What the Salazar/NOP doping scandal really boils down to

ggilder wrote:

A neutral outsider would say that as a major coach of runners Salazar necessarily had an acute interest in the hormone levels of his charges, which within legal bounds could aid their performance and at illegal levels could get them banned from the sport.

ROTFL.

Go tell a "neutral observer," say a coworker or family member not deeply involved in running but perhaps interested in sports, that a coach was found to be testing banned drugs on his children (and training group employees) to determine what amount of that banned drug generates a positive test.

Then let me know what your hypothetical "neutral observer" thinks.

Here's a handy wallet card of banned substances.

http://www.usada.org/wp-content/uploads/wallet_card.pdf

I'm glad to announce my Advair, Proair and Singulair are OK.

In the spirit of openness and honesty, I admit that I was diagnosed as asthmatic after I became a hobby jogger.

amazing levels of delusion wrote:

Go tell a "neutral observer," say a coworker or family member not deeply involved in running but perhaps interested in sports, that a coach was found to be testing banned drugs on his children (and training group employees) to determine what amount of that banned drug generates a positive test.

.

Not defending anything here, but you make it sound like Salazar was running tests on 5 year olds. His sons are adults.

Some random thoughts:

Androgel - I believe Alberto takes it for his own health issues, but this is the part of the story that just doesn't pass the smell test. I can buy the thyroid and allergy issues, but having androgel at practice sessions?

Inner circle - Could be wrong, but I'm not convinced Rupp has been the only member. I believe Alberto is driven more by ego than money and he doesn't want his coaching success measured by just one athlete. Rupp will always be his boy, but others have had great success under Salazar as well and so I'm inclined to think that if Rupp went beyond the legal line so did others. Mo, Centro, Ritz, Goucher?

Goucher - Other than confessing to her own PED use under Salazar, I don't think she has other damaging information. Otherwise she would have already shared it with Epstein. She might have embarrassing information, but other than a confession, I don't think she holds the smoking gun. She was with him for 7 years and apparently didn't want the coaching relationship to end. If she had concerns, why did she stay so long and why was she disappointed to leave Salazar?

Ritz - His silence speaks volumes. Maybe he's an undisclosed witness that has already come forward to Epstein and/or USADA, which is not good for Salazar. Regardless, he has not come out in support of NOP since the story broke and that says a lot to me.

I'm not a Salazar fan, but I have rooted for Rupp and other NOP athletes. I still have a small bit of hope that Rupp hasn't cheated. Unless someone has something really tangible, I don't know if we'll ever know the truth. And regardless of the truth, not knowing one way or other is not good for track.

asdfgh wrote:

amazing levels of delusion wrote:

Go tell a "neutral observer," say a coworker or family member not deeply involved in running but perhaps interested in sports, that a coach was found to be testing banned drugs on his children (and training group employees) to determine what amount of that banned drug generates a positive test.

.

Not defending anything here, but you make it sound like Salazar was running tests on 5 year olds. His sons are adults.

Well, when I read Salazar's statement regarding the "sabotage test", I was appalled that he carried out such a test on anyone, especially his children, no matter what age they are.

Androgel has many nasty side effects, the main one being the risk of a heart attack. Any sane person would only take Androgel if they truly needed to, and on the advice and guidance of a qualified doctor.

If I remember correctly, Dr Brown stated that he hadn't prescribed the Androgel used in the test (although he seems to have advised on the test), therefore it raises the question whether Salazar gave his sons Androgel that was prescribed for him, which would be unlawful. If not then did Salazar's sons use their own Androgel as prescribed by a doctor? Because otherwise they had no right or reason to be taking it.

A test that was based on a far fetched hypothetical situation, based on a claim by a convicted doper (Gatlin), and apparently someone rubbing Rupp's shoulders when he was talking to the press.

At the least, it's very paranoid, completely unprofessional behaviour.

Nothing there wrote:

Seriously... There isn't a NOP doping scandal. Maybe there is a misuse of therapeutic exemptions.

Do you really think that a billion company risks it's name for a silver at the Olympics in 2015?

A medal from the 2015 Olympics would be so rare that it might be incredibly valuable. Who knows what a company would risk for one? For an Olympics ina normal Olympic year though, you may be correct about a billion dollar company not risking its name for a silver medal. But a coach employed by that company yet not accountable to anyone in that company very well might risk all sorts of things.

