Christian Hesch doping article in the NY Times/Competitor.com

Mr VP, I completely understand where you're coming from. However, you appear to have been personally offended by one of the Brojos as shown in your anger laced posts towards them. Posts like yours are what make Letsrun interesting to read. I don't always agree with the Brojos but it is honestly refreshing to see a popular running website expressing their opinions instead of taking the neutral angle. I give the Brojos credit for giving their honest input, whether it be popular or not, knowing that their identity is known. It is much easier to speak freely when masked in anonymity such as ourselves.

So does this explain why Mo Trafeh always does great at small races (likely without drug testing) and terrible at big races with drug testing?? (i.e US Trials)

vp of Sales wrote:

I understand how irrelevant you must feel. But is pointing out a few typos really how you want to get attention?

Typos? Oh, no, no -- those aren't typos. A typo is a typing error. Those are errors of diction. You were trying to use big words to impress, but instead you came across as a fool.

I just figured someone ought to tell you about the toilet paper hanging out of the back of your pants.

I actually agree somewhat with what you were trying to say, though.

So, is Christian already hawking a book proposal?

The way this has unfolded suggests it's part of his end game.

Bob Dobbs wrote:

Typos? Oh, no, no -- those aren't typos. A typo is a typing error. Those are errors of diction. You were trying to use big words to impress, but instead you came across as a fool.

I just figured someone ought to tell you about the toilet paper hanging out of the back of your pants.

I actually agree somewhat with what you were trying to say, though.

You are contributing nothing.

wejo wrote:

3) I think we should be most upset for Christian for his decision to dope not because his piece on competitor.com was published only 10 minutes before a piece in the NYTimes.

Upset FOR Christian?

You're so much gentler with this doper than with those you don't know personally.

You and your brother have raged against other "cheats," people like Regina Jacobs and Mark Block, but you're "upset for Christian."

You're obviously much too close to your sources.

I do not find it surprising that someone who engages in obnoxious finishline antics is a poor sportsperson. I am referring to the Hesch story. What is surprising are the folks on this list who confess to having looked up to him when there are so many intelligent and humble competitors who are truly in this sport for the right reasons; many of whom are faster, if that Is what matters when choosing your role models.

Somehow the fact that Hesch is doping to achieve marginal post-collegiate success seems all the more pathetic. Not that the pursuit of wealth ever justifies cheating, but at least one can see the external motivation when millions and world titles are at stake. In this case it would seem to be some feeble need for attention from the very few who actually notice. Really, all but the true aficionados have absolutely no idea who the hell Hesch is.. Time to grow up and get some perspective. Hesch should not get a second chance, and should be interrogated about the others He casually mentioned who are shopping in Mexico and smuggling illegal drugs back into the States.

Most importantly, those who looked up to this person should pause and reflect. You can do better.

The Japanese wrote:

I was thinking about the Japanese athletes, too. Sure, There had been some Japanese athletes caught doping.

Who? Can you provide a link to back that up? I've never heard of a single Japanese runner being caught doping, ever.

Not an official and complete list, but still pretty good. There are 4 Japanese on it - two are martial artists that got busted for weed, one baseball player that did roids, and one motor cycle racer that was on speed.

One (1) of those is performance enhancing. Oh no.

might be wejo wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_sport

Not an official and complete list, but still pretty good. There are 4 Japanese on it - two are martial artists that got busted for weed, one baseball player that did roids, and one motor cycle racer that was on speed.

I'd be careful reading too much into any list like that. Generally speaking it's up to the national sports governing bodies to find and ban dopers. Many of them are not doing their jobs, or worse, are in cahoots with the cheaters.

Case in point, there are only 7 Chinese athletes on that list. Now, I would never say the Japanese are as bad as the Chinese - there is a very strong moral codex in Japan - but they are not the kind of people who air their dirty laundry in public.

