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

I absolutely agree with A Duck and believe that Rupp is clean. Obviously, since A Duck has defended his stance in such an articulate, reasonable, and subtle manner, he hardly needs me to chime in on his behalf. That said, there is one point I would like to bring up to those of you who claim that Rupp’s improvements are too good to be true. I can name at least one extremely well known and respected runner whose progression was similar to Rupp’s in certain respects, and yet who absolutely no one accuses of using PEDs: Quenton Cassidy.

How many years did Cassidy spend banging his head against the 4:00 barrier without quite being able to crack it? Almost his entire collegiate career. Then, as a senior, he finally buckled down, and with the help of a brilliant coach with slightly unorthodox training methods (60 quarters? Who does that?) and enough 100-plus mile weeks, what happens? He pops a 3:52 out of nowhere (just a tick slower than Rupp when you round his up to 3:51). A couple years later, he wins an Olympic silver medal.

Are these two cases exactly the same? Of course not, but there are enough similarities to prove one thing – Rupp’s progression is not unprecedented. These things do happen in real life. I didn’t even have to mention the way Cassidy took the 1980 marathon trials by storm years after his track days were over – a comeback that even the worst cynics never doubted.

I can’t help but feel bad for you Rupp critics as I watch you frolic about in the fantasy world you have created, pointing fingers at doped up hobbits and elves. A Duck and I are living in the real world, and I would like to invite you to join us. We’re waiting.

gO aFKIka wrote:

But she has or is developing a very common jaw/chin line of a steroid/HGH user. Or maybe thyroid med user?

Keep throwing those darts. Soon enough you'll just land on "unknown."

Classless act P wrote:

Your insinuation that they (Solomon or whoever else) are doping to run the times they run is SLANDER.

Your entire post essentially amounts to SLANDER.

Your allegations about anything you "think" without definitive proof is SLANDER. Implying he isn't "clean" because of his improvement is SLANDER.

And it's PATHETIC.

You need to find and study the definition of slander.

You go from stating I insinuated to stating with 3 lines I was making allegations. There is a big different there.

I stated categorically that I believe Rupp is not breaking any rules.

Anyway, I posted under my own name and there is a picture of me on the website. The Letsrun guys have my e-mail address. I am a long way from anonymously 'slandering' anybody.

The point of my post was not to discuss Rupp or Solomon**. It was to discuss the reaction to improved performances in the sport. Like it or not, PEDs in sport across the globe have made the public very sceptical. The way to deal with this is create openness about it.

Athletics will continue to die a slow death if we don't clean it up.

**It is interesting how many people have vociferously defended Rupp to the point where I seriously doubt their sanity while very few defended Solomon.

I will bow out of the thread now.

If anyone wants to write anything 'slanderous' or juvenile about me then feel free to call me gay (my girlfriend reassures me I am not so I can handle it).

Also, a hilarious pun on my name could be Fatrick White because I am pretty fat for a wannabe distance runner.

Track Coach;Totally agree. I had the same response to Solomon's performance, "about time." And the same with Rupp's, actually, thought for years he was capable of far more in the mile. My second thought was "wait, that's about what he ran at Oxy last year."As to Wejo's nonsense about Jos Hermans. He was hot on Herman's tail in 97 or whatever when he thought translating some articles from a Spanish paper was going to show that Herman's was connected to a Spanish doping scandal. For all we know, Hermans was commenting on Rupp, Farah, and Hydroworx. And it is not like Herman's had any reason to have sour grapes (loss of bonus money). One would think, that Hermans, being an adult and VERY exposed to international sport, would have said "doping" if he meant "doping." He said "science." There is nothing wrong with legal sport science...

You're leaving out a lot of things to consider.

Distance running world records vis a vis Farah and Rupp's performances. Farah and Rupp are WAY off world record times.

In Rupp's case he fits 3 things that were touted as necessary, for a long time, to get a native born American competitive in distance running: find that athlete young enough, put that athlete in the hands of good stewardship, keep that athlete healthy and having unbroken years of training.

...Training methods have improved. A lot of guys are no longer being over trained.

...As running got more popular in Ethiopia as a hope for escaping poverty / getting wealthy...a lot more kids started running.

What's crazy, is that the Brojo's would pimp accusers of Rupp, and then believe Bekele has been clean his whole career.

You want to ask questions, throw out all the distance running world records and start fresh, post decent EPO testing.

As usual Wejo distracts from my point:

"At some point, every pro runner decides its best to stay off the boards completely."

Did Lauren say or not say that?

And any fool can post links on their front page.