[/quote] ROTFL. Go tell a "neutral observer"...that a coach was found to be testing banned drugs on his children (and training group employees) to determine what amount of that banned drug generates a positive test. Then let me know what your hypothetical "neutral observer" thinks.[/quote]

I checked out my post with several "neutral observers" and they thought it was persuasive. I admit it did not resemble your cartoon of my post. One of the problems of this debate is that many participants see the issue in a phantasmagoria of fun-house mirrors in which distinguished runners and coaches, such as Salazar, Rupp, and Centrowitz, emerge as recklessly compulsive schemers with fiendish Faustian doctors.

In a world full of pharmaceuticals, in which important races are decided by drug tests, in which officials can ban runners for vague or venial violations (Extenz!, Prediszone, vitamin supplement residues), a professional coach must fully understand the impact of possibly incriminating substances.

To me, the very least likely offenders seem to be coaches and runners involved with large and liable corporations in the midst of the hallucinogenic circus of US media, law, and medicine. This tempest over trivia signifies to me that it would be impossible to hide any actual conspiracy to sustain drug use long enough to have an effect.

You don't think so?

And yet there is currently only one coach around whom this sort of tempest over trivia swirls.

bring it on dopers, I'm gonna take you all down with nothing but coffee and weed!

Everyone, including Salazar's detractors, seems to have quietly decided that Salazar's 12,000-word, poorly contrived smoke-show posted a week ago is all he intends to offer or even needs to offer, He still hasn't given any substantive interviews, and a lengthy complaint posted on a Web site is a convenient way to avoid tough questions, because a non-interactive online document allows its author to address only what he chooses to address.

This, despite his "open letter" leaving a lot of matters unaddressed, Dave Epstein immediately pointing out inconsistencies in the "rebuttal," and new issues emerging since the "rebuttal." I shouldn't have to make a list of these things here.

My guess is that he'll be operating strictly through attorneys from this point forward. He undoubtedly has complete knowledge of what the Gouchers and others could say to USADA and the press, and some idea of what they already have said or plan to say.

Many people are eager to see the elderly, morbidly obese, over-emotional, hobby-jogger slow, developmentally disabled Kara Goucher come forward with more information. (By the way, she never promised to go public with this info anytime soon. She said, "I will give all of my evidence in the coming days." She didn't say to whom she'd give it, but don't expect her to tweet it or post it on Facebook.) With respect to the discord betwixt Adam and Salazar: "That will come out," but she didn't say when.)

I'm not seeing nearly the level of energy from these people put toward demands for Alberto to say more. I mean really -- his already porous excuse for his Androgel experiments was just dealt a death blow by none other than Alberto Salazar c. 2006. He knows what this is doing to his reeling reputation even among the dwindling number of fence-sitting fans.

So "what the Salazar/NOP doping scandal really boils down to" at this point seems to be Salazar's own willingness and ability to confront the most serious allegations against him -- and anyone who thinks that the former NOPers involved have been as forthcoming even with the BBC and ProPublica as they have been with USADA is either being very optimistic or very pessimistic, depending on your overall take.

The idea of "tempest over trivia" is germane to this whole affair, since both sides are so far coming away, wondering "That's it? That's all you got?"

The thing is, there actually may be something huge behind the veil; use your imagination...maybe a secret bio-lab has put together a concoction that is key in still keeping Alberto alive, let alone putting the 'sickly asthmatic' on the podium. Maybe Salazar is actually part cyborg. Maybe the "allergy vials" contained some secret, yet to be released, serums worth millions, (with a side affect that it makes users sloppy and forgetful; thus Galen and Alberto forgetting to pick them up).

Even if there is a hint of truth in the above, I don't think we are going to find out anytime soon about it....unless Magness were to have held onto a few of those serum drops before shipping the vials back...and even then, would we hear about it?

^^^Maybe there is an idea or two for ggilder's next book, a spy novel....though not sure whether it will be classified fiction or not.

Salazar is part Darth Vader, part Howard Hughes and part Napoleon Bonaparte?

