"The Boston Marathon Was Fixed" thread.

MarathonMind wrote:

asdfasdasdfasd wrote:...there's a flotrack video up right now where Renato Canova says that for his Kenyan guys, a 2:07 marathon is a jog.

That is surely hyperbole, unless he said or meant 2:07 marathon pace.

Here's the exact quote for you. It's at 6:00-6:19 in the flotrack clip called INSIDE: Kenya - Geoffrey Mutai.

"Kenyan athletes, they don't have any limits. Every marathon now is under 62 the first half. If you are a marathon runner you want to be a champion. You are not to worry about this. This is the only way for running a marathon. Otherwise, you are not a runner. You are already a jogger. A jogger for 2:07"

MarathonMind wrote:

asdfasdasdfasd wrote:...there's a flotrack video up right now where Renato Canova says that for his Kenyan guys, a 2:07 marathon is a jog.

That is surely hyperbole, unless he said or meant 2:07 marathon pace.

There, it's been said. This is akin to the Rapture. Anyone that runs over 2:07 in the marathon is a jogger. I guess we can say that 2:07 includes those that run 2:07:59, although those are marginal times. the 2:07:00 to 2:07:59 runners are sub elites.

It is said, it is written. According to letsrun trolls anyone slower than able to do these times for these distances are just joggers. Glad we got that one figured out.

3000m 7:33

2mi 8:09.2

5km 13:03

5mi 21:44

10km 27:25

15km 42:19

10mi 45:37

20km 57:34

13.1mi 1:00:58

26.2mi 2:07:59

Fox trusts no one wrote:

MarathonMind wrote:

That is surely hyperbole, unless he said or meant 2:07 marathon pace.

There, it's been said. This is akin to the Rapture. Anyone that runs over 2:07 in the marathon is a jogger. I guess we can say that 2:07 includes those that run 2:07:59, although those are marginal times. the 2:07:00 to 2:07:59 runners are sub elites.

It is said, it is written. According to letsrun trolls anyone slower than able to do these times for these distances are just joggers. Glad we got that one figured out.

3000m 7:33

2mi 8:09.2

5km 13:03

5mi 21:44

10km 27:25

15km 42:19

10mi 45:37

20km 57:34

13.1mi 1:00:58

26.2mi 2:07:59

Seems like you're trying to make some sort of clever point, but we're talking about a Canova quote, not something "According to letsrun trolls".

What Canova was saying is that the Kenyans these days (including the guys he coaches) run all out, high risk races. Yet what we observed yesterday in Boston on Monday was a bizarre and unusual display of conservative racing on their part.

Heck, while I'm at it, I might as well throw in some quotes from a guy who actually ran in that slow pack on Monday. Keep in mind that the following quotes are from a guy who has never run sub 2:10.

"I was surprised we were just going along running 4:50s, that no one went off after Meb,” said Arciniaga, 30, who won the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon last October. “But if they weren’t going to chase, we certainly weren’t going to pull them up to Meb and JB.”

Eventually some sort of chase effort took shape around 20K, but it was short-lived and unsuccessful. “They got away, but we caught most of them by halfway,” Arciniaga said. “Going up the hills we were catching guys every mile, and they didn’t seem to put up any kind of fight.”

Think about it...Canova says the Kenyans are balls out every time and Arcianaga says they put up no fight. Hmmmmmmm.

asdfasdfasdfas wrote:

Think about it...Canova says the Kenyans are balls out every time and Arcianaga says they put up no fight. Hmmmmmmm.

that proves it

Might as well throw in this quote from Letsrun as well.

***

As Nick Arciniaga said, “They were just super relaxed and would go to the front and make some fake moves, surges and then just spread out across the whole road and just relax. I felt myself going from like 4:55 pace to like 5:20s in a couple of steps. I was like, ‘Ok these guys are just playing games.’”

The leading entrants were letting the pace sag so much and were so unfocused on going after Meb that the top Americans behind Meb and Boit started to get antsy. The Americans were running a more consistent pace and as they approached the leading African runners near halfway, a few of the Americans considered maintaining their steady pace and pushing ahead of the Africans, a move that almost certainly would be matched by the Africans who would use the Americans as rabbits.

***

Leading entrants were letting the pace sag so much and were so unfocused? Hmmm. Second tier Americans were getting antsy because of the slow pace? Hmmm.

"What difference does it make?"

real history wrote:

asdfasdfasdfas wrote:

Think about it...Canova says the Kenyans are balls out every time and Arcianaga says they put up no fight. Hmmmmmmm.

that proves it

Definitely proves it wasn't a normal race for any of the leading entrants. That's just the simple facts.

why doesn't someone ask Canova what his thoughts on the race are?

What follows is a non-rhetorical question: what are these FACTS? It's possible I've missed them (really), but I just haven't seen any factual analysis. I have seen lots of characterizations and speculation. Since you seem persuaded by the facts you've seen, perhaps you could summarize them for me. Again, I am asking sincerely.

