Did any of you cry watching Meb win?

I understand why all you big babies are getting so emotional about the claim that the race was fixed. But just to point this out -- Masback, or whoever the announcer was, if you watch the video highlights linked on the LR homepage, says, "there is no one in sight...this is stunning...it's a reasonable pace..." to paraphrase. He was not stunned by Meb's performance at that point (an hour or so in), he was stunned that they would not keep up with a "reasonable" pace. That is very odd. It wasn't like it was 90 degrees out. They let an Olympic silver medalist get waaaaaay out in front. I'm sorry but that's a little odd.

I cried listening to the horrendous commentary

Before anybody is going to take you conspiracist dum\bfu\ck losers the least bit seriously, how about filling in the blanks, mmm?

Who fixed the race? Who orchestrated it, and who put up the funds?

How did they fix it? How much more than their customary appearance fee did the "true" elites have to be paid? What instructions were given to the paid-off foreigners? Who decided who should DNF and who should simply run behind Meb?

Did they pick the winner or could it have been any of Meb, Boit, Abdi, Hall, or the others? To what extent were the American runners in on it? I mean, Meb must have known that the Africans wouldn't hunt him down, right? Otherwise wouldn't he have stayed in the pack?

Why did they fix it? Seriously, what would be the fu\cking point? Surely it wasn't done just for a few feel-good headlines, or what? This fix cost millions of dollars and incurred a serious risk to the long-term credibility of the sport and all US sports, so what was the payoff that made it worth all that?

Unless you answer all of those questions, you don't even have a fu\cking theory. All you have is a pathetic case of penis envy.

Crying Man wrote:

Yes. Pedestrian pace. Meb set a PR today, by the way. I'm sure he counted on that as an absolute when negotiating with the BAA on his win today.

Crying Man I know Meb personally and he would never agree to a fixed victory. Stop making up accusations where you have no evidence. Meb is a true champion and had one of the best performances of his career, you can at least be happy for the man. This interview says it all, you cant fake tears like that.

Finished in the 2:30's today and as the few dozen men around me staggered in delirium to the water 500m down Boylston (WTF BAA?), we were a tried twitching lot hobbling along. At Berkeley St a volunteer with a bull horn yelled "MEB WON! MEB WON!" Then entire lot of lifeless runners myself included started dancing and chanting USA!

Makes my freaking year. Watched it on DVR after getting home and just about cried. Never thought I'd live to see this.

Like a baby

I did not cry, but my eyes were welling up. Also my nipples were hard, when he broke out to that early lead.

Yes. And I did just reading the news as I couldn't watch from work today. Cried even more watching the highlights and the interview. Fitting, as I remember the tears unexpectedly flowing after they captured the last bomber and the stress and the fear of seeing an American city shut down like that overcoming me. MEB!!!! Thank you.

Yes, I had $10,000 on Chebet for the win (wish I'd known the fix was in).

cry? are you serious? I guess this is what they mean when they say the "pussification of America". Grow a pair people.

Not during the race. Pure joy and excitement. However, I did choke up when they played the Star-Spangled Banner and Meb was crying.

Meb is a pure class act as a pro runner. He celebrates the sport and is one of the gutsiest runners I have ever seen.

Agreed. Easily one of the greatest professional athletic performances of the 21st century.

Thank you BAA and Univeral Sports for allowing me to see the entire race from start to finish for free.

Yes. I was in the middle of class following the race on Twitter on my phone. Flotrack was tweeting the splits of the last few miles saying Meb was in the lead and I was getting so ecstatic reading it, saying that Meb had a 28 sec lead with like 3 miles left. I kept checking for the next few minutes and was getting so nervous because they were saying that his lead was getting smaller and smaller and I was thinking "Oh no". But then I saw that he'd won and a huge smile came to my face and I started to tear up. My friend sitting next to me knew I was following the marathon and he was like "Dude seriously are you gonna cry?" when he saw me. But I was so happy. Meb's win is the most amazing and inspiring thing I've seen in a long time.

Exactly. In order for it to have been fixed a WHOLE BUNCH of people, including elite runners, would have been in on it. In addition, every single person who was approached to go in on it would have had to agree to participate. If just one person felt some moral qualms and declined to participate and allowed some talk to get back to the press, it would have been over.

Erring on the side of evil, let's just say that each person approached had a 50-50 chance of saying yes or no. (In reality, I think more runners would be inclined to say no than yes.) Considering 10+ people would have had to be in on it, at a minimum, the chances of this happening would be (1/2)^10, which is 0.0009765, or 0.098%. I mean, not very realistic.

If there were some sort of conspiracy, a much more plausible scenario is that one or two runners working together somehow surreptitiously compelled the pack to let Meb go during the race, knowing exactly what they were doing. That could have happened, particularly on the anniversary of the attacks, but I just don't think that's likely.

9/11 was an inside job, dumbas

If there were some sort of conspiracy, a much more plausible scenario is that one or two runners working together somehow surreptitiously compelled the pack to let Meb go during the race, knowing exactly what they were doing. That could have happened, particularly on the anniversary of the attacks, but I just don't think that's likely.[/quote]

So you just said how preposterous it was, and then gave a fairly plausible description of how the race could have been thrown. Nice job. Thanks for making that point. Something has to explain no one going with a reasonable pace when conditions were fine. Probably the others didn't do what you describe but someone needs to explain why no other elite would keep a reasonable pace with Meb and just let him get a massive lead.

You still need to answer the who and the why questions.

It was TOTALLY FIXED.....I belleve that the real Elite runners (Mutai, Kipsang, Kebede etc) were informed that it is fixed to be won by an American and that is why they all choose London and nobody went to Boston.

I lost my interest for running all these...

Didn't quite cry. Came close and my hand hurts today from pounding it on the bar at my local pub as Meb made his way to the finish. So proud of him. So proud he's American. So proud I once shook his hand at the World Cross country championships. He's an absolute throwback. All he does is compete.

He PRed yesterday, at age 38. I checked the list of all time performances, and 2:08:35 would put him No. 824 on the all time list. Actually his time was adjusted to 2:08:37 so he might be closer to No. 850. And with that ranking, here is what he now has on his Marathon resume: Olympic silver medal, Olympic fourth place, first, second and fourth at New York, and a win in his first Boston. It's absolutely amazing.

Regarding this purported fix, the first question we should ask when any conspiracy is alleged is how many people would have to have been in on it. All of them would need to keep their mouths shut. In this case, the answer would be any number of BAA and John Hancock officials, and at least 15 athletes who reasonably might have been predicted to beat Meb. One, for example, would have been Ryan Hall, who ran just under 2:18. And what would the deal have been? "Take this pay off and don't finish ahead of Meb..." What if Meb blew up and ran 2:17? would a dozen athletes have finished one second behind him? This proposition is absurd. It's not a boxing match.

As long as we are inviting in trolls, where are the ones to tell us Meb's not a real American because he was born in Eritrea.

Run forever, Meb. We love you.