She could have said all the positive things about TFN or Ken Goe, for that matter.

You and LRC are the only place that elites and Pro's talk about as a "f____ sewar" to quote an Australian Elite I met at Stanford two years ago.

AND, you'll not she's stayed away for 6 years, imagine what her opinion would be if she was newly elite and found this site today????

Point in case, I read some threads from 2003 and 2005 today. And, while they had some biting nonsense, they were FAR nicer than the sht you foster today.

--Which is another one of my points, not truly moderating these boards have seen them DECLINE over the years.

They've decline in TWO WAYS:

1. Civility. Obviously.

2. Usefulness.

And you are proud of that?

this is incorrect. Cram and Coe have 3.46 and 3.47...

Baumann has 12:54:70 ,faster than Rupp. Mottram has a pr

of 3:48.98 for the mile, 7:32, and 12.56 or so.

These are all in line with Rupp's PBs.

I don't know whether Rupp is clean, but I don't like the thyroid thingie.

Your arguments are disingenuous at best and at worse the usual delusional idiocy.

>>> Let's get a little perspective here. People have done worse than JUST make immature homophobic jokes about Rupp's name.

And btw, Speaking UP for Rupp and his family, is not speaking "for" them. (Are you really that stupid?) --Anyone who saw Rupp interviewed by Flotrack when he expressed his feelings about this board -- should damned well speak UP for him or ANYONE treated as you allowed him to be treated here for years.

Your replies just prove my contentions about you.

"We don't pretend to be perfect?" You don't even try to be good, let alone excellent, let alone professional. Dude, you have an archive going back ten years of people treating elites like sht on this board. EVERY NATURE OF PERSONAL ATTACK HAS BEEN ALLOWED. In the interim, the entire Internet has changed. 1997 called and it wants your graphic design back. BY AND LARGE, legitimate news sites on any subject...has made their message boards far more civil. And you are in a small sport where everyone knows everyone, THAT is the real message you should get from Lauren Fleshman. That they all tell each other to stay away. The sport is so small that any name runner searched on google is going to get hits frm this website and what do new fans learn? The worst of internet behavior...and it is associated with our sport.

...

Do you really think that the apology for the wedding site covered it all??? Really??

And here is the Entire Disconnect with you, with out your permitting a culture of hate to exist on your website, no one would have jumped from that link and posted on Rupp's wedding site. Additional Disconnect -- is that you are so juvenile and idiotic that while touting your apology, you go on to describe what you thought was "clever" in the comments on Rupp's wedding site...that he obviously didn't think was cool. You don't get to make that call. Your immature narcissism tells you that in some weird effed up world you think that is okay to comment on.

If he thinks it is uncool, you might have had the class to keep that private, and you can certainly delete your post and mine -- but I want some other people to know exactly how Low Class You Are. And that is exactly the problem. You don't get how low class you and your brother have been with this website for ten+ years.

It's not about logical, fair, sober discussions.

It is about all the gross and totally inappropriate personal attacks you allow.

1. Rupp and his family and his coaches knew what you were permitting here for years -- you think it caused them joy?? You should apologize for not stepping in and moderating, deleting, and filtering sooner.

2. Why do you think you heard from Lananna and Salazar??? Because of your good community citizenship???

3. Why aren't you and your brother better journalist-citizens?

4. You keep posting idiotic and distracting defenses (Rupp is an individual human being, not the Dallas Cowboys or Auburn.)

5. You are an Adult, Weldon, you know your website, when you go onto a thread about Rupp, based on past results and behavior here, you should scan the thread and clean it up.

6. Patrick White didn't start this thread because he thought Rupp was clean. Patrick White started a thread out of being an overly emotional -- probably well meaning dude -- who didn't think it through.

He could just have easily started a thread listing out Rupp's progression and training changes over the last 3 years and how it lines up -- as others have pointed out.

What did your brother do? Post selective pieces of Rupp's progression, and then stop when it stopped fitting his agenda.

Superhot on LR Today: Goucher Slams Salazar.

REALLY, and you don't have the agenda I have claimed you have for YEARS?

Read that thread, most of the posts are on how Goucher's quotes are not a slam, and then, lol, the interviewer comes on and explains that Goucher was not slamming Salazar.

You guys have been in denial for a long time.

People are tired of it.

You got SLAMMED on your Lance thread a few weeks ago, and you ran like a pansy and deleted the WHOLE THREAD.

Let's take a look at that. You tout how you are so teflon that you could take being accused of being a PED user on this board yourself.

But, when half a dozen people start to call you out for ten years of trash behavior with these message boards...you ran and deleted the thread.