As I've addressed elsewhere, your assumption is off. Everyone was not setting PBs. Yes, a few second-tier American runners (2:12 - 2:15 PB types) set PBs, but that's a common occurrence at major American marathons like Chicago and Boston, where there are usually several Americans who are getting their first (or second) opportunity to run with a fast group of elite athletes. Note that the three fastest Americans besides Meb going into the race--Hall, Gotcher, Abdirahman--all had poor days, running several minutes off of their PBs.

I think you're falling into a logical trap that Hobbiejogger identified earlier: there is really no such thing as a "typical" marathon, so almost all marathons have distinctive aspects that, if isolated, will seem "bizarre" in retrospect. This is especially so when the marathon does not have pacers and has varied terrain. As I referenced earlier, here are the top 7 finisher of last year's Boston marathon, which was run in cool conditions with mostly light wind:

1 Lelisa Desisa (Ethiopia) 2:10:22

2 Micah Kogo (Kenya) 2:10:27

3 Gebregziabher Gebremariam (Ethiopia) 2:10:28

4 Jason Hartmann (United States) 2:12:12

5 Wesley Korir (Kenya) 2:12:30

6 Markos Geneti (Ethiopia) 2:12:44

7 Dickson Chumba (Kenya) 2:14:08

East Africans finished 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7th. All had PRs between 2:04 and 2:06. Do you assume they all had bad days? Do you assume that there was a conspiracy to let Desisa win?

Or, to use yet another example that I've brought up but to which no one has responded, how do you explain the 1972 Olympic marathon? Frank Shorter gradually broke away from the lead pack around mile 9 without a big surge. He wasn't running WR pace. He wasn't even running OR pace. But the pack let him gradually pull away, and the chasers couldn't reel him in over the last six miles. When asked afterwards why they let Shorter go, those in the pack said they thought he would come back, but they miscalculated. And it's not like Shorter was some unknown commodity. He was the fastest U.S. marathoner and had won the Fukokoa marathon a few months earlier, back when that race functioned as something of a de facto world championship.

Do you think the 1972 Olympic marathon was "bizarre"? I guess it depends on your perspective. But I don't assume, as so many in this thread are doing, that such "bizarreness" (or uniqueness or whathaveyou) is the result of conspiracy. Without compelling evidence, I'm going to assume it's the result of the various tactical choices made during an unpredictable long-distance road race. I am sincerely surprised that so many runners here are assuming otherwise.

j-invariant wrote:

why doesn't someone ask Canova what his thoughts on the race are?

They already did. The answer is quoted above.

I haven't seen one logical explanation as to what advantage BAA would gain by staging such a stunt.

The gain is emotional at best and the losses over credibility because of something like this would be substantial.

Let's start there.

The idea of Kenyan's always going out under 62 is bunk. This was not a time trial set up with pacers. They let him go because he was an aging old man with a 2:09 pr. They waited too long to chase him. They were all watching the favorites. All it took was someone like Kimetto having a bad race for the other guys to get messed up if they were keying off of him. Meb should not have won, but he did. They made an error in their strategy.

They let him go in NY also. The circumstances were slightly different but the guys he dropped there figured they were going to catch him later. I guess you would say that was fixed also?

This confirms it, the fix was in, from the top:

"I have received many congratulatory calls, but I just received THE call from President"

https://twitter.com/runmeb/status/458677339975847938

The facts have been laid out a number of time up-thread, and I'm not going to repeat them - Conspiracy Theorists posts probably sum up the facts better than anyone.

But here's another fact for you - I've just gone through the top 15 men and the top 10 women and compared their finish times at the 2014 Boston Marathon with their previous marathon PB's. And they make for very interesting analysis.

I'm afraid it rebuts your airy assertion that "Everyone was not setting PBs. Yes, a few second-tier American runners (2:12 - 2:15 PB types) set PBs"

Of the top 15 men, they break down as follows - starting with all the African guys and their times in relation to their PB's - they're all CONSIDERABLY worse;

Chebet KEN +3.21

Chepkwony KEN +2.39

Geneti ETH +4.56

Kimurer KEN +3.15

Lonyangata KEN +4.50

Annani MAR +5.00

Lusapho RSA +6.27

OK, now onto all the non-African top 15 finishers. These times you'll note are ALL better than or within a minute of their previous PB's - ALL OF THEM;

Meb - 0.31

Shafar -2.15

Arciniaga +0.17 (PB Houston)

Eggleston -0.06

Boit -0.22

Leon +0.36 (PB Chicago)

Morgan +0.18 (PB Houston)

Sakai +0.27

OK, now to check that this isn't a total fluke, look at the top 10 women - they seem to have had a banner day too. With the exception of 10th place Desiree, they all broke or came within a minute of their PB's too......

Jeptoo -1.00

Deba -3.20

Dibaba +0.43 (PB Dubai)

Sumgong -0.07

Melkamu +0.27 (PB Frankfurt)

Duliba -2.15

Flanagan -3.36

Cherop +0.32 (PB Berlin)

Ongori -0.58

Linden +1.16

Toward the end of your post, you descend into a fairly tenuous argument that there's no such thing as a "typical" marathon (reaching as far back as 42 years ago to try to prove your point). Of course there's no such thing as a typical marathon, but there is such a thing as a typical spread of times - and what I've posted above is not it - the African men all falling WAY short of their PB's and EVERYONE ELSE running either a new PB or within a minute of a PB set on a pancake flat racecourse.

