You Can Run But You Can't Hide Malmo - More And More People Know The Truth About You

Hey Malmo, I might have anemia and am one of your biggest fans.

What drugs do you recommend to get rid of anemia?

HRE wrote:

I may have missed this, but have you ever talked about testing in regard to your experiences during the three months or as it applied, or not, to AW generally during that time?

First of all it was about 6 weeks. Half of 3 months (prescription) is 6 weeks. 2mg QID. Winstrol, which was developed as a remedy for anemia. Started out with a 23:30 8k when I went on. Ended up with a 23:28 8k two weeks after I stopped. (my 8k PR is 22:55) If that's performance ENHANCING then I want my money back. Let's call it performance DEHANCING. Seriously though, it did fix the anemia, and I felt like I could finally breathe again after feeling listless for about 3 months.

Testing? You're kidding. There was no testing back then except for in international competition and at the championship level in domestic competition.

Interested Runner wrote:

Hey Malmo, I might have anemia and am one of your biggest fans.

What drugs do you recommend to get rid of anemia?

Cute. You need to see a doctor. I haven't been in a Holiday Inn Express in years.

Gamera wrote:

It is further suggested that there might have been two camps within AW: Bob Sevene being against steroids, and Dick Brown being pro-steroids. In the interviews, Dick Brown doesn't seem to try to dispel the notion that he was in favor of steroid use.

I'm wondering if you found this part of the documentary to be accurate as far as your experience with AW. Were you ever given a steroid info pack (I'm assuming not, as it seems like something you would have mentioned in your recollection about your stint on steroids)? Were you aware of such a handout? Does the depiction of Bob Sevene vs Dick Brown seem fair to you?

You aren't understanding the timeline here. Craig Virgin and I were at AW in the first year 77-78. We both quit AW after one year in the fall of 78. Dick Brown didn't start the "program" until 79 or 80. So, no, there wasn't any "handout" to give.

Does "we were only providing information...just in case" sound like Dick was being completely truthful or does it sound like a rehearsed CYA statement? There have been a few athletes and wives/husbands of athletes who have said Brown was flat out pushing it on them, but to their credit they declined to join in the fun. Kevin Ryan told me he wanted to go on drugs but they would let him. If I were Dick Brown I wouldn't even let Kevin go on aspirin.

Sev was pissed at what he found. Jeff Johnson, from what I've heard, was pissed to.

"We were on providing information...just in case" is akin to the Director of a juvenile home saying they were only providing information on burglary tools and methods and how to fence stolen goods "just in case."

Malmo , What happened to the doctor? Did you pay for the drugs or did AW have something going under the table?

did you turn anyone in? wrote:

I couldn't find any articles published by Jim Ferstle or anything suggesting suspicion about AW et al in his blogs about doping:

http://downthebackstretch.blogspot.com/search/label/Drugs

You're probably going to have to go to the archives of the St. Paul Pioneer Dispatch. if they don't have their own digitized then there are online websites that aggregate the microfiche on a pay-for-view basis. Usually it's a few dollars per article. It's there somewhere. I've seen it before.

Name Unknown wrote:

Malmo , What happened to the doctor? Did you pay for the drugs or did AW have something going under the table?

Does not pay attention in class. I wasn't at AW when this went down.

malmo wrote:

First of all it was about 6 weeks. Half of 3 months (prescription) is 6 weeks. 2mg QID. Winstrol, which was developed as a remedy for anemia. Started out with a 23:30 8k when I went on. Ended up with a 23:28 8k two weeks after I stopped. (my 8k PR is 22:55) If that's performance ENHANCING then I want my money back. Let's call it performance DEHANCING. Seriously though, it did fix the anemia, and I felt like I could finally breathe again after feeling listless for about 3 months.

Oh come on man, whether or not it directly helped you (and you acknowledge that it did in some way, helping your anemia, maybe you would have gotten even slower without it over those 6 weeks), you chose to take something illegal, i.e., cheat. True or not?

