What happened to the Letsrun forum I loved?
It's a sad fvcking day when people are forced to choose sides between a marathon cheater and a 300 lb scam artist.
Once upon a time, we would have all rallied around humiliating them both.
No, the vast majority of the people who have posted to and read this thread are not here to rally around humiliating Rossi and Ken. We came here because the story of Rossi's possible cheating, after his attempt to humiliate the principal at his kids' school went viral, was so compelling. It was like an episode of 48 Hours or Criminal Minds. Many of us pitched in to analyze photos, sift through athlinks, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and read blogs for evidence that Rossi either did or did not run the full distance of the LVM.
As virtually everyone agrees who has posted here, the evidence that Rossi cheated for a BQ is overwhelming. It wouldn't surprise me if Rossi himself acknowledged that fact at some point while posting anonymously on this thread, just so that whatever else he was posting about would be given more credibility (like, for instance, his apparent attacks on Ken).
Most of us stayed here not to humiliate Rossi, but because we hoped he would respond to the public pressure by admitting he cheated. Many of us stayed here even after it became clear that Rossi would never admit that he cheated because we wanted to see what would happen when he was inevitably DQ'd. And, despite being dumbfounded by the RD's decision to not DQ an obvious cheater, we will continue to stay here to see if, somehow, this situation will come to a satisfactory conclusion.
This thread was never about Ken. One or more posters have tried to make it about him, but it won't work, mostly because it will always be about Rossi cheating his way to a BQ, but partially because Ken owned up to his mistakes. So, in a way, Rossi's attacks on Ken have backfired, just like his attack on the principal backfired. The difference is that in attacking the principal, Rossi was trying to draw attention to himself, and boy did he ever, and it resulted in him being outed as a marathon cheat. In attacking Ken, Rossi is trying to divert attention away from himself, which has only been successful in showing the stark difference between someone like Ken, who makes mistakes, but owns up to them and apparently tries to make them right, and someone like Rossi, who gets caught cheating and won't admit it no matter how damning the evidence.
I honestly don't know which is worse, Rossi's cheating, his towering ego, or his bottomless stupidity. Regardless, he has secured for himself a perpetual place in the pantheon of Infamous Marathon Cheaters. Well done, Rossi, well done!