I truly wish you had the balls to restore that thread, or at least the posts of all the people that Called You Out that night.

Someday -- y'know -- in your case it might take until you are 70 -- you're going to look back at the extended adolescence that has been your years with these "World Famous Message Boards" -- and it's gonna click in your head and heart "...oh my God, what aholes we were back then."

yes

let's be adult about this

hermens isn't going to explicity call out NOP for doping if he knows something

Oh God Troy, you really have no clue what track and field is do you?

Just because Rupp and Farah haven't time trialed, doesn't mean they wouldn't crush those Americans time.

Also, theres a difference in runneres showing extremely good talent in their early 20s running sub 27, and runners who suddenly do it with ease when they are 26+ years old after struggling for years.

I'm not accusing Rupp or Farah, but you seriously have no clue what you are talking about.

Take a hike Troy

Coming from you who never answers a question, hah, oh the irony. You're not doing anyting but talking about everything else but what people ask you or try to discuss with you.

There is only hate in you.

Did you not read this?

"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."

You can call the anonymous boards whatever you like, and an elite runner not being able to understand that anonymous forums always have a tendency to produce a lot of crap, is a very dumb person. Its how the internet works. Of course this problem could be reduced, but removed? No, that would remove the site.

There is no place on internet even close tho letsrun, where you can read highly successfull coaches help anonymous runners with their training, see them discuss with each other (how amazing isnt that?) or seeing someone like Canova explain everything and all about his great athletes.

Now, its your time to recognise this.

Rupp reminds me a bit of our David Moorcroft who only improved his 800m and mile times when he started moving up to 5,000m

Doe not prove he's clean but his mile is now in line with his other distance times

Not having read the whole thread, I have a few things I want to say:

1) I have no idea if Rupp and Farah are clean. Yes, the thyroid thing gives me pause, too. On the other hand, no, I don't think Rupp's progression is suspicious. He ran 3:34 last year, so this mile PR was a big jump on paper only. As for running sub-13 and sub-27, well, I think those breakthroughs were overdue. They certainly didn't come after years of "struggling." Rupp's college years saw huge consistent development, and now I think he's showing the strength that comes from years and years of uninterrupted training.

2) I think it's one thing to "ask the question" about an athlete's cleanliness. Making vague accusations based on your personal inability to believe a time without any real credible evidence is bullsh*t, however. Looking an athlete like Solomon and saying "He had a breakthrough season, what's he on?" is the same thing Glenn Beck does when he says "Oh, well I'm not SAYING Obama is a Manchurian candidate out to destroy us all, I'm just ASKING what if he Is?" "Asking the question" can be a veiled personal attack and any adult should know that.

Are there suspicious things about athletes? Maggie Vessey tested positive for a banned diuretic- was it an innocent mistake or something more sinister? That's a good question to ask. I don't have any insight. When Tegenkamp, a few years ago, mentioned he was having blood-spinning done to help a tendon heal, was he doing something that's banned? Good question. Does Rupp's asthma/thyroid medication have an effect similar to banned substances, allowing his TUE to cover his use? I don't know either, but it's a good question.

Saying "Rupp couldn't run sub4 in the mile until 2009, now in 2013, he's faster. WHAT'S HE ON?!?!" is not asking a valid question, it's nothing more than a attack.

3) These boards are disgusting. The Brojos do a horrible job moderating, and seem to think elite athletes and coaches quitting the board in disgust is fine, and even evidence of "real dialogue" or something. Jack Daniels used to post all the time and answer questions and foster substantive debate. He was open about his research and his experiences with athletes most of us only got to read about. He also got run out of town on a rail. Lots of other great posters dealt with the same poisonous atmosphere and got shouted down by a mob of trolls. I don't know why the Brojos don't at least try to do a better job, instead of lauding anonymous people launching personal attacks and justifying it by saying so-and-so is a "public figure." As much as I find ADuck personally annoying, I largely agree with his points about this board being less and less civil and useful.

4) I don't think the Brojos understand that being a jerk and fostering "controversy" isn't doing squat for the sport. TMZ and Entertainment Television doesn't elevate journalism, the Sunday pundit bitchfests don't elevate political discourse, and the bunch of mean posts and pseudoarticles meant to attack athletes (I'm thinking the feature on Webb being mad after a race) certainly don't elevate running as a sport here.

Anyway, those are my 4 cents. Troll me as you will. I hang around here for the weekly training thread and the occasional gem. They get tougher to find each year.

