What the Salazar/NOP doping scandal really boils down to

KMB wrote:

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."

I don't agree this is admitting to anything of substance. It's more like "my positive trait (caring for Galen) is so strong that it overshadowed my other virtues". Similarly admitting that you didn't think some other person wasn't that stupid/evil/whatever is just a word game.

I've been following this a bit from outside the USA.

So far, we have an experiment Salazar admitted to carrying out on his sons, because of Rupp's fear he was sabotaged. Many say this is a dodgy excuse, but it seems consistent with emails from when it was done.

We have TUEs alleged by all and sundry, but only 2 or 3 existing. And none recently. This is easily verified by the relevant authorities. I don't see why it should be public knowledge.

We have Salazar using legal supplements on his athletes and keeping them within legal limits.

I'm not American so I don't have a beef with any of these guys. I barely even knew who Kara Goucher was before this blew up. I did love watching Mo double at the London Olympics in front of his home crowd. I enjoyed the occasion of his training partner winning the silver.

All I want to know is whether these guys were clean or not. We have a coach, probably with a big ego, sort of admitting pushing things to the legal limits.

But we have nothing about EPO use, for example. We have microdoses of corticosteroids which make little difference. We have legal supplements boosting testosterone within legal limits.

As others have said, you need more than relying on assumptions. And that's all I can see so far.

And I should add - from an outsider - the bias shown on this site in reporting this matter is pretty extreme. I don't know the history, but look at all the headlines, and how they're all aimed at making Salazar look bad.

People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance.

Who else but the most famous and successful celebrity coach in the world could provoke such a hypertrophied tempest of envy and suspicion?

Yes, that's correct, we don't know whether Rupp expressed any concern at the time. Underscore the words WE DON'T KNOW. But to assume against Salazar's claim to the contrary is to assume to know. But I'd like to know if he did call USADA and if he did what the substance of the conversation was.About your last remarks, you're a smart guy, so you know people do change their minds (especially over the course of nine years [haven't you radically changed your ideas about something important over the course of a nine year period?], although I was focusing my comments on a three year period, from 2006-2009), and people do forget what they've said previously, and people say one thing at one time guided by certain motives, and something else entirely guided by other motives (compare, for example, statements by Kara Goucher in 2011 about how much Salazar means to her to her current statements), and people shape certain comments because of a set of considerations and then shape those comments otherwise guided by other considerations, and people state things hyperbolically, etc. Jim Morrison had it right--"People are strange."Finally, I wasn't offering anything exculpatory. I was only indicating that what Salazar was presenting is plausible, and not as over the top implausible as you were suggesting. I've heard a great deal of implausible nonsense in my life: Salazar's account is not that. Of course that doesn't make it true: it may be an utter fabrication. But, honestly and sincerely, what I don't get is why you're so willing to hitch yourself to Kara Goucher's wagon.

"People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance."

Well you sound like a PR worker-bee begging for people to see thing your client's way. You have an obvious agenda.

yuiop wrote:

KMB,

You mention Salazar's inconsistencies in his rebuttal yet you seem unable to recognize the disparities with Kara's explanations for leaving the NOP against the actual emails that Salazar kept where she seemed quite disappointed that Alberto was ready to end their coaching relationship.

As I posted above, I sincerely hope there is more 'evidence' either proving innocence or guilt and while I tend to agree with you that Salazar's rebuttal is incomplete, you seem more than ready to lynch him with circumstantial and inconsistent information.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean -- which "Exhibit(s)" are we talking about? I could have just missed this.

Understand that my insistence that Salazar is being shady with his letter is not a declaration that others are, by extension, out in the bright sunlight. I've seen no reason to emphasize this, but I can believe that Salazar is a very dark figure all around without arguing that his adversaries are pristine.

And I've no doubt given the impression that I'm all about throwing Salazar out of the sport on his ass, no further questions. It's not a matter of saying that he's guilty of A, B or C, but that his various "This is why I couldn't have done A, B or C" defenses are a farce.

