Mo says that people constantly asking about his doping is making him depressed.

casual obsever wrote:

As for defenders of Mo, look at to what extent his supporters here, like larkimm and rekrunner, continue to go, even now in 2020.

Lol, what extent have I gone to?

I simply ask "show me the evidence of cheating that goes beyond anything which is being assumed in the absence of evidence".

He went to Al Sal to get faster. He got faster. Al Sal picked out a "no hoper / also ran" not because he expected him to continue to run at that same pace, but because he'd spotted that he had the capability to go faster.

The hypothesis is that Al Sal made him go faster via illegal methods. It's plausible, no denying that. But in the absence of evidence of any illegal methods being used on any athlete (other than Steve Magness), I simply ask why has no such evidence come forward? USADA have poured over Salazar / NOP and whilst they found sanctionable offences, they didn't make or even present a case that elite athletes were doped. I find that strange.

Salazar is now persona non grata. Any insider now coming forward with actual doping evidence would have a free ride in the press, support from USADA, etc. And yet...

Yes, I want Mo to be clean, and yes I believe him to be clean. I can't point to him being a paragon of transparency (e.g. daily, verifiable urine samples with detailed testing all made public, all medical records out in the public domain, a daily auditable list of supplments consumed and injected, CCTV footage of his every whereabouts, transcripts of every conversation he's ever had with anyone, whether that's his mum, his wife, Aden, Salazar, Fudge), but which elite really stands up to that level of scrutiny.

The worst thing that Farah did was underperform to his talent, then find a coaching set up which unlocked that talent. If going to a new coach makes no difference, and is always expected to make no difference, why would anyone value individual coaches?

I like the guy's public persona and racing style. I don't know him (the closest I've been to him was sitting in the stands when he took silver in 2017 in London), I've never met him or spoken to him. I've followed his career from about 2010 when my 10yo son got into T&F and styled himself on Mo by running in sunglasses.

I'll be disappointed if any evidence ever comes to light that he has cheated in any way. But I've yet to see any!

Mo one change in belief can change everything.

So if you know you aren't a doper then tell everyone to f-off and be done with it.

Don't accept second class behavior.

If it gets to you they'll keep asking.

If you are clean you have nothing to worry about, this should be easy to deal with compared to a last lap of an olympic final or a grueling training session.

casual obsever wrote:

As for defenders of Mo, look at to what extent his supporters here, like larkimm and rekrunner, continue to go, even now in 2020.

I'm curious too as to what extent I supported Farah in 2020?

In 2020, I went to the extreme extents of the findings of the AAA Panel report, and consulting the WADA Code.

In a recent thread, "Can Mo Farah be suspended for lying to officials?", I suggested "interfering with the anti-doping process" could be a possible path for suspension, but then wondered if lying about a non-banned substance would count, and also noted that the lie to USADA investigators was corrected almost instantly, so no ban was likely.

Is that the extensive defense?

By your classical ongoing obfuscations, for example:

Deflection, deflection.

The suspicion is here that it's a forbidden method, not a banned substance, as you well know, and Salazar got banned in part for telling his athletes to deny having received an infusion.

And just this morning you pointed out again that Farah's passport at some point returned from likely doping to normal, a fact that is common for blood dopers as you well know, but you keep deflecting with this.

As for larkimm, pretty much the same thing. Deflection all the way to outright lies a la "there is no evidence". For example from the same thread:

"were lawful"? As you know, larkimm, USADA thinks otherwise, but in the end couldn't prove it to the satisfaction of AAA.

Lol.

LOL!

olyrun wrote:

I'm a Mo fan but his story keeps changing and changing again. There is simply no consistency with what he's is saying and the British coaches are saying about these injections. They were trying to conceal them from any detection. I believe the L-carnitine quantity was over the legal limit.

He is like prince Andrew. He could say "screw you guys, I'm going home" and after the Moxit stop talking to the media and enjoy his status as a Sir. If there would be any problems after that, PM Johnson could say that running was invented in England and it was called wigwag and that is why nobody should question the integrity of the British distance running.

Try to be nicer to him everyone. At least he's making an effort at running.

casual obsever wrote:

As for larkimm, pretty much the same thing. Deflection all the way to outright lies a la "there is no evidence". For example from the same thread:

larkimm wrote:

Whilst AlSal was correct in that the infusions / injections that his squad had had were lawful (and that therefore it was arguably not worth the hassle of disclosing in case the wrong terms were used and something blew up accidentally), perhaps Farah was influenced in terms of how he spoke to the interviewer about the L-Car injections.

