Solomon suddenly world class and Rupp soloing 3.50 indoor miles - Come on Letsun, ask the questions!

A Duck wrote:

Listen, you've got the equation wrong.

When I used to just post mellow, just the facts, the only thing that happened was more idiots flooding the site with attack posts.

By getting louder and more active, you can at least complain about me, or as others have done, realize I am making real points based on real data.

I just didn't bake the idea that elites won't be interviewed here, they've told me.

No, I haven't. What you don't get is that theres more people reading this posts, than commenting on them. Do you get that? Even if the posters doesn't hail you and your sound fact based comments, that doesn't mean nobody reads them.

The best thing you could do is to act normal, and take on the brojos in a sound, intellectual and fact based matter. That would make them look HORRIBLE.

But not, all you do is acting like a crazy kid, making anyone wanting to agree with your opinions dislike you.

Dont you get basic psychology?

This behaviour of yours pushes people away. Your behaviour destroys whatever your arguments are.

A Duck wrote:

So Usain Bolt is an Endurance Athlete?

You're an idiot.

In the context of this thread,

In the context of this thread we're discussing endurance runners, do you need the obvious stated for you?, if you do then you are truly an idiot. Anyway, here you are:

Endurance Cycling = Endurance - Endurance Running = Endurance

Lance said, when talking about doping, it's not just about cycling "...it's about ALL endurance sports.". Distance running, as in the context of this thread, is an endurance sport. So, according to Lance, this must be one of the "endurance sports" that has doping. Get it?, idiot.

You think:

"not including governing bodies and the fact that UCI hesitated and flip flopped on Bio Passports when IAAF did not, is MORE RELEVANT."

Good for you, go for it, I'm not arguing with you.

A Duck wrote:

Moronic wrote:

"The two sports have nothing to do with each other..."

Cycling = Endurance - Running = Endurance

Get it?, idiot.

So Usain Bolt is an Endurance Athlete?

You're an idiot.

In the context of this thread, not including governing bodies and the fact that UCI hesitated and flip flopped on Bio Passports when IAAF did not, is MORE RELEVANT.

To answer your question re Bolt, why would you even ask that? When I quite clearly wrote the following:

"Moronic wrote:

...cycling and running(in the context of this thread), both endurance sports. Idiot."

You truly are an idiot.

"When I quite clearly wrote the following:", not only did I quite clearly write it but you even quoted me on it. Haha, you've regressed from an idiot to a total idiot.

A Duck wrote:

Free speech doesn't cover slander.

Amen. And without their anonymity that the internet provides them, these cowards would run and hide. What is going on here is not "asking tough questions", or discussing generalities, it is specifically targeting performers and individuals over someone's unsubstantiated pet peeves. All from people who are under the delusion they are somehow helping the sport. What a crock.

Perhaps someday we will see the likes of Nike, with their money, have enough of this and use their backing to go after those that allow this type of slandering to go on by these cowards unchecked.

You have done a great job of making your points. But you are speaking to an insecure, immature bunch of brain dead people. Save your breath. These people are not worth another second.

odelltrclan wrote:

Amen. And without their anonymity that the internet provides them, these cowards would run and hide. What is going on here is not "asking tough questions", or discussing generalities, it is specifically targeting performers and individuals over someone's unsubstantiated pet peeves. All from people who are under the delusion they are somehow helping the sport. What a crock.

Perhaps someday we will see the likes of Nike, with their money, have enough of this and use their backing to go after those that allow this type of slandering to go on by these cowards unchecked.

You have done a great job of making your points. But you are speaking to an insecure, immature bunch of brain dead people. Save your breath. These people are not worth another second.

Hello there Troy,

I'm not saying there aren't too much evidence-lacking accusations going on here or in other threads, but are you really saying no questions about Rupp is allowed?

Where were you when people questioned Makhloufi?

What kind of questions do you, king of free speech, consider to be OK to ask and discuss?

What athletes can we discuss, only africans?

"All from people who are under the delusion they are somehow helping the sport. What a crock."

How many people have claimed this? Few to none. Therefor, Troy, this sentence is a lie.

"You have done a great job of making your points."

