top Canadian coach calls out drug cheats beating his athletes

Good blog and good point on the administrative aspect. With the whole Chiba Ekiden team selection fiasco, part of the blame lies with Athletics Canada for letting Speed River coach Dave Scott Thomas select a team without posting any selection criteria, and of course part of the blame lies in Dave taking advantage of that situation and putting his own athletes on the team instead of trying to put together the best team possible.

Nobody outside of Speed River is even defending these guys anymore. They've crossed a line, several times actually, and polite Canadians have had enough.

I think a big part of the blame has to be on Athletics Canada. Without them, a lot of the problems could never have happened. An accountable and fair governing body doesn't create conflicts of interest in every single committee and decision it makes, or play favourites like AC has been doing, and likely has always done. Certainly, Speed River staff have exploiting that and ought to be ashamed of themselves, but it's on AC, and almost certainly that means specific people at AC, that they even had the opportunity to do so.

AC's goals are almost always at odds with the best interests of the body they govern, since they have to rely on government funding and thus must provide results or see that funding cut. Their actions can usually be seen in that light. They make international team standards well beyond IAAF standards, which are based on a significant population of "enhanced" performances, and we all know this is the case. People have complained about it for years, but AC is not a democratic body and they have no way of determining who is cheating and who isn't, though you can safely assume 30% or more of the world's top athletes are cheating. These standards supposedly encourage athletes to rise to the top by trying harder, or something like that, or maybe it tells them that if they're not doping they're not good enough to represent Canada. Hard to say. They reward those already at the top because athletes that can perform internationally are their ticket to further funding. They make top 8 and top 16 performances all-important for the same reason.

Speed River collects top athletes, so we see them reaping the rewards of this system. AC likes that they collect these athletes, so a chunk of their best investments are all in the same place, so they circumvent the rules to reward their gravy train.

The mistake many in Canada make is to think AC is there to encourage the development and growth of the sport in Canada. AC is an organization that exists to benefit itself and the top 1% of athletes in this country, like a charity that mostly pays its administrators and gives very little to the thing it exists to support.

wonderingg wrote:

Here is a blog from Steve Boyd showing how much these guys try to get away with, including screwing other athletes out of provincial funding. DST likely had a hand in the Natasha Wodak situation as well!

http://physi-kult.blogspot.ca/2016/03/quest-for-integrity.html

I read Steve's blog and I sympathize. However, the only way to "defeat" speed river (if they actually are doing nefarious things), is to hold AC accountable.

It seems to me that if AC does not have objective selection/funding criteria, or conflict of interest criteria, then it is difficult to blame speed river when it takes advantage of its influence.

It would be a better use of the adversaries of speed river's efforts to elect independent board members, or to cause AC to rewrite its policies, etc.

If there truly is rot at the top, it seems that everyone that is negatively affected by it should be able to cause change by working together and recalibrating AC.

notreallyafan wrote:

I think a big part of the blame has to be on Athletics Canada. Without them, a lot of the problems could never have happened. An accountable and fair governing body doesn't create conflicts of interest in every single committee and decision it makes, or play favourites like AC has been doing, and likely has always done. Certainly, Speed River staff have exploiting that and ought to be ashamed of themselves, but it's on AC, and almost certainly that means specific people at AC, that they even had the opportunity to do so.

For issues directly related to AC, yes it is reasonable AT FIRST to suggest "a big part of the blame has to be on Athletics Canada." And if the issues Speed River is connected to were only occurring within the AC arena, then such a statement would hold some weight. However...

When the CIS rules are bent without a formal vote from coaches, enabling an additional member onto the FISU team (turned out to be a Guelph athlete), we're now in a different arena. And while many people, including myself, are generally in favour of going further down the list to fill out a XC team, the manner in which it was done and the athlete it benefited raises concerns. Athletics Canada has no involvement in such a matter.

When Guelph/Speed River athletes show poor conduct at the OUA 3,000m 2015 - not just on the track in the execution of their team tactics, but off the track when their coaches would admit no wrongdoing on their part, trying to overturn ALL appeals against them while working to DQ non-Guelph athlete(s) - we see examples of their morals and the potential impact on others in yet another arena, the OUA. The posts by Guelph team members on this topic clearly showed the sense of entitlement pervasive to many members of that program. The blame for creating such a culture rests solely on the leadership of the Guelph/Speed River program.

When Speed River athletes are nominated for provincial carding despite not meeting the basic eligibility criteria two years in a row, we once again see instances of nepotism and corruption outside of the AC arena, this time at the provincial governing body level.

While it may have seemed that way at first, it is abundantly clear that the common denominator here is Speed River. The reality is that Speed River cannot get away with all of this without people outside of their club either actively helping them, which without question now includes AC leadership, but they also cannot get away with this if other members of the Canadian Athletics community would consistently stand up to them instead of silently standing by, likely because they are not immediately, directly impacted by these improprieties.

I read the background and decision on the awarding of the 10km championships. I don't see what speed river did wrong.

It looks to me like AC published very loose criteria and then chose Guelph on a broader set of criteria. AC is stupid for putting itself in that position, but I don't think anyone can argue that Guelph is not capable of hosting a very good event.

