Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

Throwback Wednesday wrote:

It's been mentioned. You missed the earlier debate of how influential the Yasso name is in this sport. It was decided that it was less influential than Arnold Palmer in golf. Ahhh, memories!

I almost stated that fact as a great investigating on my part as if I were sure that I'd been the only one to uncover that tidbit.

This Man wrote:

routemaker wrote:

Doubling down on dumb made me giggle. You are having a difficult time staying on topic. That's ok as long as you're trying your best.

So you really don't understand the meaning of the word, 'semantics', I see. No worries. You will still be eligible for a finisher's medal.

'routemaker' please ignore 'This Man', he comes on to this thread and many others using different handles. I believe he has a rudimentary grasp of grammar and the Engrish language and utilizes Google to a large extent. He's constantly correcting people on various inconsequential things which I'm guessing gives him some kind of personal satisfaction, so good luck to him, he obviously has a need for it. I recognize his MO now and usually ignore it, I suggest you do the same and keep posting and contributing.

We're all here having fun at Mike's expense. It's all love brother

No doubt. The only people more annoying than the runners in the Boston jackets are those sporting the IM regalia. They're higher level narcissists.

routemaker wrote:

We're all here having fun at Mike's expense. It's all love brother

Second the fun bit, dunno about the "love" though.

routemaker wrote:

We're all here having fun at Mike's expense. It's all love brother

Wait until the Via Marathon decision comes down.

Mike is not going to be happy

LVM is a small race and ~3:10 wasn't a large pack. I have only run a few 100 marathons. I often run as a pace team leader. By the end of the race I know everyone in the group. I know when someone drops off and when someone new joins the group.

There is a witness and he will be DQ'd.

This Man That Man WGAF wrote:

'This Man', utilizes Google to a large extent.

He may like to Google WGAF.

Can I get a Witness? wrote:

There is a witness and he will be DQ'd.

There is or if there is a witness?

Throwback Wednesday wrote:

There have been a lot of good things on this thread but the irony of people arguing over the definition of the word "semantics" might be top ten.

I don't understand the argument over Semantics. Weren't they a band from the 90s?

LVM is a small race and ~3:10 wasn't a large pack. I have only run a few 100 marathons. I often run as a pace team leader. By the end of the race I know everyone in the group. I know when someone drops off and when someone new joins the group.

There is a witness and he will be DQ'd.

It was a small race, and there was a pack of us that were all trying to use VIA to qualify. I chatted up a bunch of them along the way. There was a solid group of us (10+) for the first 8 or so miles keeping good pace. It got tough once on the narrow dirt path to keep in group as there was room for no more than 2 people across. Also passing was problematic on the trail too, but the race was small enough that the BQers separated pretty early, so there wasn't that much passing.

By the way unless you are elite, sub elite or have hobbit like feet, I'd stay away from running flats on this course. The roots and gravel part of VIA is absolutely brutal on the feet.

Thought I'd just randomly pull up a marathon to see if I could spot a cheat. Found an interesting one the first marathon I looked at where a woman BQ'd and got sixth in her age group. With no intermediate splits.

She had a 10k split and a finishing split and no intermediate times.

Her 10k time was 1:06 and finishing time 3:39. That 10k split is 20-25 minutes slower than it should have been and slower than all that finished around her?

So, do we care enough to investigate this in a public forum? After all, if she cheated, she is taking a spot away from someone if she registers for Boston--or is this really about karma - and about how much we think Mike is a douche, and deserves what is coming to him?

TimingGuy, I respectfully disagree with the first part of your post. I think it will do something. I do, however, agree with the second part of your post. And I think many on letsrun will be disappointed in the muted manner in which it does do something. I do not think it will overtly publicize anything it does.

The marathon isn't going to do anything. All they are thinking of right now is how to make sure it doesn't happen in the future and how to get more participants.

Doubler wrote:

Thought I'd just randomly pull up a marathon to see if I could spot a cheat. Found an interesting one the first marathon I looked at where a woman BQ'd and got sixth in her age group. With no intermediate splits.

She had a 10k split and a finishing split and no intermediate times.