No he haven't, he may have a good point now and then, as many others, but he covers it in absolutely childish behaviour with lame insults who only pushes people away from agreeing with him and into disliking the NOP.

A Duck makes it worse, simply because he cant behave.

"What is going on here is not "asking tough questions", or discussing generalities"

So nobody on letsrun can discuss a certain person, it all have to be general questions, is that what you are saying Troy?

why should fans be expected to believe?

considering the history of cycling and track and field

A DUCK

maybe you should read up on the history of lance armstrong and people like david walsh and paul kimmage who called him out years ago!

or do you wish it never happened?

A Duck,

When Rojo/wejo get in front of Rupp/AlSal and ask the QUESTION what do do you think the answer will be? Do you think there would be anything gained from that question being raised?

How many times did Lance say "YES I dope" after being asked the question? I'll answer; ZERO times, zero.

The way in which you scream and yell I'm assuming you're fearful for the truth to come forward.

There are people who do know the truth behind all if this; some have shared their experience with the media/USADA; others are waiting because of the possible repercussions to their lives and livelihood.

Hey A Duck, If you're going to pee and moan about anonymous posters, shouldn't you sign your true name? What are you afraid of? Is that all these supposed elite athlete friends are imaginary and exist only in your head? Put up or shut up.

Haha. That made me laugh, even if it's not true. Jager, Fernandez, Bumbalough, and (sort of) Derrick come to mind.

Well congrats to "A Duck" for posting 30 times on this thread since midnight. This clearly for you is not about having a discussion but about all of us agreeing with your viewpoint. It's just not going to happen. Apparently we are all supposed to know magically the athletes it is ok to ask questions about and how many questions it is ok to ask.You have not given any guidelines on how we are supposed to magically determine which discussions should or should not be allowed. Apparently limited Maklouhfi discussions are ok, but only in a limited manner.On on top of that somehow we are supposed to determine the veracity of posts. You act like we're supposed to be able to determine whether a post is true or false. That is much easier said than done. We have said with doping threads we will have a more hands off approach. The pro athletes who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on the sport I think can handle it.Now onto one point.

First of all, people making immature jokes about Galen Rupp's name is not a hate crime. Let's get a little perspective here.

I disagree with the poster who implied we should let such posts stay up. We try and have a certain level of discourse and homophobic posts are not something we want on here. I won't discuss this point too much but I see the posts as being more hurtful to gays than Galen Rupp. It's not the perfect analogy as sexuality is a very personal subject, but if I call you blonde and you have brown hair you're not going to be offended unless there is something wrong with having blonde air. I think the same thing applies to the "GAY"len Rupp posts.

I wish people had not made these posts. We removed them when we were made aware of them. We have over the years continued to implement better moderation techniques but have never pre-screened posts and don't intend to start.

So "we allowed" people to post whatever they wanted. That is how a message board works. Just like in any community online or real, there are trouble makers. And some of them posted the immature posts referenced. Since we don't pre-screen posts, people read them. When things worked well our moderators were made aware of them and they were deleted.

The Rupp posts continued in high volume even with our moderators deleting them and too many were falling through the cracks, so we decided to go one step further. Years ago we implemented a filter so the words "Gay" and "Rupp" could not be posted in the same post. If you wanted to post about Tyson Gay and Galen Rupp in the same thread it could not be done. This is the only athlete we have ever implemented such a filter for.

We removed this filter in the past year because someone wrote wondering why there post wasn't working and I realized it was because it was talking about Tyson Gay and Galen Rupp. Since then we have not had as many problems.

"A Duck" says I posted on these threads where these posts existed. I have no idea of knowing this but I don't pretend to read every post in a thread I post on so it is possible.

I believe most of the letsrun community does not want people making homophobic remarks about an athlete. I believe most people can also see that these are immature trouble makers. Just like when I'm reading an article on the Washington Post and I see some hateful comments in the comments section. People are able to not give this speech too much thought. Would it be better if the posts didn't occur? Yes. Is that how things are going to work with an open forum? No.

I generally don't comment on my personal interactions with athletes and/or coaches and I love how you now speak for Galen and his family.