Another case in point are Spanish cyclists. The Spanish cycling federation is notorious for dragging their feet on, or covering up doping cases involving their own riders. And Spanish athletes tend to dramatically over-perform in international competitions relative to the size and wealth of their country. Should be interesting to hear Dr. Fuentes spill the beans - he has claimed to a journalist that many of the World Cup-winning Spanish soccer players were among his clients.

There are way more US athletes on the list than anyone else. That's a problem. But it's also evidence that the US is making an effort to combat doping. (It's also evidence that the list was probably compiled by an American who had better access to stories about US athletes). This is one of the reasons I applaud USADA for going after Armstrong in spite of public opinion. The Spanish turned a blind eye to ACTIVE doping riders like Contador and Valverde for years.

I guess you have a different definition of denigrate than me.

If I'm doing my job athletes will be uncomfortable at times. But your examples above aren't the best.

1) At least 12 hours after it was publicly revealed that Martin Fagan had tested positive for EPO, I asked Abdi who had trained with Fagan about it. I did not know that Abdi did not know about it. However, to let Abdi be prepared for the questioning I even said before I started, "I'm going to ask you about Martin Fagan." He said, "Ok."

2) As for Galen Rupp, he broke Lagat's's AR, Lagat broke His AR hours apart. It makes perfect sense to ask Rupp what his reaction to his AR going down is. I did that.

As for,

we don't prescreen content but we do have a "report a post" function and take it seriously. Most people can distinguish between what someone else points and the editorial content of letsrun.com.

Running is so minor league that most athletes aren't used to being treated major league. I urge you to go to a NY Yankees forum right now and see what they are saying. The fans boo their team in the ALCS. Yet with running some have the impression everything is supposed to be positive.

I take a lot of pride in being credentialed as a journalists at the Olympics and received a lot of positive feedback from my questioning of Carmelita Jeter.

So Cal Pete wrote:

The article bears almost zero resemblance to the actual progression of incidents as they occurred.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote So Cal Pete but not that part. My read on Stephen's piece is he does not have a lot of the story before September. At the end of the day however, Hesch was confronted by USADA and decided to confess so saying that isn't inaccurate. It isn't the whole picture. But if you leave out the first sequence of events but report the second, the progression is still right.

And I think the editor should make it clear that for much of the story the only source is Hesch. As I was reading it I was well aware of, "this is Christian Hesch's versions of events".

Pete why should we trust in the testing..., there must now be a level of suspicion surrounding the So Cal runners don't you think?

Wejo - I agree that people like you and me will read the article that way.

Here's my main problem in a nutshell:

1) The beginning of the story is wrong. It gives the impression that Hesch was at the tail-end of EPO used when an empty vial was discovered, and that Hesch stopped racing almost immediately. In fact, full vials were discovered (and one photographed) eight months before Hesch was finally forced to admit EPO use and quit racing - every single race he's run since last February was post-discovery of his full vials.

2) The ending of the story is wrong. Hesch didn't confess because he was confronted by USADA - he'd already devised and related a strategy to dispute those charges in his second interview with Scott Douglas. He confessed because Douglas had catalogued - during a more than month-long investigation - a progression of lies, denials, and accusations of a frame by Hesch that, while not bullet proof (hence RW's decision not to publish), could only be perceived in the eventually-to-be-published article as the defense of a serial liar and cheat. When Douglas proposed a third interview in which Hesch would confront those he was trying to paint as conspirators against him, Hesch immediately sought out another reporter to write a version of events more favorable to Hesch. Kasica was that reporter, and less than a week later Hesch's "confession" became the source for this whole thing.

So the reporter missed the correct beginning, middle, AND end to this story, instead providing a parachute landing for a guy willing to cheat his peers and, at the end of the day, throw his clubmates under the bus if it meant beating USADA charges. Only RW's pressure brought this story to its conclusion. Kasica was completely aware of the RW investigation, and in choosing to completely ignore its role, he allowed himself to become a pawn of Hesch.

