At some point we need to actually talk about Evan Jäger's fancy bears leak.
...
I am waiting for a prominent East African or Russian to get busted. I am waiting for all the righteous Americans to post about it and how unfairrrrr it is. They are all so ridiculous and such a joke to clean sport over their handling of this.
Good points. As for Jager, he evidently never was the same after his ludicrous 5 stars out of 3 on the likely doping list and the subsequent target testing.
As for righteous Americans, read what Flanagan said after Jeptoo's postive A test (B sample not tested yet at that point) in the lead-up to Chicago 2014:
With the Alberto Salazar stuff, it's been pretty well documented what Ritz did and didn't do. He was certainly a gray-area plus doper. He hasn't spoken publicly about it, but he has actually cooperated with investigations into Alberto and Dr. Brown.
People want to win. Why does Nike sponsor a team at all if it did not matter to them?
At some point, if you feign incredulity hard enough, you come out on the other side.
I’ve worked for large companies; they’re ridiculously bureaucratic and C.Y.A is the law of the land. Your scheme would require a written recommendation, including a budget, approval by multiple executives or even a committee and sign off by the legal department.
The athletes’ contracts contain a clause that calls for termination if they use PEDs so in your world, Nike signs the contract with one hand and hands over a satchel of the good stuff with the other.
Again, the B.T.C. is a small investment for Nike. I figure the total annual cost for B.T.C. must be between $5 and $10M compared to an entire advertising budget of $3B. The amount they pay Kaepernick probably exceeds the entire B.T.C. budget.
i agree, honestly everyone in track and field and pro sports in general 'dopes' to some extent. People complain about BTC and the 'burritos' yet are totally cool with products like Xendurance which is proven to increase a person's Vo2 max. Only problem I really have is 'blood doping' because of how dangerous it can be. Too many athletes have dropped dead because of that.
Not sure I follow. So anyone who wins or qualifies is doping? Illogical. What qualifies a winner to be OK and not doped? These discussions make no sense. Maybe everyone is doping, could be but to assume only the winners are is silly and sad
Speaking of bureacracies, the dirtiest team in cycling at the time was the US Posal Service. The irony.
Again, its about wanting to win. No Phil Knight is probably not handing over a satchel of PEDs. Rather they, like the USPS, are investing the money and they clearly expect to win for the money they are investing. They hire people with the ethic in mind. Just win. Just think of NOP. Putting aside the credulous reference to contract clauses (Armstrong's contracts had the same; standard boilerplate), the degree of the investment is relative to the sport. Assuming the $5-$10 million dollar operating budget, that is still more than other teams are getting. As someone else noted, Nike has not exactly been squaky clean in this area.
One more thing. Nike created the Nike Oregon Project specifically because they wanted US track athletes to do better in international competition. And I guarnatee they knew what that meant. And we all know how that ended up. BTC is its successor, coached by someone who coached at NOP. So we have a team BTC that has direct connections to the NOP that shut down over alleged doping violations and its top female running got busted for doping. The benefit of the doubt flew out the window long ago.
Speaking of bureacracies, the dirtiest team in cycling at the time was the US Posal Service. The irony.
Again, its about wanting to win. No Phil Knight is probably not handing over a satchel of PEDs. Rather they, like the USPS, are investing the money and they clearly expect to win for the money they are investing. They hire people with the ethic in mind. Just win. Just think of NOP. Putting aside the credulous reference to contract clauses (Armstrong's contracts had the same; standard boilerplate), the degree of the investment is relative to the sport. Assuming the $5-$10 million dollar operating budget, that is still more than other teams are getting. As someone else noted, Nike has not exactly been squaky clean in this area.
If the USPS was on board, why did it sue Armstrong for $100M for fraud after he was busted? Couldn’t he have just called in a few witnesses to testify the U.S.P.S was in cahoots?
Many of your arguments are based on the assumption that people are evil and stupid.
i agree, honestly everyone in track and field and pro sports in general 'dopes' to some extent. People complain about BTC and the 'burritos' yet are totally cool with products like Xendurance which is proven to increase a person's Vo2 max. Only problem I really have is 'blood doping' because of how dangerous it can be. Too many athletes have dropped dead because of that.
Money. Once he confessed there was nothing else to do. Just business.
Doping isn't evil. It is cheating to win, and even then it is very easy to rationalize ("everyone does it"). When the USPS sponsorship began there had already been major doping scandals in cycling like the Festina affair at the 1998 Tour. They and all the other big sponsors knew exactly what they were getting involved with. But they deemed it worthwhile. It was still good advertising. No one at the head of USPS directed the team to dope. Rather they invested in and hired people and told them to win in a dope infested sport.