I personally apologized to Galen in Edinburgh a couple of years ago right after he got married because I heard he was upset that someone on here had found his online wedding website and linked to it. I don't have a problem with that as a public figure with a public website can expect people to find it. Ie I don't have a problem linking to Derek Jeter's wedding website. What I didn't know was the comment section on Galen's website was open and people made posts on it. We were made aware of this and removed the thread. The comments I saw were more clever than distasteful more along the lines of "Hey I'll still beat you" - Josh McDougal, but if I was getting married I wouldn't want my personal site infiltrated that way. So I apologized to him for the trouble as I had heard from people close to him he didn't like it.

Similarly, one of the reasons we implemented the "gay" and "rupp" filter was we heard from Vin Lananna and Alberto about it. They said we needed to do a better job on combatting the posts. So we took things a step further and pre-screened out these posts when that is not our traditional policy.

We don't pretend to be perfect here at letsrun.com and like getting feedback. This is an open forum, there are going to be trouble makers. That is one of the drawbacks of an open forum. We are aware of that.

And one more point, just because I may ask athletes and/or coaches questions privately or publicly about drugs does not mean that fans can't come on here and discuss whether they think someone is or is not doping. That's what you are missing "A Duck". The guy who started this thread said he thinks Galen is clean, he just wants to discuss it and people to ask questions. I think that is appropriate.

And for something else I was looking at I ended up on Lauren Fleshman's website and found her comments that "A Duck" refers to acting like they were scandalous to letsrun.com:

Here is what Lauren said:

http://asklaurenfleshman.com/journal/2012/12/29/why-im-no-longer-with-nike/

"Loren’s (her co-worker) discovery came form Letsrun.com. It’s the most comprehensive running website with up-to-date news, and the Johnson brothers do a good job of representing both the female and male sides of the sport. The message boards, like all anonymous comment forums, are another story all together.

Stanford had a “no posting policy,” but I used to read the boards in college before I knew better, mostly for a laugh. At first it’s this amazing discovery: People are posting about my sport! They have strong opinions! People actually care! But the second you become “fast,” people start posting about you, with everything from opinions about your training, to a litany of reasons you should be dropped in the middle of the Sahara to die, to debating whether you are “hot,” “cute,” or “lucky to get laid by a zombie.”

At some point, every pro runner decides its best to stay off the boards completely. Six years on the wagon now and I’m not missing anything, I can assure you. That is, except for the gems Polster shared with us."

********

I'll take: "It’s the most comprehensive running website with up-to-date news, and the Johnson brothers do a good job of representing both the female and male sides of the sport."

that anyday.

Am I surprised that some pros stay away from the forums? Not at all. Am I offended? Not at all.

People are pretty shocked when athletes do engage directly on fan sites like Curt Schilling does. That is the exception rather than the rule.

Would I expect some Auburn football player to go read up on the Auburn fan forums? or Alabama forums? No.

But a lot more athletes at schools with the "no posting" policy do come to the forums, because they've told me directly.

To anybody that wonders why people would question Rupp, Farah, and others who run fast times, consider this angle: I started running, and following track, in the mid-80's. The men's WRs at the time for 5000m and 10000m were 13:00.41 and 27:13 if I remember correctly. I expected that sooner or later somebody would break the 13-minute and 27-minute barriers. What I didn't expect was that within a few years, everybody and his brother would be doing it. In a short space of time, sub-13 became something that relatively anonymous runners were doing with regularity. In retrospect, it is clear that this surge in distance running performance coincided with the rise of EPO. This doesn't necessarily mean that "everybody was doing it", but you would have to be hopelessly naive to believe that some of the improvement wasn't due to EPO.

Gradually, drug testing seems to have gotten better, or so I am told. There is a test for EPO, although it is hardly foolproof. Drug testing comes down to the details - how often are athletes tested? etc. Anyway, times for the 5000/10000 have basically stalled at where they were in the late-90's. They definitely haven't gotten significantly worse. Basically, people are running about the same times in this supposedly "cleaner era" (the opposite of what has happened in cycling, by the way). So what gives? Did the PED's not help them in the first place? Maybe, but I don't believe that for a second. It's not like there weren't amazingly talented runners willing to train like madmen prior to 1993 or whenever.