Yeah, I agree with you. It's Hesch's version of events. It shouldn't be read as more than that. But the NY Times owed it's readers that disclaimer.

Bottom Line: Like you, I'm happy that another cheat is caught. But I'm unhappy that the actual version of events will forever play second fiddle to a demonstrably false version of events that is sympathetic to someone who thumbed him nose at all of us in this sport.

Did any of you even read Mario Fraioli's article about how this played out?

http://running.competitor.com/2012/10/staff-blog/staff-blog-anything-for-eyeballs_60384

The NY Times article was published by someone functioning as a mouthpiece for Christian Hesch. The only objective piece on the matter, so far, is Scott Douglas's on RW Newsline. So Cal Pete has it exactly right. It's hard to imagine more bullshit creeping into an already grim story.

The Magic is in Believing wrote:

Pete why should we trust in the testing..., there must now be a level of suspicion surrounding the So Cal runners don't you think?

If you think it's only So Cal runners who should be under suspicion these days, then you're living under a rock. Seriously, I'm so depressed about the drug situation in our sport that some days I think I should just toss out the Nikes.

I wrote a column in Running Times a year ago after 4 masters were suspended for PED use. Wejo and I had traded emails on the subject previously. I'd complained that he shouldn't allow threads accusing masters of drug use, since by and large we didn't. He said I was naive. He was right. It killed me to write that column, especially since I'd solicited emails from masters in advance, promising them anonymity if they'd tell me the truth about drug use. Let's just say that testosterone cream isn't just for low testosterone anymore.

And then there's the Kenyan doping scandal. And the HUGE drop in 5000 times the exact same year that synthetic EPO went on the market.

And there are people like Hesch (fyi, from my peripheral involvement in the RW story, I'm aware of the other "so cal" people involved with the Tijuana pharamacies - there are two of them according to Hesch's confession to a teammate, but I won't give their names because my info is second-hand - and because I got it off the record - and no one should be publicly named as a potential PED user unless we absolutely know it's true ... it's the old genie in the bottle thing; we can never fully undo a false accusation).

Look, I'm going to be 100% honest here. I'm like a lot of LetsRun posters. I hear an unbelievable time, and the first thing that crosses my mind is, "Drugs?" But then I scold myself. Because that's not fair. You know, threads pop up on LetsRun accusing me of PED use (one popped up yesterday), and I'm clean - but I can also see how some people might wonder how a 50-year-old runs 15:02 and 31:11. You know how? Because I train smart and I'm lucky as hell. But I can't prove that. None of us can "prove" we're clean in an age where athletes get away with cheating in every sport all the time!

So I don't know how to answer you, Magic is in Believing. You're right that we can't trust anyone. You're right that we can't trust testing. But we won't have a sport if we don't trust runners who've given us no reason to distrust them. If I race a half-dozen times in non-money races in a year, fighting injury and not racing for 9 months of that year, does that sound like a drug cheat? Because that's what I did last year. If you know a kid who starts out as a 15:10 5K runner in his early twenties, then trains his ass off for 10 years, never slacking, to become a 14:35 5K runner, does that sound like a drug cheat? Because I know a local runner who did that (and it's for guys like him that I get so furious at guys like Hesch, who steal finish tapes and glory from hard-working local guys).

The answer, I think, is that we start by trusting ourselves, by training correctly and ethically. And then we trust the guys we train with, clubmates and running buddies. And then we trust the guys and gals we've known through the years, whose ups and downs and success and failures and injuries and etc. all match our experiences of this sport. And then we just go from there, training and competing and hoping that others will share our vision.

Or we throw out our Nikes.

Today, I'm gonna keep the Nikes.

Pete, can you clarify why one would carry a refrigerated product around in their Jacket Pockets???

No, C'mon, I can't clarify why someone would carry around EPO in his pockets. You'll have to ask Hesch.