"were lawful"? As you know, larkimm, USADA thinks otherwise, but in the end couldn't prove it to the satisfaction of AAA.

And as I pointed out on that thread, if USADA were unable to convince AAA of the matter, shouldn't we consider that closed?

USADA could tell us the world is flat, but if they "couldn't prove it to the satisfaction of the AAA" they've failed to evidence what they think.

I have no problem with the suspicion around Farah, but once a competent court has made its judgement isn't it right that we should all agree the matter has been determined? I've certainly taken that view with regards to Salazar's convictions and sanctions. I've actually got no (moral) problem with the T tests or the administration to Magness of a large infusion, but AAA has determined they are sanctionable offences and therefore he's been held to account by the rules. Fair enough.

But you can't have it both ways - have Salazar convicted of offences by the competent body, but then also have him convicted in your mind of matters that they heard and concluded on, no matter what USADA wanted to try to persuade AAA of.

My bigger problem with criticism of Farah is actually that simple analysis which says that once you are 6th in a World Champs aged 24 there's no possible way that any progression from there can be due to anything other than due to doping, and that becoming the world's best champs racer can't possibly be achieved by a step change in coaching. That just doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, of course doping could be the reason. But doping could be the reason for any progress of any athlete at any time, and (given the assumption that everyone is doing it) there's no good reason to argue that Farah was doped "better" than anyone else, especially when there is a complete lack of actual evidence about actual doping in relation to him. Unless you go down the route of "protected athlete" status, which is just totally bizarre as it would imply that for some reason an "omerta" protected him, in advance of any actual progress towards global medals, whilst he was an also-ran.

The simplest explanation is that Farah is a talented runner who was underperforming against his talents. One of the best coaches in the world identified his talent, knew what was missing to unlock those few extra seconds and that additional bit of pace, and got that deployed to a willing and enthusiastic pupil, and perhaps along the way used legal methods which push the grey areas that some in the sport are uncomfortable with.

LDoc wrote:

You guys on your moral crusade. The injections aren't doping. If people started trying to move the goal posts and imply what I had done was against the spirit of the sport, I'd de disinclined to disclose it. And I would be just as willing to cite racism as I would xenophobic when the hobby joggers, press and institutions came sniffing around for their scapegoat and legitimacy. For those worryingly partisan, go and create a vaporfly thread about how your top 3 in the Olympics marathon trials were cheating with their shoes, and then justify it as (a) everyone is doing it and (b) the rules don't outlaw them, and then realise that (a) is what dopers say and (b) a perfectly legitimate point that Mo should stand by rather than giving anyone high horsed observer trying to undermine him, his family and his achievements.

I think we’ve identified the last remaining Mo fan. Of course, that’s until he attempts to fight your pensioner father in a dust up in some random London Park.

I feel sorry for Mo now the way things are going. He made naughty mistakes but it is sad to see what is happening with the running community. I wonder will he recover from this or was the Great North Run of 2019 his "3rd Battle of Kharkov", his final victory? It could either ruin all his future races or he will gain so much energy from pure hate that he will be able to stick to Bekele's WR pace for 20 miles

What you call obfuscation and deflection looks like a rather balanced and neutral treatment of the topic, not really leaning one way or the other, and leaving the topic open. After you lengthy response with colorful graphs and quotes, I still don't see why you would say an "extensive defense".

It's as if any comment or reply to your extensive attacks, however neutral or truthful, should not be interpreted as a challenge or critique to your attacks, but as directly defending the accused victim, as if you were not the intermediary, or the perpetrator of the attacks.

If the suspicion here is the method of excess infusions/injections, I would expect the investigators to have asked questions like: "Have you infused/injected anything above the 50ml/6 hour limit?"

From the brief quotes of the transcript, they didn't ask questions about the banned method.

Instead, they asked questions specifically about injecting L-Carnitine.

So if Mo lied to these questions, he lied about injecting the substance, and not about the banned method, leading me to wonder if these questions about legal substances, and not about a banned method, can be interpreted as part of the anti-doping process.

Similarly, it appears that the doping control form requires to list the substances, but not the quantities.

In any case, I left the conclusion open, expressing "both sides": an opinion as to which path might lead to a sanction, and expressing my doubt if Mo's behavior fell under this rule, and why.

I have extreme doubts that any neutral observer would say this constitutes an extensive defense.

And with respect to this morning's comments, I also know the same sequence is possible for clean athletes, and that such determinations are better handled by a committee of experts with all the data, rather than random casual observers.

larkimm wrote:

And as I pointed out on that thread, if USADA were unable to convince AAA of the matter, shouldn't we consider that closed?

