"The Boston Marathon Was Fixed" thread.

The Meb Experience wrote:

HardLoper wrote:

Okay... You realize they aren't watching themselves on TV like we are, they have no clue how many mm:ss behind the lead they are or how Meb looks.

But anyways, 10/10, this was a fabulous effort.

ConspiracyTheorist has totally won this thread. It's a great trolling performance. He keeps writing obviously ridiculous things and still gets all these morons to respond. I also like how in the recent post he ignores the hills in the second half of the Boston course, as if the race was run on a treadmill.

He even adopts a troll name, calling himself a "Conspiracy Theorist" (obviously making fun of conspiracy theorists), and all you tools still rush in to "correct" his intentionally outrageous conspiracy theories.

Yep, great thread, best trolling effort so far this year. The best part is the idiots who keep getting sh1tfaced at the trolling suggestions that it could be fixed (I've done a few ridiculous ones), if they hadn't responded it would've died after a page and a half. Hilarious.

Yep, great thread, best trolling effort so far this year. The best part is the idiots who keep getting sh1tfaced at the trolling suggestions that it could be fixed (I've done a few ridiculous ones), if they hadn't responded it would've died after a page and a half. Hilarious.

Yet more obfuscation, avoidance and insults.

So, let me get this straight - Chebet, a total stud, didn't know how to run a marathon, and boy, these awful hills that EVERYONE else except the African men steamed up, just took all the legs out of him ?

And the African men, idiots to a man on Monday, just looked around at each other and let 4th in the last Olympics just ease away ? Man, they were all pretty stupid on Monday weren't they ?

And the women all performed like studs, as did all non-African men ?

Perhaps rather than saying it was EASY, I should have said it was FAST. You're right - no marathon is easy - except Wilson sure looked like he'd been out for a Sunday afternoon tune-up when he crossed the line on Monday.

And again, really, if you're resorting to insults, it's suggesting you've nothing of substance to contribute - what are you, teenagers ?

I'm not convinced by the view that in Boston, PB's don't matter - the pattern I outlined on PB/near-PB's and crashing and burning is amazingly convenient for an American win on Patriots Day, don't you think ?

And Trollie, you deliberately left out one hugely important difference in your PB post about 2013. In 2013, the Africans ran slow in comparison to their PB's whilst leading and controlling the race. In 2014, they let Meb take a huge lead with a rabbit, whilst simultaneously stinking up the joint with their times. All of them.

Still, at the end of the day, a nice guy won a race. I'm pretty chilled about it all and frankly, I'm here because the alternative is a dull meeting or admin. It's good sparring over this, but I'm not emotionally invested as some of you appear to be. All I ask is that you consider the FACTS. You're runners and you should therefore understand running. Not some know-nothing yahoo who needs vicarious patriotic validation and so HAS to believe Meb won it on guts and brains, insinuating that the East Africans have neither.

I saw Chebet coming up the hill with 1k to go and he looked like he was on his last legs. It was obviously very unlikely he would have the gear shift needed to catch up. I was surprised to hear that Meb didn't open the gap more (definitely could have if he needed to).

apollo creed wrote:

I saw Chebet coming up the hill with 1k to go and he looked like he was on his last legs. It was obviously very unlikely he would have the gear shift needed to catch up. I was surprised to hear that Meb didn't open the gap more (definitely could have if he needed to).

riiiiight.

11 wrote:

As Toni Reavis points out, everybody was watching Desisa. Nobody wanted to be the fool who put in all the work and draw him to the lead, just to see him win the race with his fast finish.

So when they realised that Desisa wasn't in good shape, Kimetto and Chebet moved, but Kimetto pulled his hamstring in the surge.

I hope Meb also bought a lottery ticket that day, because April 21:st was his lucky day.

reavis is spot on - nailed it. the alpha dog issue is important.

agip wrote:

reavis is spot on - nailed it. the alpha dog issue is important. ]

Reavis appears bought and paid for by the BAA (and/or U.S. government). He was in on it.

Also, trying to decide if "Frightened Inmate # 5" is troll or just not very bright. Posters note that it's hard to make generalizations because each marathon race has different dynamics. Inmate replies with fascile data analysis that he says "proves" that the course was EASY and that the Africans all had horrible races. Trollie shows that same analysis would prove the same thing for 2013 race. Inmate defends himself by saying that you have to put everything in context because each indiviudal race has different dynamics, basically confirming the point that he was supposedly trying to disprove in the first place.

I also enjoy how he castigates others for their lack of civility while simultaneously insulting those who disagree wtih him, caling them blind patriots and "know-nothing yahoos."

I'm leaning towards "not very bright," but, if a troll, I say 7/10.