Yes, we all agree it was for a VERY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, AND...AND.....you quickly changed your mind and did the right thing (kudos). But in the end, you did cheat, even if it this cheating is equal to cutting the course in one race when you knew no one was looking, and maybe it bought you only 15 seconds in that race. And yes, maybe it was a short-cut of the course that until this day, you are not even sure it made you run a shorter distance. But still, YOUR INTENT was to cheat. Correct? And yes, you had never cut the course before (even though many others had), and you went on to never cutting the course again.

Fair analogy??? If so, you did cheat. Only once, only briefly, without much to show for it. But you did do it. Are you going to say, yes, and I am sorry for that?

this will take 1 min, I swear! wrote:

Fair analogy??? If so, you did cheat. Only once, only briefly, without much to show for it. But you did do it. Are you going to say, yes, and I am sorry for that?

Legitimate prescription for a legitimate medical condition. If my intent was to cheat then I'm not very good at it, am I? In order to cheat you have to gain an advantage. I surely didn't, unless you think it's unfair for me be healthy?

You can think what you want.

malmo wrote:

Benji Durden and I have discussed the AW stain extensively. He knew what was going on at AW, but he wasn't in Eugene, and wasn't offered to be on the program. He thought that he was one of the "control" subjects or something. I believe him. Have you ever heard Benji speak out about AW? I haven't. He has skin in the game too. If he does speak out then he risks a backlash by those who would feel betrayed by him and want him silenced.

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but what backlash are you talking about here?

malmo wrote:

Kevin Ryan told me he wanted to go on drugs but they would let him. If I were Dick Brown I wouldn't even let Kevin go on aspirin.

What was it about Kevin that didn't fit with drugs?

malmo wrote:

Legitimate prescription for a legitimate medical condition. If my intent was to cheat then I'm not very good at it, am I? In order to cheat you have to gain an advantage. I surely didn't, unless you think it's unfair for me be healthy?

You can think what you want.

I think that a 178 mile week including three harder workouts suggests that the effects weren't only psychological.

Thanks for the reply. The video wasn't clear on the timeline of when this was going on - just that AW was founded in 1977 and disbanded in 1989 (I think). Although the impression I got was maybe they were referring to the time leading up to the 1984 Olympics (in which case your were long gone).

They also mention something along the lines of an "in-house drug testing lab" whereby athletes could presumably find out if they were "glowing" and, by the sounds of it, monitor liver enzymes to make sure they weren't damaging their health too much with steroids. It mentions Bob Sevene accidentally being given (to his dismay) some misdirected mail intended for Dick Brown that updated the steroid levels of a couple of female runners.

I find it somewhat amazing the amount of evidence that is already out there regarding drug use in T&F. This video was made in 2004. It seems like a determined journalist could build a huge scandal just by using information that is already publically available. I guess the problem is, nobody is really interested in a bunch of doping distance runners (other than other distance runners). On a related note, I didn't even realize until a couple of years ago that Carl Lewis had tested positive for banned stimulants on at least one occasion (prior to the 1988 Olympics) discussed it publicly, etc - and nobody cares. He says ""Everyone was treated the same, so what are we talking about? I don't get it." Ben Johnson might beg to differ.

One last question - were you ever drug-tested in your career?

malmo wrote:

If my intent was to cheat then I'm not very good at it, am I? In order to cheat you have to gain an advantage.

Malmo, I am not interested in the subject of whether you cheated or not, but I am interested in intellectual honesty, and you are too smart to believe the above. IF I glance at my buddy's exam in class, and I copy a few of his answers, and he is a moron like I am (hypothetical), and his answers are incorrect, and I gain no advantage, I have still cheated, and if the proctor of the exam sees me, he/she has every right to take my exam and discipline me.

The focus on Malmo is silly, and indicative of why more people don't come out on doping. First, I think just about everyone with real knowledge about doping in sport has some "skin in the game"; that is, anyone with a smoking gun doped himself or was involved in providing drugs.

Second, whenever someone comes out with information on doping, he himself is attacked. There seems to be more interest in what degree of advantage Malmo gained, and far too little in what others were up to. So, if you're someone with knowledge about doping, why go public with it? Not only are people going to attack you (see Hamilton, Conte, Landis), but they'll actively ignore everyone you implicate! The upshot is that nobody really wants to see his heroes tarnished.