Montesquieu wrote:

honestly and sincerely, what I don't get is why you're so willing to hitch yourself to Kara Goucher's wagon.

As I mentioned in my comment to yuiop, my position, such as it is, on this whole unfortunate less is not predicated on allegiances to any of the characters who have spoken against him. This could all be a computer simulation, with all details the same but stripped all all personalities, and (I like to think) I would have the same level of distrust of Salazar for the same reasons. That I know and even like a number of current and past Projectfolk is a threat to my objectivity I resolve to keep at bay as I continue wasting time batting this buncombe about like a shit-encrusted shuttlecock.

Salazar hass made statements ranging from mildly eyebrow-raising to the blatantly self-contradictory. I find his rationale for his Androgel experiments ludicrous at best and his attempts to support it comically weak -- and I felt this way before his 2006 comments about Gatlin came back to haunt him. I have reasons extending beyond the rightful scope of messageboard banter that influence my ideas as well but they aren't things responsible people discuss in unaccredited virtual psych hospitals like Letsrun.com.

I will be astonished, but not at all disappointed (quite the opposite), if Salazar turns out to have done "only" what's been confirmed to far.

Dogma Guard wrote:

"People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance."

Well you sound like a PR worker-bee begging for people to see thing your client's way. You have an obvious agenda.

Seriously?

Go back and check my many posts, mainly to do with 800 running.

My comments here were genuine.

This website's approach to the issue goes well beyond bias. Open your other eye.

Tell us when you perform at the next poetry open mic.

Feelgood wrote:

It has everything to do with the original post. It is what the best of the best of the best all have in common in modern track and field.

Sorry youngling, but I know what the top looks like. Gold medals at the highest level turn men and women in twisted ways. Much the same way it twisted the souls of those who came to handle the gold ring on the way to Modor in Tolkien's classic tale. Turns good people into monsters.

Karma Police wrote:

People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance.

I'm not defending anything about the quality or style of "journalism" here with respect to this issue or any other, but it's unquestionably true that the only media stories about the NOP mess are on their face anti-Salazar, at least in the sense that they report allegations made against him by a variety of people. Simply put, you have a wealth of very skeptical articles about him (and Farah) in the British press, the BBC documentary and the ProPublica stuff, with the only "balance" coming from the fluff in the Oregonian and Salazar's "open letter." The BrosJo don't have the option of being "balanced" about this even if they wish to, and to an undeniably great extent this is Salazar's own doing or that of whoever his handlers now are.

If someone miraculously produced evidence demonstrating that Salazar's accusers have been flat-out fabricating their stories and this would up in the papers, do you really think the LRC brass, or pyrite, or Reynolds wrap or whatever is it, would downplay or ignore it?

KMB wrote:

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.

Let's take this a bit further. Salazar was one of the star athletes (along with Mary Decker) of Athletics West in the early 1980s, when Dick Brown was the exercise physiologist. Brown was fully aware of the performance effects of steroids, and also did studies on blood doping. Rather than discouraging athletes from using PEDs, he actively provided them information about the drugs and their effects - leaving it up to the athletes whether or not to use them.

Athletics West paid for the doctors' bills of athletes who were using PEDs, while also prescribing and paying for anti-inflammatory corticosteroids (e.g., prednisone).

Regardless of whether he used them or not, there's not a shred of doubt that Salazar has been well educated about PEDs and their effects since the early 1980s.

To pretend that he is "naive" about these matters stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point.

anacondarunner wrote:

1) Salazar has had a prescription for Androgel for as long as he's been coaching Rupp.

2) Salazar knows exactly how much Androgel he can use on an athlete without triggering a positive test, as a result of his "sabotage experiment".

3) Salazar has displayed a strong interest in raising the testosterone levels of his athletes, as seen in his full-on embrace of supplements like Testoboost, Alpha Male, and ZMA.

4) Salazar has been known to massage his athletes from time to time, despite the fact that he had professional massage therapists on staff.