However, the end does not justify the means, so if one believes that AC was bound to its published criteria, then AC screwed up - but what did Guelph do that was bad?

The reason I am posting this is because there is so much innuendo about speed river and how evil it is, but the facts here don't seem to bear that out.

To the point about the root of the problem really being AC, not Speed River: This was my position for a while too, including in the aftermath of the Nats XC decision. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they didn't orchestrate the rigging of the bid, but merely accepted it as a gift from AC (as when DST said at the infamous Guelph city council meeting "We have been asked to host (the National XC Championships)". My views have changed considerably since then. That they were almost the beneficiaries of yet another rigged bidding process (the Nats 10,000m decision) was the final straw. If this had club cared one whit about its reputation it would not have walked into this one again so soon after the last time.

As I have said in other places, the leadership of Speed River, and some of its top athletes, are hard working and unfailingly polite; but, they have very little respect for other clubs and groups in this country. They simply don't think respect is owed. The OUA 3000m thing was also pretty revealing in this regard. On this one, DST and Moulton straight-up lied, weedled, then hid behind their athletes when the shit hit the fan. I'm still a bit gobsmacked that it ever actually happened. (Has anyone ever sent three athletes into a championship race with instructions simply to block other athletes, let alone have the sheer chutzpah to threaten protest against these OTHER athletes in the aftermath!?).

Yes, AC remains a massive problem, but Speed River has shown that it would be its own kind of problem under almost any kind of administrative leadership.

I know what you are saying, but it just keeps sounding like sour grapes when everyone piles on SR with all manner of complaints.

I think you and others should focus on process at the AC level and let that take care of any moral defects you and others believe SR may have.

If you fix AC, no one should be able to game the system - maliciously or otherwise.

.kjhlkjhgklj wrote:

I read the background and decision on the awarding of the 10km championships. I don't see what speed river did wrong.

It looks to me like AC published very loose criteria and then chose Guelph on a broader set of criteria. AC is stupid for putting itself in that position, but I don't think anyone can argue that Guelph is not capable of hosting a very good event.

However, the end does not justify the means, so if one believes that AC was bound to its published criteria, then AC screwed up - but what did Guelph do that was bad?

The reason I am posting this is because there is so much innuendo about speed river and how evil it is, but the facts here don't seem to bear that out.

You need to read the final decision again a little more carefully. It's pretty obvious that AC changed its criteria on the fly to match the specs of the Speed River's bid. The decision upheld London Runner's right to appeal on grounds of "gross unfairness". It strains credulity to think that this could have happened without Speed River being aware of it. And, if you had any integrity, or cared what anyone thought of you, would you be prepared to accept the fruits of a clearly rigged process, and to do so not more than 18 months after you were caught appearing to do it once before?

There is definitely some unfairly negative "innuendo" circulating about Speed River (but it's most juvenile, and is often countered by equally juvenile taunts from Speed River supporters). But, there are also some fairly troubling FACTS out there that point directly to unethical behaviour. Some people may WANT to think the worst of a club like Speed River, simply because they are good; but, lots of us are actually concerned about what appears to be a fairly brazen pattern of bad behaviour on the part of its leadership.

.kjhlkjhgklj wrote:

I read the background and decision on the awarding of the 10km championships. I don't see what speed river did wrong.

It looks to me like AC published very loose criteria and then chose Guelph on a broader set of criteria. AC is stupid for putting itself in that position, but I don't think anyone can argue that Guelph is not capable of hosting a very good event.

However, the end does not justify the means, so if one believes that AC was bound to its published criteria, then AC screwed up - but what did Guelph do that was bad?

The reason I am posting this is because there is so much innuendo about speed river and how evil it is, but the facts here don't seem to bear that out.

You can say the same thing about the Canadian XC scandal, that it was all on AC and that Speed River just happened to be the lucky designated recipient of the national governing body trying very, very hard to give a championship event to that particular club.

You can further claim that the drastic changes to the Canadian 10,000m bid criteria for 2016-2018 were entirely AC's doing and in no way influenced by DST or Moulton and their desire to host the event.

And you can say the same thing about the Quest for Gold carding issue, that undeserving or ineligible Speed River athletes just so happen to be the unwitting recipients of provincial carding money. Multiple times. In consecutive years.

If you wish, you can choose to believe that Speed River is time and again the beneficiary of incompetent decisions made by the governing bodies. Or you can share the opinion expressed by a well respect poster, Meizner, on the Trackie board:

"This is interesting stuff-- seems to keep turning up about the same club time and time again. Once or twice you can call it an anomaly. This many times it begins to form what many would call a pattern."

metric assassin wrote:

When Guelph/Speed River athletes show poor conduct at the OUA 3,000m 2015 - not just on the track in the execution of their team tactics, but off the track when their coaches would admit no wrongdoing on their part, trying to overturn ALL appeals against them while working to DQ non-Guelph athlete(s)

Minor detail, but as SB points out in a later post, there were apparently only the 'threats' to have others DQ'd and nothing actually done that could be described as 'working to DQ non-Guelph athlete(s)'.