Chebet was not intimidated by Dessisa. Sorry.

And 29:30 30-40k would not have wiped him out. He had more in the tank. He has a history of closing fast.

It is clear that Chebet took his foot off the gas at 40k. As to why, we will never know. But this did happen. He was not spent, he was not blowing up. He was maintaining. He saw the press truck and backed off.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

[quote]

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.

What about 2008 Olympics in Beijing? Both winners went out early from the pack. Instead of a non-favorable course (which Boston is), they ran in the non-favorable conditions of Beijing (heat, humidity and pollution).

I'll concede Sammy Wanijiru's pace was more blistering than Meb's, but given Meb's age, slow PR, and recent crapping of the bed in NYC, Meb going out at his PR was most likely not taken seriously (probably not much more seriously than the runner from Altra who was with the leaders for 10:00). Why kill yourself for Meb early when someone behind you will prey on you later?

Just wondering, do any of the conspiracy theorists actually happen to run races? Maybe coach track or xc? Have run the Boston course? Even finished a marathon? Something more than a hobby-jogger using a couch-to-5k program?

It sounds like most of you are not familiar with racing tactics. For example, let's say you are racing (or coaching a runner) for a state championship track meet in high school and it is the 1600m. The typical winning time is 4:15. If someone who has been running 4:25-30 or has been injured and not considered a contender recently drops a 62 second opening lap, do you think the top contenders are going to be on his heels or give him some distance and come around in 64? If you were on his heels, you'd know you just are being a rabbit for the other contenders right behind you.

A lot of those guys just spent 4-6 months preparing for one race. They aren't going to blow their load and a chance for a pay-day for Meb. As great as Meb was, he was extremely lucky. He ran an outlier effort at a time when others would not take him seriously.

I said you're "not know-nothing yahoos", which is the exact opposite of what you said I said.

I could at this point say something disparaging about your skills at reading comprehension, but I'll let it slide. I'm a chill guy, after all.

It's facile, not fascile. And I think it's up to others to decide if my analysis up-thread is facile.

I happen to believe it's pretty bizarre that EVERY African male stunk up the joint and everyone else had a fast day. If you think that's perfectly normal on a day when everyone was willing an American victory after 30 years, that's your right, bro.

And your tortured reasoning around why Trollie was right to counter my 2014 data with his 2013 data is somewhat stupefying. Perhaps I'm not very bright after all !! I happen to think running well off a PB en masse when you're leading and controlling a race (2013) is very different to running well off a PB (en masse) when you've let a storied Olympian with a rabbit slip away and build a huge lead while just loping along shooting the breeze.

Still, what do I know - I'm "a basement dweller", "not very bright", "a troll", "fascile(sic)", I have "asbergers", I "don't have the ability to understand what motivates people", my arguments connote "craziness", I "need to go back to school", I'm a "whack-job", "retarded" I'm writing "obviously ridiculous things", I'm "spouting drivel" etc etc.

Guys, seriously, chill. It's not so important we have to insult each other........

Do I really have to spell out the fallacy in your 1600 example ?

OK, for the sake of everyone else. Again.

But Meb didn't go out and drop the hammer early on, did he ?

This has been long established. Can I suggest you read the thread in it's entirety. Better yet, look at the splits that have been provided.

But penguin, thank you for a broadly constructive post (notwithstanding the suggestion that anyone who finds Monday bizarre must be a hobby jogger).

If the Africans laid down for this race, the truth will eventually come out.

I still don't see why Ryan Hall should get much credit for Meb's victory. Had Hall been capable of doing so, he would have tried to reel Meb back in and win himself.

If Hall had placed a minute or two back, then maybe he was deserving of some kind of altruistic gesture.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I happen to believe it's pretty bizarre that EVERY African male stunk up the joint and everyone else had a fast day.

Another example of when, despite a payday of $150k, every invited runner blows up when the weather is conducive to good running?

Waiting...

troofiness wrote:

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I happen to believe it's pretty bizarre that EVERY African male stunk up the joint and everyone else had a fast day.

Another example of when, despite a payday of $150k, every invited runner blows up when the weather is conducive to good running?

Waiting...

did you read the reavis? NYCM '86 and '06

plus the beijing OG men and women, which you want to dq for reasons of weather.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I said you're "not know-nothing yahoos", which is the exact opposite of what you said I said.

Oh please. Here is what you wrote: "You're runners and you should therefore understand running. Not some know-nothing yahoo who needs vicarious patriotic validation and so HAS to believe Meb won it on guts and brains, insinuating that the East Africans have neither."

The obvious implication of your statement is that those disagreeing with you are acing like "some know-nothing yahoo who needs vicarious patriotic validation."