Bottom line: when EPO came out, endurance running to markedly faster. Times are roughly the same now, so why wouldn't we at least question Rupp/Farah and the like, when they are a good bit faster than Said Auoita, Henry Rono, etc? The training is still the same - intervals, strength work, etc. The standard excuse "we train smarter" sounds like a pretty standard soundbite from dopers of the past: "I've learned to rest more" or "I've really been working on my nutrition and getting lots of rest" and so on to explain huge improvements. As if nobody had thought of those things before.

A Duck,

To be fair, I am not saying Solomon's improvement is absolutely beyond questioning, I am just pointing out that his improvement is not so incredible that people should be accusing him of doping. Being called a doper in our sport is pretty close to being called a pedophile and should be reserved for athletes who have a lot fewer degrees of separation from doping suspicions than Solomon. An obviously talented athlete has to have the opportunity to improve and have a breakout season without being called a doper. In the case of Solomon, lots of people predicted years ago that he was going to be America's next great half miler, the bigger question for a lot of people was why wasn't he running 1:43. I think Solomon ran 1:45 at age 21, so when he finally ran 1:43, my first thought was...about time. There was nothing about his break-out that caused me to have a moment's thought that he was doping. Having run fast at a young age, being in the prime of your career, making a major improvement in an Olympic year, does not equal doping. And, in terms of his 600m AR, it’s really is not that big of a deal, anyone who is a low 46 400m runner and a 1:45 800m runner could have run that time, Solomon just happened to be great early season shape and went for it. Keep in mind that there are H.S. athletes who have run 1:17 in the 600m, who could not break 1:50 in the 800; the record was somewhat soft.

odelltrclan wrote:

And without their anonymity that the internet provides them, these cowards would run and hide.

It's an open forum on the world wide web, get over it or start your own web site, I'm told it's not hard, or go over to Runners World or Coolrunning.

There's no "anonymity" with the following, WEJO put his name to it and put up a quote using Jos Hermens and Marco Knippen names. There must be some truth in it otherwise the denials and/or legal papers would be flying around. So, if this isn't legitimately "asking tough questions" and raising eyebrows then I don't know what is:

"wejo wrote:

I do think someone should do an article on thyroid medication and its possible potential for abuse by athletes in light of Jos Hermen's comments at the Olympics. (Jos Hermens said to Dutch journalist Marco Knippen who translated the quotes into English and emailed them to me, "Science has triumphed over nature. Formally Farah and Rupp are doing nothing illegal. I rather just questioning if Farah during a doping control hands a laundry list of products specified, for which he apparently has a certificate." and "Within the environment knows almost everyone that it is used. Thyroid hormone affects all. I do not understand why it is not on the banned list.") "

odelltrclan, this doesn't concern you?, or does it fall in to the category of "unsubstantiated pet peeves"?

As I posted previously:

"Look at cycling, where would it be now if the Paul Kimmage's of this world had been given more of an airing?"

A Duck wrote:

PS, my version of reality is damned straight different than yours.

It's logical and evidence based.

I've paid attention over the years. You guys, as former runners, could have had a really great site, and done so much service and good for running and track. The access you could have had.

Then why don't you just STFU and go start your own site. You are obviously emotionally attached to Galen so I'm guessing your last name is Rupp.

Galen is a professional, he has to handle critiscm. He handles it a hell of lot better than you do.

odelltrclan, further to the Hermens quote, and to state the obvious (which seems necessary here at times), he is talking about current Olympic Gold and Silver medallists, coached by the same coach, not a couple of no hoper wannabes. Doesn't this concern you?

I would REALLY like to believe that the new "golden girl" of American running is clean. She is young and talented. But she has or is developing a very common jaw/chin line of a steroid/HGH user. Or maybe thyroid med user? Who knows? That was another girl that run, I believe 15:20 for the 5K last year(?) and I have not heard anything about her for a while.

as someone else mentioned, take away the EPO era and rupp and farrah are the fastest in the history of distance running, and are running times that were only reached in the epo era. and rupp is running WAY faster than any white boy did in all of the EPO era, even though it is a commonly held belief that several of the top white boys of that era were doping.