I would certainly hope that from this point on Salazar "will be operating strictly through [his] attorneys." Serious charges, perhaps will legal ramifications, have been levied against him, and only a fool would operate otherwise.About Salazar's porous argument, it may be less porous than you think. If you read what he writes, he wasn't concerned that someone was rubbing Rupp's shoulders. He reports that Rupp had heard stories and he was extremely concerned and that he called Salazar. We don't know what conversation took place. Maybe Rupp's anxiety caused Salazar to question his own judgment of three years earlier. We don't know. In any case, two things happened next according to Salazar. First, he called USADA to express his concern about the incident. Is there a record of such a call and conversation? Now, if Salazar is concocting a story long after the fact, it's odd to include as an element something that at least in principle is verifiable (of course, maybe such records are not kept and maybe he knows this). Second, along with Dr. Jeffrey Brown, an experiment, for which there is e-mail confirmation, was set up. Say what you want about Brown, say what you want about the experiment, again, if Salazar was concocting a story long after the fact, such e-mail evidence would not exist. None of the above proves anything about the veracity of Salazar's account. However, it suggests enough to indicate that Salazar's claim is not to be dismissed as easily as has been suggested. As an outsider I think I can say that neither Salazar nor Goucher is a paragon of rationality and moderation; and both seem subject to the twin attractions of hyperbole and hysteria. But perhaps I'm mistaken.To add one final thing: if Salazar goes down, the consequences for American long distance running will be severe. As someone who lived through the dark days of American distance running, I would not gleefully embrace this; only the shortsighted would.

Montesquieu wrote:

About Salazar's porous argument, it may be less porous than you think. If you read what he writes, he wasn't concerned that someone was rubbing Rupp's shoulders. He reports that Rupp had heard stories and he was extremely concerned and that he called Salazar. We don't know what conversation took place. Maybe Rupp's anxiety caused Salazar to question his own judgment of three years earlier.

Correct.

No, we don't. We don't know if Rupp even expressed this fear at all. But it's reasonable to surmise that given Salazar's vehemence three years earlier, he would have been far more likely to tell Rupp "you have nothing to worry about" and maybe order an in-house testosterone test to be sure Whetstine hadn't managed the unimaginable than launch a whole series of tests on his own sons (or anyone else) aimed at figuring out a person's "safe Androgel ceiling" for the benign reason of putting Rupp's alleged concerns to bed.

If Salazar was already planning his experiments, this is anything but odd. It is a given.

I don't see how this is remotely exculpatory or even relevant. That Salazar set up this experiment and with whom is not in question. Only his motives are.

And it's simply hard to ignore this part of Salazar's letter:

"The Gatlin story was extremely well known throughout the track world. Rumors about whether athletes could test positive by having something rubbed on them after a race and before going to doping control were rampant. See

"

He just wrote this last month. How in the name of the LORD could be possibly just ignore his own violently contradictory and published 2006 opinion on this? A smarter man would have at least added, "I admit that at the time I was deeply skeptical of Gatlin's story," or words to that effect. But such rhetorical negligence is on a par with contradicting something published years ago in his own memoirs (the timing of his coaching Slaney).

KMB wrote:

A smarter man would have at least added, "I admit that at the time I was deeply skeptical of Gatlin's story," or words to that effect.

Alberto, just like Lance, will never admit any fault whatsoever until he has to. That's what makes him sleazy and probably dishonest.

psychologist wrote:

Alberto, just like Lance, will never admit any fault whatsoever until he has to. That's what makes him sleazy and probably dishonest.

Well, he "admitted" a couple of things about himself two paragraphs later:

"I was a bit naive and let my paranoia get the best of me here but there was never intent to do anything illegal."

A guy who ran at the world-class level at a precocious age (for a man) and spent his entire life studying top distance-running performances and the factors contributing to it, and had been privy to who knows how many drug tests as both a coach and an athlete, was struck sufficiently "naive" to open the door to this "paranoid" experiment.

Sure, it's possible.

A guy who ran at the world-class level at a precocious age (for a man) and spent his entire life studying top distance-running performances and the factors contributing to it, and had been privy to who knows how many drug tests as both a coach and an athlete, was struck sufficiently "naive" to open the door to this "paranoid" experiment.

Sure, it's possible.[/quote]

I would agree with this. For someone who was even aware of things as a teen running with some of the Beantown greats, it is shocking. Salazar has always said he would use any legal means necessary to get an edge (supplements, altitude tents, etc) and I am sure that might have even been why Magness would have been attracted to his group in the first place given he was using science in many of its forms to get the most out of his athletes. However, the thing that makes me pause is the drug test experiment. I cannot imagine how this could even be remotely useful unless there was something like micro-dosing or the thought of doing so. If USADA/WADA had heard this from 2012 onward when people did contact them to discuss what they thought might be related to doping, I cannot see how they would take the sabotage theory seriously. Maybe this speaks to paranoia, but for someone who seems so calculated, this along with possibly prescribing prescription drugs seems terribly reckless.

I will be curious to hear if USADA/WADA does pursue the allegations and on what grounds they choose to do so. As far as media driven arguments (whomever they may be from), I am tired of them and as some others have voiced, it is detracting from what great performances are being run.