Given that the Dulhanty DQ came as a result of an appeal to the Jury, there are no further avenues of appeal.

The Jury decision was also more than 30 minutes after the initial results as well as the initial referee decision so no further protests could be made about the race should one want to retaliate.

There isn't an open-ended window to protest/counter-protest until you 'win'.

Correct. There was a threat to file a protest against a Queen's athlete who had given the finger to a Guelph athlete who had just deliberately forced him wide, in an attempt to prevent him from passing (and messing up the plan to keep all non-Guelph athletes away from the lead). You can see the incident pretty clearly in the infamous video. Not sure if any protest was ever filed, but it most certainly was explicitly threatened.

Thanks for the correction, 'Was there'.

SB wrote:

Not sure if any protest was ever filed, but it most certainly was explicitly threatened.

It was not possible to file a protest given the time limit to do so had expired.

surprising comments wrote:

In the latest issue of Canadian Running magazine, David Scott-Thomas is asked 10 quick questions in an interview (probably an email interview), and goes off kind of randomly on doping and...Letsrun?

6. What is your greatest running-related regret?

"Drug cheats who have limited the dreams of people I directly coach. Wins and losses happen in sport of course, but to work with someone for years and see them lose out to someone who's cutting corners (worse yet, in systematic cases) is incredibly frustrating."

I wonder what his 2nd greatest regret is.

#CheatRiver wrote:

I don't think you'd see these kinds of responses if the guelph group boasted about being the 4th or 5th best 'development' group in Canada. Course, you would still be seeing the posts calling them out for cheating in terms of National team selection, National championship bids, and athlete carding money. That and the weird story a couple years ago about Coolsaet donating thousands of dollars to the guelph track fundraiser and then several weeks later launching a personal fundraising campaign asking for thousands of dollars to support his next overseas training camp.

Have Coolsaet, Moulton, or STD ever publicly commented on this donation/fundraiser that Coolsaet is alleged to have carried out? Does anyone have a timeline of how this went down, like was it 8 weeks apart or 8 months apart?

I should correct what I said. While I do think AC deserves a big part of the blame for certain things, I'm certainly not absolving SR of their part in all of this. And that part is clearly large. I consider the two organizations almost synonymous at this stage regardless, given how hard it is to tell where AC ends and SR begins. AC acts with what seems to be an agenda specifically aimed at benefiting SR, and SR acts as though they have a blank cheque and anything they want they will get. If they can't get it through circumventing the rules, AC will change the rules so they don't have to.

So yes, for issues directly related to AC, a big part of the blame has to be on AC. If SR is involved, then they share the blame, and it's hard to tell how much is one versus the other. If it's just a SR issue, I don't blame AC. Like it's not AC's fault the Guelph men showed poor conduct at the OUA 3000m 2015. That strategy gets blamed on the coaching staff, whether they gave the instructions or not, and it's pretty clear they did. It's not out of character, and the race strategy, minus the bodychecking, is almost exactly the same as some they've used in previous years, long before the guys in that race were even in university.

As for the 10,000m fiasco, from what I've heard since then it seemed like there were background dealings going on that any of the applicants from outside of Guelph weren't privy to. It might have been a decision that was made before the bidding process even started, though that would be hard to prove. If SR could just have submitted a bit that met the criteria, no one would have noticed, but they didn't actually meet the critera. That's the problem with rules. Some people follow them, and notice when you don't. My understanding was that LRDC and Laval had actual valid bids and SR did not. Kind of hard to slip that one through.

Just to be clear, I am a big fan of some of the SR and Guelph athletes. The ones I have met in person seem to be good people who work hard and I wish them well. But it would be nice if they were creating a culture of success instead of one that models itself on doping culture in what amounts to cheating and lying to get to the top. Pretty soon, everyone else's biggest running-related regret is going to be Speed River limiting their dreams. To work for years only to see yourself lose out to someone who's cutting corners, worse yet in systematic cases is incredibly frustrating.

I wouldn't say the SR bid wasn't valid, but the reasons AC gave for awarding the champs to Gueph had little to no basis in the criteria. It was clearly a sham bidding process and, as you said, a decision was likely made in advance.

ACs solution was completely re-writing the criteria for the next year, essentially admitting Guelph couldn't win without ACs direct help. Even with the London and Laval groups co-bidding and working together, the modified criteria ensured the champs went to SR.

Agreed. Cheating is cheating and the people around you help you to justify your actions, whether doping or otherwise. The culture of the Speed River group has changed. To paraphrase former SR member Rob Watson, who tries his best to stay polite and says several positive things:

'...I've noticed changes within that program since I've left and even when I was there...there was changes happening, some of them weren't so good...'

'...the fact of the matter is some sketchy stuff has happened through the Guelph...it's happened enough where there are some questionable decisions being made and maybe there is an influence and abuse of power...'

'...Guelph went from fighting the system to becoming the system, and it's something I didn't really like and that was a reason I was kind of disillusioned about it...'

I forgot about this - Why the F**k would you jog the last 50m of your race, in front of a home crowd, less than an hour from your hometown. Great way to rep the river Romonaw