5) Salazar frequently shared a room with Rupp, including in Park City, where we know Androgel was present.

Based on all of this, it seems ridiculous to think that Salazar wasn't administering testosterone to at least some of his athletes, particularly Rupp.

All good points.

What the scandal "boils down to" in my mind is this: if you're going to cheat, you need to be a super nice person if you don't want to ever get caught. If you act like Alberto or Lance, sooner or later someone is going to stab you in the back.

Karma Police wrote:

And I should add - from an outsider - the bias shown on this site in reporting this matter is pretty extreme. I don't know the history, but look at all the headlines, and how they're all aimed at making Salazar look bad.

People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance.

oh yeah you sound like someone with no horse in this race. ;)

I actually agree with this. The law seems crystal clear. But I have hunch Salazar has some kind of loophole that overrides this. Its odd how even Epstein didn't really push the angle of Salazar distributing prescriptions. At least he didn't mention that it was illegal. He seemed more concerned about the actual using of drugs athletes were not prescribed for.

More interesting is ... wrote:

ThisIsFutile wrote:

thanks. Dumb question I know...

Handing out the prescription drugs is illegal, but worse than that is the amount being handing out far exceeds the amount of prescription that a person has. The extra prescription drugs are coming from somewhere that is not a legit source.

reality czech wrote:

Let's take this a bit further...

I didn't make nearly enough of an effort to emphasize that my post was straight from open-mike night at the Sarcasm Olympics.

I agree with you 100 percent and numerous members of AW have said what you just did and more. The only reason those stories seem not to be making the rounds currently is some odd concession to mercy, keeping the past in the past, and so on.

The bias is in your eye, Brit. You want candy-coated content. Your heroes put on pedestals and worshiped. Well, heroes are mortals. Chasing fame and fortune are what lead runners to look for an edge, pushing past he edge, and ultimately violating the spirit of sport.

What will you say when Salazar, Farah and Rupp get banned? Will you be upset? Will you think they got railroaded, when instead they should have been worshiped? Would you accept drug use - without a prescription - as acceptable as long as an athlete stayed in the grey-zone? How about the runners who lose because they couldn't afford a magic chemist-pharamcist-doctor-coach?

Personally, Salazar, Farah and Rupp get banned is not the end of my life-long interest in athletics. There are other athletes to root for. There always are. There always have been. Three always will be.

KMB wrote:

Karma Police wrote:

People outside America, without an agenda, come to this site. If you want some credibility, add some balance.

If someone miraculously produced evidence demonstrating that Salazar's accusers have been flat-out fabricating their stories and this would up in the papers, do you really think the LRC brass, or pyrite, or Reynolds wrap or whatever is it, would downplay or ignore it?

My personal opinion of this Karma person is a Brit who live in the U.S. and is now back in the UK. It would not surprise me one bit that the Freud PR team realized they were in way over their heads trying to sway opinion on LRC to satisfy their clients; Salazar and Farah. So, they searched around and found a few bodies that wouldn't be outed as quickly for lack of track knowledge, who knew about LRC, and who could translate British English to U.S. English.

There have been too many Freud workers attacking this site. Some workers tried a soft-approach and nicely asked for equal time for the other side--their clients--, but they are as phoney as can be. While looking for fair play, they increased their attacks on Kara Goucher--the weakest link, and the one with the greatest amount of damaging information to release. Magness, Stiner, and Flesman were let be.

That Freud PR rebooted is no surprise at all. It was expected. They will not win what their clients demand, but they will win a lot of their clients money.

the Androgel wasn't for Al Sal wrote:

The best point is that Salazar, after being technically dead for 14 minutes, allegedly wanted to continue with Androgel even though he knew it massively increased the risk of another deadly heart attack.

Neither here nor there, but...

Although Salazar is presumably monitoring his blood values and his testosterone use is therefore presumably reducing his risk of, rather than increasing his risk of, another heart attack (the effect of testosterone on muscle, skeletal or cardiac, is a positive one), I was under the impression that he did not begin using testosterone until after his heart attack...