Malmo,

I'm composing an email containing everything I remember. Like you, I'm not entirely sure how much I want to put out there, though. Especially, I'm sorry to say, in an email to you with my name at the bottom. In spite of the fact that we lived in the same place at the same time a couple of times, and, I guess, knew the same people, I don't think I've ever met you. Which is weird. The bottom line is that I don't know you. And whether you think I have skin in the game or not, there's always risks. We'll see.

As I've been writing, I realize that almost all of my 'knowledge' is from conversations with people who were in AW(I certainly was not - not nearly good enough and wrong era) and took place either ,as strangely did yours, at 19th street (in beer veritas, I guess...) or in the middle of long runs. The one exception was this: I saw vials and syringes of someone (a guy who competed in the WC at one point afterward) I was going to sublet from, but, even there, I can't be sure what was in them. So, I think everything I 'know' would be classified as hearsay in a court of law. Maybe the younger me was wiser than the strident me who posts on the boards now. Anyway, writing it all down has made me reconsider what the best thing to do is, for some reason.

Additionally, what you say about Kevin makes me question my memory. It's been nearly a quarter century, though, so, who knows? I guess this is why there's a statute of limitations for most crimes. Anyway..

What I remember Kevin telling me is that part of the orientation at AW was a visit to a room(?) with all sorts of drugs. Kevin told me he never was offered to use them in any clear way and that he was glad since

1. everything he accomplished was accomplished clean

2. He thinks that if he had been offered he probably, at some point, would have used them. Or that he wasn't sure what he would have done.. something like that. It seemed like Nike wanted the athlete to ask so that it didn't bear so much responsibility if the athlete got nailed. In other words, that the athlete had 'skin in the game'. Anyway, that was the impression I remember getting.

When I knew him, Kevin seemed like a pretty good guy going through some pretty hard things. Regardless, I remember believing him completely. He had no reason to lie about AW.

There may have been reasons why he really shouldn't have taken PEDs - or, even aspirin, but, I really doubt that Nike would have known that or cared back in the early eighties. I know what Malmo is probably referring to with his comment but my understanding is that those issues didn't come up until later. Who knows, though? I didn't get to know him until almost 10 years later.

All right, second thing:

I'm not sure if I want to reveal my source for this (for one thing, they're dead and so can't correct me or contradict me which, I think they should be able to do), but I was told, by someone I trusted and who was in a position to know, that Alberto's recovery from his knee injury before the trials in 80 was not due (only..) to the power of prayer and DMSO.

Last thing I'll say:

Your characterization of Dick Brown is entirely consistent with what I know or, I should say, heard. I'll just say that I knew Sylvia Mosqueda for a little while. I'm not saying that she used, she may have, but that Dick Brown was not shy about advocating it. It's a weird thing, though. Dick Brown was probably the nicest guy I met during my entire time in Blue Jean. We tend to think of those who cross any ethical line as being like Snidely Whiplash - constantly scheming to do evil in many other ways as well. That's almost never true, though. That's part of what makes talking about this difficult, I think.

malmo wrote:

Name Unknown wrote:

Malmo , What happened to the doctor? Did you pay for the drugs or did AW have something going under the table?

Does not pay attention in class. I wasn't at AW when this went down.

When were you? and did it have a significant meaning? I have to admit, being a newbie to this sport, I have some doubts in regards to pure honesty in the sport of running OR any sport for that matter, especially if big money or sponsorship is involved. Just thinking out loud.

Curious... wrote:

When were you?

Eugene

read, peope

Link, email me. You can use a fake email if you wish. Your content is what I need, not your identity. I can already tell you have a feel for what is true, or not, or unknown. Don't get me wrong on Dick Brown. I believe he is a good guy with a conscience, but I also believe he was serving the wrong master.

OK, Malmo. It may take a little while. I want to make sure I'm as clear as I can be about what I knew, what I heard, what I suspected based on what I heard, etc. I hadn't really thought about this stuff for a while. I guess I've been repressing or something. It sucks to care so much about something that turns out to be completely different than what you thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJETB-MfpnQ