Boston was EASY this year, the times prove it. Yet EVERY African man limped home.

Like I say, bizarre.

This is pretty damning. It's not concrete evidence, but it's just too bizarre.

The Americans are saying things like "they were making fake moves and super relaxed up there and just running weird"...."oh yea I told the other American runners to slow down to not help them out"

The foreign elite men are the only group really struggling. They run completely counter to every other marathon. Hang back, don't push the pace, run super slow over the first half, then BLAZEEE over the hills at 2:06 pace? What?

First off you can't compare the women's race to the men's race. Flanagan set a hard pace and unlike the men they did not let her go. I remember a few years ago the women went through the half slower than 1:20. Without pacers the race is different everytime.

They let Meb go not considering hom as a threat and were preparing to slug it out with each other with a fast finish. Sometimes it's to the advantage of the really fast guys at shorter distances to cruise and lay down the hammer later. The Africans key off each other. They really could care less what any of the Americans are doing and since the Americans were running their pace they were able to run around their pr's.

By laying back it made it impossible to run a 2:05. It's a race not an attempt on the WR.

It's hard to explain this to those of you with asbergers syndrome. It's also impossible for you to understand that there was no motive for the BAA to take part in a "conspiracy". I'm pretty sure that's what is going on here. It's not your fault. You just don't have the ability to understand what motivates people.

What are even talking about? First, my assertion that "everyone was not setting PBs" was not "airy." It was, of course, completely true. (How could it not be?) And you don't rebut it at all. The second part of my assertion--that second-tier American runners set PBs--is supported by your list. The only elite American runner with a PB on there is Meb--who, we all acknowledge, ran an amazing race and set a PR. You didn't "rebut" anything.

Even more amusingly, you can repeat your break down with last year's race and get even more divergent results. The top 10 of the 2013 Boston Marathon included six East Africans and three Americans. I'll present them as you did, starting with the East Africans:

Desisa ETH +5:37

Kogo KEN +3:31

Gebremariam ETH +5:35

Korir KEN +6:17

Geneti ETH +7:50

Chumba KEN +8:22

And here are the three Americans in the top 10:

Hartmann USA +1:06 (PB Chicago)

Tapia USA -:58

Leon USA +:58 (PB Chicago)

Judged by your metric (Boston race time compared to PB), the discrepancy between the East Africans and the Americans was wider in 2013 than it was in 2014. So I guess it's even more likely that the 2013 race was fixed?

Tenuous? Isn't it pretty self-evident? Do you actually disagree?

It's a useful example because it's a famous race that Americans are familiar with. And it was the Olympics in the amateur era, so there's little question that all the competitors were highly motivated to win. Also, I'll ask: Do you think the 1972 Olympic marathon was fixed? And if not, how why not?

Look, FM #5, I appreciate you actually offering facts to support your theory. That's more than anyone else has done on this thread. But given that you can do a similar East African/American comparison with last year's Boston marathon, I find your analysis rather unconvincing.

The East Africans have finally started to overtrain because the doping controls are working.

Sorry, yet more substandard critical thinking and insults.

"Don't compare the womens race to the mens" Why not? To do that is to reinforce the FACT that all runners, bar mysteriously the African men, ran blazing fast times. Come up with some spurious reason to discount all the women running PB/near-PB times. Yeah, Shalane dragged them to it.

Sorry, but I CAN compare the womens race to the mens - I think it's relevant to my point that Boston was EASY this year - or do you seriously think the top 9 women ALL set close-to PB's solely because Shalane ran like a bat out of hell ?

Your next paragraph is post-hoc justification with no other example anyone can cite other than Shorter in 1972. EVERY one of the Africans just decided to dawdle ? In the year that all the cheerleaders were praying for an American victory ? Hmm

And your last paragraph just descends into insults. No need bro. Also, where have I even implied the BAA was involved in any "conspiracy" ? I've simply stuck to the facts, unlike you and Trollie who seem to be letting your pride in Mebs great run override clear thinking. And why wouldn't you? "It's not your fault". I'm just trying to outline the weirdness of it all.

redux wrote:

The East Africans have finally started to overtrain because the doping controls are working.

Just the men

Chebet ran 1:32 for 30k downhill....training pace. Then he did 30-40k in 29:30 - his PB pace. Got to 40k within 7 seconds of a struggling 3:15/km Meb and....Chebet goes from 2:55/km to 3:15. He cud have blown by Meb but nope....another 2.2km at his regular race pace is too much. He also doesn't start crawling at 3;30 pace. He just keeps drifting at 3:15 pace.

...because of course there are no hills in Kenya so there is no way he could have trained for this, right?

Chebet took his foot off the gas at 40. Why, we do not know. But he eased up. That is obvious.