Why Was A Man With A 10-Year Doping Ban Enjoying The 2012 US Olympic Track & Field Trials From The Nike Sky Box?

Actually I agree that this (Block/Nike) is an outrage that needs to be addressed. Looks very bad on Nike and many others. I personally think Block needs to hounded to the ends of the earth.

I just think LetsRun is a very poor group to be running with this story. Especially when they call on other athletes, coaches and agents to speak up, yet they run a website where the most popular pastime is to run-down start gossi, and disparage most everyone in the sport on a message board that is not monitored so they can get as much viewership / AD revenue as possible.

Their message board is the antithesis of bad journalism and faulty reporting and image spearing, yet they are calling on people who make their living in the sport to come on here and discuss anything. That is a total joke.

If Wejo/Rojo want to be taken as serious journalists then need to realize that teir message board format works against that. How many times do you expect someone to be slapped though thier organization (i.e. message board) before they don;t want to have anything to do with it or them, regardless what the storty is.

Hard but true. Hopefully someone else in sports journalism picks this up and runs with it because i doubt LetsRun will get that much attention for an issue that deserves attention.

So you can't spectate and still flood the sport with money because you're serving a ban as an agent/coach?

What's to say he doesn't work for Nike?

When did Letsrun become a website about smear campaigns?

Why aren't you simply reporting results, interviewing athletes and reporting about dopers being caught?

Too many runners in the 1500, Tarmoh is a coward, Gatlin is a cheater, Somebody sits in a press box for a world wide sports affiliate and you can't stand it?

This is ridiculous, why is the sport so obscure, because you guys can't report on the sport instead you report on this, you're more worried about who is doping instead of who is running. You pull so much attention to doping that now every time someone becomes relevant on the world stage, you have everyone immediately assuming they're doped to the gills or a freak of nature.

The only possible defense I can surmise is that Block appealed his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, so possibly certain sanctions are tolled until a final appeal is heard. Anybody know the status of the CAS appeal?

I disagree. LRC was the only outlet that has the guts and likely the knowledge of who the hell he is to run something like this. The message board format isn't a hindrance to that. Go back and read the old Regina Jacobs interview and posts. Wejo/Rojo are simply calling for accountability. The board is largely trying to make sure that anyone associated with the dopers and cheats gets away from them. The athletes, USADA, USATF, etc need to get doping out of the sport. Nike and the agents are knowingly or unknowingly allowing someone who aided in doping and still seems to be poking around in the sport the ability to remain relevant and work in the sport. I hope a larger outlet picks this up as well and gets comments from Nike.

Sure. The message board is full of trolls.

Have you ever read the comments section on CNN? No different. W

hile I agree that Rojo and Wejo express stronger opinions than most journalists, they are not responsible for every comment made in a public forum.

Jimbo Kern wrote:

Here comes the tainted meat excuse:

Jason Richardson ‏@JaiRich

...just getting in from good laughs and great food at Ruth Chris w/ @CarmelitaJeter @TheMarkBlock, my coach, wives, & family

Expand

Reply Retweet Favorite

20 Apr 12

Carmelita Jeter ‏@CarmelitaJeter

Dinner tonite with my parents/manager/coach and @JaiRich. #TeamJet/TeamRich

Retweeted by Jason Richardson

20 Apr 12

So Carmelita, your manager is still Mark Block? Try this hash tag next time #ilookguiltybyassociation

seriously, he has a 10 year doping ban and two of our olympians are calling him their managers still, going out to dinner and tweeting about it?!? you don't see arod or some other yankee going out to dinner with mcnamara still.

Richardson ran Mount SAC on April 21, so this would have been the night before.

Why associate yourself with a guy that has a stained reputation? That's what I'm asking.

Don't you understand that this is the sport? The sport is obscure because what drew people as fans was being able to watch and appreciate athletes stretching human potential. But, why watch it when it's almost a foregone conclusion that the stretching is chemically enhanced? At this point in the technology the dopers will always have a head start because the testing protocol is geared toward specificity, so you have to go after the individuals rather than the drugs themselves. Hopefully, at some point, we will be able to catch the chemicals ... for now, this type of pressure is GOOD, really good.

O'lionaird is bang on the money to be fair.

mcgato wrote:

Jimbo Kern wrote:

Here comes the tainted meat excuse:

Jason Richardson ‏@JaiRich

...just getting in from good laughs and great food at Ruth Chris w/ @CarmelitaJeter @TheMarkBlock, my coach, wives, & family

Expand

Reply Retweet Favorite

20 Apr 12

Carmelita Jeter ‏@CarmelitaJeter

Dinner tonite with my parents/manager/coach and @JaiRich. #TeamJet/TeamRich

Retweeted by Jason Richardson

20 Apr 12

So Carmelita, your manager is still Mark Block? Try this hash tag next time #ilookguiltybyassociation

seriously, he has a 10 year doping ban and two of our olympians are calling him their managers still, going out to dinner and tweeting about it?!? you don't see arod or some other yankee going out to dinner with mcnamara still.

Richardson ran Mount SAC on April 21, so this would have been the night before.

One of the BroJo's asked her the question directly.

