Sage Canaday Reports Cam Hanes to USADA After 58-Year-Old’s 2:39 Eugene Marathon

No but the conservatives just hijack terms and fit it in their own agenda.

Consistent standards and definitions are woke

I might be wrong but I think some of the people associating with this movement and supporting Cam and co. are just hoping "a rising tide lifts all boats" and they can get noticed themselves. The world is crazy and budding influencers that are trying to transition away from the 9 to 5 will do desperate things to get to that easy $$$$ like the big names out there....it is that simple. People will forgo their principles for easy money most of the time. Being cynical but that may explain the non-committal bloggers, podcasters and RDs.

Interesting point about Rachel. A few weeks ago she had the world in her palm. Not judging her at all, but based on your statement, but it's an interesting data point.

I respect Sage 100% but to be real, the problem for Sage is that Cam has volumes of followers that can drown Sage's supporters out. Putin playbook, flood the info space zones with all sorts of news/gaslighting/content, confuse people, and rely on short attention spans from gen pop. Will people still remember this issue by Independence Day? They are hoping the RDs are so busy trying to get their races going that they will forget about Hanes.

Doing God's work, it all makes sense. I know some will say "who cares about her?" but she's got a strong marketing background and knows how to work all angles of social media.

Funny enough Browning has always seemed to me the most suspect of ultrarunners in terms of likely PED users. Always a solid 100 miler but leveled up big time in his late 40s (western states podium) while looking way more cut and running like 6 100s a year. Credited it all to a high fat/ high meat diet. Unsurprisingly also an anti-vax weirdo like Hanes.

Actually, it seems like Western States has put pressure on Jamil before to do more drug testing. Honestly, I think WSER has known that these races have a doping issue.

WSER and the trail running community as a whole allowing Golden Ticket races to go untested, organizers like Aravaipa Running are saving a few thousand dollars today while deferring a massive financial and cultural debt for tomorrow. When a sport's culture normalizes cheating because no one is looking, fixing that corruption down the road requires shifting from cheap race-day tests to highly complex, year-round "whereabouts" testing pools that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

WSER urgently needs to reconsider partnering with untested qualifying events; if a doped runner steals a Golden Ticket at an Aravaipa race, the integrity of the WSER line-up is instantly compromised. Western States will ultimately bear the brunt of the financial fallout, facing skyrocketing legal fees, expensive post-race arbitrations, and a devastating loss of premium corporate sponsorship when mainstream brands refuse to fund an unvetted, scandal-ridden sport.

trailwaves.substack.com

The Math of Cheating: Why Doping Could Be Trail Running's Next Big Problem

Seth LaReau

Misaligned financial incentives may be quietly creating a perfect storm. Here's how we might fix it.

Open link

This was an interesting article written a year ago which has come full circle. A quote from it:

"A weak deterrent (people breaking anti-doping policies and facing no punishment), in this case, made the behavior feel more acceptable.

This ideas applies surprisingly well to doping. If we set up systems that look like deterrents, but are poorly enforced or inconsistently applied, they may actually legitimize cheating.

They send the message: We know it happens, we don’t really care."

I have no respect for Jamil. Dude only cares about how much he can make from people at his race. I suggest you email western states.

I will say after the Lance cheating scandal in cycling, it never had the public's eye like it did in the '80s and late '90s. The covenant was broken. I remember up to that point general pop was excited about cycling, etc. Bike shops were everywhere and growing up many of my running friends wanted to get into cycling. But once Lance got popped...people lost interest.

Ultrarunning is popular in Columbus, lots of good races in Ohio (all over the state), etc. etc. But all the goodwill from Coco 250, Rachel's win, could evaporate if the reputation gets tarnished. It blew up my Facebook even from casual runners new to the sport....it was a moment in time.

I saw it in Irish Dance in 2022--popular, family-friendly sport tarnished by cheating scandal (texts, judges playing favorites) and competitions are dropping in entries because the sport's rep is damaged. Some schools and comps have to close/shut down because families are wising up to the cheating.

I just hope that the running world has less parallels to the rest of our life experience. It's all very disappointing.