Shafar, and Geneti all ran times that would have won the majority of the Boston marathons over the past 15 years. And, no, the conditions yesterday were nothing like those in the 2011 race, where the runners were pushed by a 20 mph tailwind. The average wind speed yesterday was under 2 mph.
They did all have a bad day except for Chebet and Chepkwony. Do you think Micah Kogo is pleased with a 2:17? The two top stars with a DNF? What happened to Gebregziabher Gebremariam or Tilahun Regassa?[/quote]
Look at the results of every elite marathon race--the Olympics, Boston, New York, etc. There are always a bunch of contenders who either finish way back or drop out. This is not a 5,000 meter race on the track.
All this while all the US runners were having an excellent race except Ryan Hall, many breaking their PB. See
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/untold-story-american-teamwork-ryan-hall-helped-meb-keflezighi-win-boston/.
You're just making shit up. "All of the US runners were having an excellent race except Ryan Hall"? Brett Gotcher ran 2:17, nearly seven minutes slower than in his debut marathon. Olympian Abdi Abdirahman ran 2:16. And, of course, Hall ran 13 minutes slower than his Boston PR.
So, how do Gotcher and Abdirahman factor into the conspiracy? I'm confident you can revise your theory accordingly.
Several weird things about this race. Here are a couple of doozies.
1) Josephat Boit, a 2:14 American guy, started pacing Meb up front and not one legit African guy went with them. This unusual two man break wasn't even fast enough to qualify as a surge. If you watched Boston the past several years, the Africans have never hung back like that. No reason to, even if they underestimated Meb, as some of the apologists are saying. Maybe if Meb threw in a 14:40 5k I could understand, but his break at mile 8 came in the middle of a 15+ minute 5k pace.
2) Chebet and Chepkwony BOTH staying a few seconds back, even after reeling Meb in. I can sort of accept the fact that one guy could get close and then just maintain pace at the end, but not two. It was especially weird to watch it live. It just didn't make sense to see both guys just sort of hover in the background not gaining ground. You could even see Chebet looking back at Chepkwony with about a mile left, acting as if he was just interested in holding position even though he appeared to be gaining on Meb.
good points...but I like the idea of "noble gesture theory"....there is just no way all the african/kenyans men simultaneously had a bad day yet the women run times of the charts
thanks "skeptic for your point of view" and for giving me peace of mind/and thinking outside the box
BTW: I remember letting my little brothers and sisters win when we were kids.....felt good, and I bet the Kenyans and ethiopians do to.....everybody's happy, good story, and after today, the Kenyan and Ethiopians will continue to Dominant major marathons like we know they should, if anyone really going to beat them, it won't be with a so called modern 2:08 pace, the only way it can be done is running a minimum of 2:06 or faster. This is the real world.
BigDaddyWooWoo wrote:
BTW: I remember letting my little brothers and sisters win when we were kids.....felt good, and I bet the Kenyans and ethiopians do to
Were tens of thousands of dollars at stake when you let your brothers and sisters win? And keep in mind that the difference between first and second (or first and third) far exceeds what the average East African worker earns in a lifetime. I think this is why the Boston Marathon Truthers are attracted to the conspiracy theory--they feel like the East African runners would not forego a chance to win without a payout in advance.
if anyone really going to beat them, it won't be with a so called modern 2:08 pace, the only way it can be done is running a minimum of 2:06 or faster. This is the real world.
Here are the top 7 finishers from last year's Boston Marathon:
1 Lelisa Desisa (Ethiopia) 2:10:22
2 Micah Kogo (Kenya) 2:10:27
3 Gebregziabher Gebremariam (Ethiopia) 2:10:28
4 Jason Hartmann (United States) 2:12:12
5 Wesley Korir (Kenya) 2:12:30
6 Markos Geneti (Ethiopia) 2:12:44
7 Dickson Chumba (Kenya) 2:14:08
East Africans finished 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7th. All had PRs between 2:04 and 2:06. Did they all conspire to let Desisa win?
Are all the Boston marathons won in slower than 2:06 (in other words, every Boston marathon ever run that was not significantly wind-aided) the result of a conspiracy to let the first-place finisher win?