If he's no longer your agent, then why is he there?

The sport is obscure because what drew people as fans was being able to watch and appreciate athletes stretching human potential. But, why watch it when it's almost a foregone conclusion that the stretching is chemically enhanced?

Many of the superstars of baseball, basketball, football, MMA, etc., are doping, and those sports' respective fanbases are largely indifferent to it. The issue is altogether minimized.

Formica Table wrote:

The sport is obscure because what drew people as fans was being able to watch and appreciate athletes stretching human potential. But, why watch it when it's almost a foregone conclusion that the stretching is chemically enhanced?

Many of the superstars of baseball, basketball, football, MMA, etc., are doping, and those sports' respective fanbases are largely indifferent to it. The issue is altogether minimized.

BUT, the intent of those sports is not to stretch human potential and measure it. The measurement involved is indirect and therefore minimizes the impact it has on the sport. Does it negatively effect those sports? Certainly, but not in the same way it effects measured, performance based sport.

Here an example for you:

Today 3 Russian track athletes (2 middle distance runners and a marathoner), 2 of which have recently won gold medals in European Championships (2010-2011)were banned for doping. These are big names with Olympic aspirations.

To most in the sport this is big news. But here at LetsRun it hasn't been reported or mentioned that I can find.

But they put a special intro page and did a huge story about a some scumbag guy, who doesn't have any direct o demonstratable links to any current athlete, attending the trials as a spectator and sitting with a promonate sponsor.

News worthy yes, but so much newsworthy as to miss other bigger stories altogether, no.

Letsrun: Interesting tabloid journalism, yes; serious journalism not so much.

medball wrote:

O'lionaird is bang on the money to be fair.

Sure buddy - and he also comes off as an apologist for being connected to a known drug enabler. Not a good look for a guy in a sport where drugs are known to be used.

Identity Crisis at LR wrote:

Here an example for you:

Today 3 Russian track athletes (2 middle distance runners and a marathoner), 2 of which have recently won gold medals in European Championships (2010-2011)were banned for doping. These are big names with Olympic aspirations.

To most in the sport this is big news. But here at LetsRun it hasn't been reported or mentioned that I can find.

But they put a special intro page and did a huge story about a some scumbag guy, who doesn't have any direct o demonstratable links to any current athlete, attending the trials as a spectator and sitting with a promonate sponsor.

News worthy yes, but so much newsworthy as to miss other bigger stories altogether, no.

Letsrun: Interesting tabloid journalism, yes; serious journalism not so much.

yea, letsrun is run by a couple of guys that update the site once or twice a day. a link like that usually shows up in some rundown or later in the day, not right after it hits the wire.

this is a story that they're running themselves. it may not be "serious" in the sense that they have journalism degrees and shareholders and a large infrastructure backing them to polish it off for you, but they're putting a story out there that no one else would touch because they don't have the expertise (no one at the NYT or SI would likely know Mark Block), the space, or the audience that cares about such a thing. LRC has the fan base that cares about this stuff. Velonews or a similar site runs the same sort of stuff.

I'm thrilled by the response so far. Over a hundred responses and 90% of them must be in support - that's rare in socierty.

A few thoughts..

1) What do I think will happen? Nike will ignore it or say they have no idea how he got in there or say he can go as a spectator.

My response: Do spectators go to every meet in the world?

The fact of the matter people involved in the highest aspects of doping need to be treated like pariahs, not welcomed or at least not kicked out of the Nike VIP tent.

2) It amazes me that people can't separate the messageboard from the main part of our site. CNN and ESPN have boards/comment sections and people don't slam them for that.

Is it just because ours is more prominently highlighted? Well we think the community is the best (and worse) part of LRC and unless everyone in America wants to pay $5 per month to use LetsRun like they do ESPN, we do need the advertising.

We do not control what people write.

3) Will we require registration? No we will not as lots of valuable posts come from the anonymity. Just as people in the Nike suite with BLock didn't want their names used here, people have legitimate reasons not to post under their names.

4) The praise we have received for this story is invigorating. I truly believe that virtually no one else in the running sphere would dare go here. Why? It could cost them millions. Seriously, I wonder how much Nike spends each year with Rodale. It's the same thing with the agents and athletes.

5) Before we published this, I said to Weldon, "How much would it take for you not to publish it?" And sadly, there was a figure we agreed to.

Everyone has a price.

Some of you hate on Salazar, but he's a smart man when guys like O'Lionaird "find other training groups" to match up better when lines are crossed.

rojo wrote:

3) Will we require registration? No we will not as lots of valuable posts come from the anonymity. Just as people in the Nike suite with BLock didn't want their names used here, people have legitimate reasons not to post under their names.

Nobody wants to post under their real name but everyone should post under a REGISTERED ANONYMOUS NAME. This would clean the place up massively.

add my voice to the chorus of support here. you need to follow up with jeter and ask her about her association with block. clearly, based on her/richardson's twitter posts, there is more going on than she is willing to share.

follow up with nike. follow up with USADA, USATF, whoever you need to. don't let this one die.

if you're going to be able to get pressure to figure this stuff out, it's going to happen now, when the rest of the sports media is actually interested in what's going on in track.