I actually don't think you are a troll, and I think you are arguing in good faith, but most anyone with "skills at reading comprehension," as you put it, would read your language as an insult. C'mon.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

Do I really have to spell out the fallacy in your 1600 example ?

Actually, you might. A race won in 4:15 range, in high school, sometimes will often have a fast, but not suicidal opening. 62, followed by a 65, 65 and a 62 or 63 is common. The point isn't the time, but the person; someone who is unheralded or unable to maintain the set pace. If a legit runner opened that fast, everyone would have gone. I didn't say that the opening lap was a 59. Again, it is situation.

Same applies w/ Meb. He didn't set a blistering pace, but moved at a pace that would have been a substantial PR. At 38 years of age.

Also, I have read the postings; if you read them all, you would have notice that I already posted on this thread. And posted about the course, as I have run it before. It is a bitch. Hardest marathon I did despite the overall downhill profile.

For others wanting other examples besides Shorter in 1972 or the 2008 Olympics, Reavis did the research (so I don't have to).

"There is history to apply here, as well. In New York City 1986 the alpha-male in the field was Boston champion and course record setter Rob De Castella of Australia. In that New York everyone kept eye-balling Deek waiting for him to go. Somewhere along the way Italy’s Gianni Poli opened a gap that nobody covered. By the time they realized Deek in New York wasn’t the same guy as Deek in Boston, race over! Big smile Poli! Deek in second 37-seconds back.

Twenty years later it happened again. The alpha in New York 2006 was Paul Tergat of Kenya, the world record holder and defending champion. 2004 Olympic champion Stefano Baldini of Italy was also there along with 2005 Boston champion Hailu Negussie of Ethiopia. But the pacers never got close to the 64:00 first half they had been contracted to run. They crossed the Pulaski Bridge in 65:30. Nobody wanted to venture out as there were too many major champions in the field to account for.

Nine men joined the hunt up First Avenue with Americans Meb Keflezighi, Dathan Ritzenhein and Alan Culpepper either unable or unwilling to respond. (Meb had twinged his hammy in his tuneup half marathon in San Jose that year).

Gomes Dos Santos flies free in NYC 2006

Marilson Gomes Dos Santos flies free in NYC 2006

During mile 18 Brazilian Marilson Gomes Dos Santos went to the front looking to thin the herd a little. Not among the major players in the pre-race build up — though he had set national records at 5000 & 10,000 meters that summer in Europe — he opened a gap with a 4:48 19th and 4:53 20th mile. Nothing flashy there, but because he wasn’t considered a threat, nobody went with him. Oops! He opened a 38-second lead by 23 miles. And though Tergat and Stephen Kiogora eventually whittled Dos Santos lead to 12-seconds with one mile remaining, they ran out of real estate, and Dos Santos hoisted the first of his two NYC trophies.

These are the games athletes play. These are the decisions athletes make and the consequences which define champions. The fact is, like Poli in New York 1986 and Dos Santos in 2006, Meb in Boston in 2014 wasn’t taken seriously by the Kenyans and Ethiopians, and it cost them the race."

Reavis wrote a good article, but how did the pack lose sight of Meb and Boit like he says? Don't the leaders have a media truck and TV motorcycles with them? Wouldn't the pack notice that those were now gone up the road with someone else who was leading the race? I know Boston has hills so eye sight is limited, but still the absence of the media truck and TV cameras should have been noticeable to the pack.

Not sure you realize it, but Meb's "breakaway" was at a pretty slow pace, relatively speaking. In the past, if you wanted to breakaway, it would have to be sub 15:00 to even pass the smell test. But Meb's breakaway was so slow, in fact, Arciniaga later said he couldn't believe nobody went after him.

my only question wrote:

Reavis wrote a good article, but how did the pack lose sight of Meb and Boit like he says? Don't the leaders have a media truck and TV motorcycles with them? Wouldn't the pack notice that those were now gone up the road with someone else who was leading the race? I know Boston has hills so eye sight is limited, but still the absence of the media truck and TV cameras should have been noticeable to the pack.

Actually, if you watch the race, you can see that they knew Meb went ahead. Reavis's theory only works if the competitors wore blindfolds in this one. And his Catherine Ndereba argument is a non-sequitur because what happened to her in Beijing simply didn't happen in Boston.

ruggiero wrote:

did you read the reavis? NYCM '86 and '06

plus the beijing OG men and women, which you want to dq for reasons of weather.

you know why people don't think NYC '86, '06 and various OGs were not setups? Because the outcomes were plausible. Low probability, but plausible. And those in the chase group kept hammering the whole way home, unlike Chebet.