Yes. At this point, it hardly matters what USADA, one party in a dispute, charged Salazar with at the beginning of the arbitration, but what charges survived at the end. We know some of the charges by USADA were simply abandoned, and many others, USADA simply failed to meet their burden.

It looks like with respect to athletes like Farah, even Tygart considers the matter closed, judging by his clear public comments to the IOC/WADA taking another look at the NOP athletes after the Salazar verdict.

rekrunner wrote:

larkimm wrote:

And as I pointed out on that thread, if USADA were unable to convince AAA of the matter, shouldn't we consider that closed?

Yes. At this point, it hardly matters what USADA, one party in a dispute, charged Salazar with at the beginning of the arbitration, but what charges survived at the end. We know some of the charges by USADA were simply abandoned, and many others, USADA simply failed to meet their burden.

It looks like with respect to athletes like Farah, even Tygart considers the matter closed, judging by his clear public comments to the IOC/WADA taking another look at the NOP athletes after the Salazar verdict.

One question I've not asked about this, but perhaps should have, is why AAA were arbitrating in a USADA case. I might be wrong, but I thought UKAD or the relevant sporting federation were judge / jury / executioner in the UK, so expected USADA to be the same, with third party arbitraters like CAS or AAA only getting involved in an appeal?

Or is AAA the normal body engaged when USADA charges someone with an offence, and they use AAA to handle a "trial" to ensure that there is fair due process given?

I can see the argument which says USADA are the anti-doping body, and if they think an offence has been committed then that should be a fairly strong case. But I suppose it's analogous to the CPS (in the UK) or the DA (from what I know from watching US TV shows!) prosecuting a criminal case, and the court finding the accused innocent (or at least, not guilty). Just because the CPS says there's a case to answer of Mr X murdering Mrs Y, it doesn't mean that when the court finds Mr X innocent that everyone can still carry on treating Mr X as being guilty.

I think it is the normal process, when an athlete/coach challenges the decision.

Although I did wonder why "AAA Panel report" seems unambiguous.

I would feel the same way if I were Mo!

Matter closed, ok, but don't go around pretending that there was no evidence...

First of all, USADA is the decision-making NADO, not some unimportant dude on the street, and second of all, there's still apparently CAS' and SafeSport's ruling to come.

It is not clear what SafeSport will investigate, e.g. emotional abuse/sexual abuse/meds/doping, but I hope they look into everything. Their decision will be based on "preponderance of evidence", so doping for example wouldn't have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Straw man discussion. I merely pointed out that one can't call certain actions "lawful", just because there wasn't enough evidence for a conviction, especially if there was enough evidence for a prosecution or even first instance ruling like here. Cases in point are OJ of course, or Jones getting her first positive EPO test annulled, Saginova's ABP expert ruling, or Armstrong winning in court.

As for the rest. Let's not ignore that 44% are reported to be dopers in this sport, and less than 2% are getting caught. So it is obviously common for a doper to not get caught, no need for any conspiracy theory.

That also means it's basically impossible for a clean runner to be dominant, let alone be dominant in two events over several years.

Mo constantly doping has made a lot of runners feel depressed

Poor Mo depressed that he is being asked about doping.

Mo you are a doper..

Your coach was a doper, his athletes before you came along got caught doping.

You denied being in the company of the 2 brothers grim. Dopers may i add..

Haile wouldn't let someone stay in his hotel that was a doper, you threw a hissy fit..

All the above is common knowledge.

People talk about him not being busted.... he alluded testers 3 times, jumped over a wall another...

Go to Iten and ask for some stories about Mo Farah...... riveting.

I feel sorry for anyone who is depressed, but I lost most of my sympathy when he threw out the race card. Nobody accusing him has ever thrown out his skin color!!! It has to do with who he associates himself with being convicted/banned due to doping violations, plus his lies, it isn’t hard to understand that.

Earlyboy wrote:

Poor Mo depressed that he is being asked about doping.

Mo you are a doper..

Your coach was a doper, his athletes before you came along got caught doping.

You denied being in the company of the 2 brothers grim. Dopers may i add..

Haile wouldn't let someone stay in his hotel that was a doper, you threw a hissy fit..

All the above is common knowledge.

People talk about him not being busted.... he alluded testers 3 times, jumped over a wall another...

Go to Iten and ask for some stories about Mo Farah...... riveting.

I have a feeling that we only know a minimal percent of the Mo stories.