I wonder very much why the notion of the "EPO-era".Supposedly this refers to the era from the introduction of EPO until the first EPO test in 2000.This is a big error.The EPO era never ended. EPO is still by far the most prevalent drug in endurance sport.One simply needed to use a tiny bit more caution. Not dosing right before competitions.EPO is detectable for 3 days in regular doses. The effect lasts for 4-6 weeks.If microdoses is used, the detection time is less than 10hours.Microdoses is not less effective than regular doses, you simply have to dose more often when "loading" loading means incresing hematocrit from 40-45 (normal) to 50-55%. The loading phase takes 2-3weeks. After loading is completed, hematocrit can be kept high for a long time (whole season) by microdosing a few times per week.If you really want to be safe (e.g. are afraid of testing in the middle of the night). You can use modified EPO, this is EPO with new protein chains on the nonactive part of the molecule. These chains doesnt alter the drugs effect, but gives the molecule completely different properties with regards to isoelectric focusing and mass spectrography (the methods used to detect epo). This has already for a long time been done with steroids (see e.g. the BALCO case). Adding new chains to non-functional parts of drug molecules is one reason why dopers will always be ahead of the testers (unless they stick to the same modification of the drug for too long time and a test is invented).Another alternative is autologous self-transfusion, old fashioned blood doping. Just as effective, but more of a hassle, and for most athletes would require a medical team (only accessible to pro athletes).What HAVE improved the last few years is the introduction of the bio-passport. The bio-passport prevents athletes of having too large variations in their blood profile over the year. The bio-passport prevents too large fluctuations in hematocrit. But athletes solve it by having relatively high values for the whole season, or by using plasma expanders (infusion of saline water with added dextran or other carbohydrate, unless marked it cant be detected and never will). So people can still dope, but it is harder to reach extreme values of hematocrit, like several cyclist in the 90s having hematocrit values exceeding 60%. The benefit of increasing hematocrit above 53-55% is, however, small. In addition it is very dangerous.What I dont understand and what we should all work for is having the 50% hematocrit rule applied to athletics. For some reason the IAAF rejects to implement this rule. Maybe due to the decreasing popularity of track, being afraid that times far slower than the world recors would lead to a decline in sponsor money. The 50% rule has successfully been applied in cycling and xc-skiing for years.While the 50% rule does not rule out doping (Lance overcame it with great simplicity). It makes doping harder, is very easy to implement and would result in a more fair competition.Right now any unknow talent can simply buy EPO for 500$, load his hematocrit to 55%, stop 1-2 weeks before competition and run a 5-10min PR. With ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANCE OF GETTING COUGHT.

conica wrote:

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.

if were at a bar and talking about who was caught on p.e.d.'s, then that would be fine.

once in a while, a stranger from out of town will enter the bar and give his own opinion.

sometimes, a bar fight happens and they get kicked out.

i don't know why some people here seem to get very defensive. we're in a bar that's open to the public. you can't just tape a person's mouth shut because you think he's being rude and disrespectful.

defenders have been proven wrong before.

there were people who were ferociously defending lance armstrong, saying he was clean, that he never failed a drug test, that he was naturally a very good endurance athlete as a teenager, that he was the greatest endurance athlete of all time, that usada was out to get him out of anger, etc.

they've disappeared. the defenders were proven to be flat out wrong.

if i say that tom cruise still looks young, i think he had plastic surgery. is that "mudslinging"? he has millions of dollars, and other celebrities have admitted to surgery before. am i not allowed an opinion?

Note:

My above post is a general post. About drugs in sport in general, and athletics in particular.

It is was not directed at Rupp or Farah or Solomon or anyone else, by any other means that they are top class class athletes where fame, glory and money is involved. I know nothing more than the general poster about these particular athletes.

Also speaking in general. It is not the athletes fault that they start doping, it is the system. Who would blame a poor boy who spent all his resources the last 10 years at becoming the best runner possible. Encouraged by coaches and parents yelling everything is possile if you want it enough. Then he finds learns that it really isnt true after all, by himself, by a manager, coach or agent.

In addition studies has shown that a large majority of us would use a drug if it was undetectable and gave the advantage for winning an olympic medal. The same studies even show that more than 50% would use the drug if it was seriously detrimental to their own long term health. Humans are obsessed at gaining competitive advantages in every part of life.

Go after the system, the IAAF, the coaches, the agents and the managers. Not the athletes. The athletes in general want an equal playing field without doping, the reality is just not like that at the moment. Just have in the back of your head that 90% of the best are doped. And do your son or daughter a favor, dont have them play cards into sport, because everything isnt possible.