Nike though is a special case. Its top executives had a direct connection to the sport of running. NOP was created specifically as a vehicle to make US runners competitive internationally in the EPO age. You think in starting NOP the Nike brass did not know what they were getting into? No one is that stupid. In the post-epo era there is one way that distance runners can compete internationally. No way around it.
Anyway none of this is complicated or conspiratorial.
The main issue for me is their recovery. People who are mentioning they barely won their events are forgetting a lot of them doubled or had raced at the US 10k champs. Karissa was "only" 4th in the 1500 but that was while she was in shape to win the 10k a few eeks prior and then came back to get second in the 5k after the 1500 rounds. I get that you can be in shape for multiple events at a time, but I have trouble believing that Shelby's training partner, who came 2 seconds back from her in that insane 5k time trial in 2020, is perfectly clean. The way they handled Shelby's ban and her post-ban training situation makes me look at all their "quirky" team behaviors, like skipping major races, in a negative light.
Further, I simply don't believe that the talent gap between BTC and every other group is that large or that Schumacher has a secret training method that know one else knows. I get that its possible to be in shape after multiple events, but their overall dominance in conjunction with Shelby's conviction is sketchy to me. They don't "ruin" the meet, some of their races are my favorite to watch, but I'm skeptical that their results are clean.
Yes. With Schweizer it is perfectly obvious. Shelby's training partner. Runs 14:26. Runs with her in that 2020 TT. You hoped that Shelby getting busted would level things a bit but no way. They are thumbing their noses at world. Her she does the Hassan triple at the US Championships and does not show any fatigue. Are we really supposed to buy that the BTC athletes are so much better and stronger naturally? Please. Not sure why people are shy about just saying it. Do they really think we don't know.
Btw I was looking at Cranny's college PRs. 4:09 in the 1500m. 15:49 in the 5000m. Did I miss something. Now look at her. 14:30s. :)
The main issue for me is their recovery. People who are mentioning they barely won their events are forgetting a lot of them doubled or had raced at the US 10k champs. Karissa was "only" 4th in the 1500 but that was while she was in shape to win the 10k a few eeks prior and then came back to get second in the 5k after the 1500 rounds. I get that you can be in shape for multiple events at a time, but I have trouble believing that Shelby's training partner, who came 2 seconds back from her in that insane 5k time trial in 2020, is perfectly clean. The way they handled Shelby's ban and her post-ban training situation makes me look at all their "quirky" team behaviors, like skipping major races, in a negative light.
Further, I simply don't believe that the talent gap between BTC and every other group is that large or that Schumacher has a secret training method that know one else knows. I get that its possible to be in shape after multiple events, but their overall dominance in conjunction with Shelby's conviction is sketchy to me. They don't "ruin" the meet, some of their races are my favorite to watch, but I'm skeptical that their results are clean.
exactly. Before the Shelby bust I was like "wow, it's crazy that BTC is just so consistently better than everyone" and now its nothing but an eye roll.
BTW Yes, you missed her (Cranny) essentially nonstop hard training and sacrifices the past 3 1/2 years along with the fact she had multiple stress injuries in college and has now been able to stay healthy through rest and improved fueling for an extended period because she has learned from her mistakes.
BTW Yes, you missed her (Cranny) essentially nonstop hard training and sacrifices the past 3 1/2 years along with the fact she had multiple stress injuries in college and has now been able to stay healthy through rest and improved fueling for an extended period because she has learned from her mistakes.
Do you see how hollow this sounds, given the ban that Shelby, her former training partner, is serving? I am not sure if you know Elise personally since you this does feel defensive, but here's the issue with this from an objective point of view.
--Doping aids "non stop hard training". It can help recovery and allow runners to do more where as clean athletes may get hurt or exhausted. People who are capable of working harder than others should be met with more scrutiny since realistically, everyone works hard in the sport.
--Again, Doping CAN help runners stay healthy. Nandrolone can aid in that too. "I was able to stay healthy" was also a Shelby excuse for her dramatic improvement, and she is serving a ban right now. Staying healthy helps for sure. But how much does it help in the grand scheme of things?
It's totally possible that Elise has learned from mistakes and improved the clean way. But her and BTC associations with a drug cheat + their dominance is going to cause some side eye. Elise is not the runner that I am the most wary of (Karissa is) but she doesn't get a free pass, or the benefit of the doubt. Elise has hardly said anything about clean sport, explained why she thinks Shelby is innocent other than a version of "I like her!" And then she goes and consistently destroys the fields she is in.
Talking about "hard work" "sacrifice" and "nutrition" are red flags for me, along with "form changes". Everyone does these things, and they aren't an explanation for dramatic improvement out of no where.