Her 10k time was 1:06 and finishing time 3:39. That 10k split is 20-25 minutes slower than it should have been and slower than all that finished around her?

So, do we care enough to investigate this in a public forum? After all, if she cheated, she is taking a spot away from someone if she registers for Boston--or is this really about karma - and about how much we think Mike is a douche, and deserves what is coming to him?

No one thinks "...Mike is a douche, and deserves what is coming to him", we know it!

I M Lazy wrote:

Someone could perform a statistical analysis on the number of runners with various numbers of pictures on the course (not start/finish) to get some probability that there could be someone with no pics.

Yes, as others have pointed out the statistical analysis that I M Lazy suggests above has already been done, albeit 'only' with the 100 runners who finished closest to Mike. (The analysis also used the number of locations where a runner was photographed rather than the raw number of pictures taken, and we actually included the finish line just to give Mike the benefit of the doubt although since basically everyone is captured at the finish line this hardly effects the results.) The result was that the chance of Mike getting missed at every mid-course location was about 1 in 11 thousand.

However, some new photographic sleuthing has been done since we performed that analysis. Namely, three locations were identified on the course with basically continuous photos as Mike should have been coming through. And indeed the 20 finishers closest to Mike were all captured at each of these three locations.

Using Laplace's rule of succession (see

, for example) we can estimate a 1/21 = 4.8% chance that Mike could be missed at one of these checkpoints. This only uses the fact that the 20 closest finishers were all seen, not any of the information about how impossible it would be to run 100m in 6 seconds, etc. So, conservatively, the probability that Mike would be missed at all three checkpoints would be (1/21)^3 = 0.0108%, or about 1 in 9200 .

There are two ways to make this analysis stronger. First would be to add more checkpoints (i.e. count how many of the X closest finishers are captured at some more locations). Even if some people are missed at these locations, it still makes the odds worse for Mike when he is one of those missed. Second would be to find more close finishers at the three existing checkpoints. For example, if we found the 100 closest finishers to Mike at all three checkpoints, Mike's odds would drop to below 1 in a million. (Not saying that we should necessarily put in the work to do any of this, although maybe it sounds fun to someone.)

Finally, this 'categorical' analysis partially overlaps with the previous continuous (1 in 11 thousand) analysis, of course. For example, these checkpoints are a large part of the reason why all 100 runners got captured so many times. So we can't just multiply the probabilities from these two methods. But I don't think that these methods totally overlap. Maybe someone who knows more stats could tell us the right way to combine these numbers.

somebloke wrote:

Heaps of BS in the last 2 pages about evidence, DQ worthiness, lawyering up. Chaps, do not forget this is a road race. there is no CSI investigation. A DQ can and hopefully will happen with all we have got so far.

Do you think Mike Rossi is running? Like, as in today, do you think he has the audacity to go out and do a run outside? I know he mentioned some injury, but that is probably fake. So, assuming he is ok to run, do you think he is running? I think he is not. The chances he would be identified by a fellow runner are too damn big at this point.

Another way to look at it: we killed the sport for him. He will be running in TMs for a long time. I am happy with that as punishment.

Do you want to see the MRI?

Doubler wrote:

Thought I'd just randomly pull up a marathon to see if I could spot a cheat. Found an interesting one the first marathon I looked at where a woman BQ'd and got sixth in her age group. With no intermediate splits.

She had a 10k split and a finishing split and no intermediate times.

Her 10k time was 1:06 and finishing time 3:39. That 10k split is 20-25 minutes slower than it should have been and slower than all that finished around her?

So, do we care enough to investigate this in a public forum? After all, if she cheated, she is taking a spot away from someone if she registers for Boston--or is this really about karma - and about how much we think Mike is a douche, and deserves what is coming to him?

Yes, lets look into this. We need something to keep us busy until the LVM makes their DQ decision for Rossi. Plus I'm against anyone who cheated to take a spot away from someone that qualified and earned it.

somebloke...

Of course he is running. And swimming and biking. And driving and reviewing timing mat and photographer locations. His qualifier for Ironman Kona is coming up.

Do you think Mike Rossi is running? Like, as in today, do you think he has the audacity to go out and do a run outside?