Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

agreed, on the 5k when fit. i keep saying again someday, and never get around to it.

i was able to break 3:00 three times, alas the last two haven't been a fast. need to get my miles back up. and try another 5k!

thanks...

Reasonable response wrote:

A few thoughts...

1). The general public isn't going to care as much about this guy's deception as Kip Litton's--there's not going to be a story in The New Yorker this time. Why? Rossi's deception is limited in scope. It involves one core incident, and his motivation is understandable, by which I mean it at least makes sense and isn't totally bizarre. Litton, on the other hand, was extreme. His ruse was so outlandish and intricate that it rose to the level of performance art.

I disagree with this since this guy put himself out in the public eye with the letter regarding the school attendance policy. People already know who he is, whereas with Kip the public knew nothing about him before the New Yorker article. People will be very interested. Especially, since the only reason people know about him had to do with the Boston Marathon (which people know) and the fact none of this would be a big deal if he did not been a self-serving douche with the letter to the principal.

That has already been done. He isn't in the photos. That's the funny thing about this thread, I already have conclusive evidence that he cheated. You can go through the photos in the order taken and see the surrounding people over the period he should have passed and he isn't there. He cheated. It's not a question.

pin racer wrote:

Yikes, tough couple days for Mike Rossi. Mike, if you are still reading this thread (and you probably are) here's a bit of advice.

Come clean man, just admit you cheated and everyone will move on from this. We're actually a pretty nice group of people, and this is hardly the worst thing anyone's ever done. Sure, it'll be embarrassing but it'll blow over in a day or 2 and everyone will move on.

By continuing to deny deny deny, you'll just fan the flames here and all over the internet as more and more people get obsessed with this.

Have any of the cheaters ever come clean? Last I read Rosie still claims to have won Boston.

You gotta show there were no photography gaps though, no other missing runners at the same location. That's the key. It's not enough to say he was not present. But if you have gone through them all and shown that all runners come through except Rossi, then I guess you've done all that can be done.

The best we will get is a DQ. We'll most likely never get a confession.

"A common narcissistic personality disorder trait is pathological lying. The narcissist presents to the world the creation of his false self. This false self is based on the image of who the narcissist would like to be rather than how he really feels about himself at a deep inner level.

As a result, the narcissistic personality disorder trait of outrageous and vindictive lying is a faux shop front regarding the narcissist’s supposed accomplishments and achievements, as well as to defend his or her false image if threatened, or attack when sufficiently angered.

The narcissistic personality disorder trait of compulsive and pathological lying means that the narcissist will not be responsible or accountable for questionable actions. This narcissistic personality disorder trait can be used as projection, which means falsely accusing others of the narcissist’s crimes. It can also be used to create third parties as false allies, or as a smear campaign. When applied vengefully, the narcissist is capable of pathological lying to severely damage other people’s wellbeing and reputation."

I have looked through every lost and found photo. He's not in them. Only the finisher photo.

He should post is Nike+ info. Surely he has friends on Nike+ who have seen his data? No one likes a cheater. Come out with it!

lemme help wrote:

You gotta show there were no photography gaps though, no other missing runners at the same location. That's the key. It's not enough to say he was not present. But if you have gone through them all and shown that all runners come through except Rossi, then I guess you've done all that can be done.

That's been done in the thread.

lemme help wrote:

You gotta show there were no photography gaps though, no other missing runners at the same location. That's the key. It's not enough to say he was not present. But if you have gone through them all and shown that all runners come through except Rossi, then I guess you've done all that can be done.

Yeah, I've spent more than enough time on the photos, and at this point we know that he either (a) cut the course, or (b) is one of the unluckiest people on earth. He could potentially prove the latter with split times and/or GPS data -- it'd be easy enough to compare his splits to the photographic evidence and see if every single photographer happened to be reloading their camera when he was running by. Possible, I guess, in the way that winning the lottery is possible. But without any further input from Mr. Rossi, we are left with a 99.999 to 0.001 (or so) proposition.

I don't really care if he's DQed or whatever -- I just think it'd be interesting if he would answer Rojo's questions. Would love to hear his explanation, description of the course, memories, etc.

Freud wrote:

The best we will get is a DQ. We'll most likely never get a confession.

I doubt Mr. Rossi will ever care.

His goal was to run Boston. He already has that. They can't take away his medal. They can't take away his memories. They can't take away his jacket.

Hell, my guess is he will deny, allow the story to die (nobody but runners care, anyways) and fade into the shadows.

Then two years later, he'll confess in a sad effort to gain another 15 minutes of fame.

Four years later, he'll be in a weird reality show with Dustin Diamond and Kathy Griffin.

I think "the best we can get" is to have race directors tighten up their standards - more mats, secret mats, video and a more careful scrutiny of results.

That's what I'm hoping for.

Regarding his most recent Facebook post. He obviously ignores that part that he knows he can't argue with. The fact he was never on the course.

He focuses on the points we have fully agreed with the entire time.

1. He started.

2. He finished.

His Facebook post is going to make complete sense to all of his friends, but they just won't understand that a 3:40 marathoner that ran comparable times at other distances can't run 3:11 on a day that slowed the course down by as much as 10 minutes. Given I know that part can be argued I'm not using that as my damning evidence.

However like I said earlier, RoJo reach out the the photography company and get the originals that were taken so that you can splice them together for a formal article. I've gone through them and you can see no doubt he wasn't on the course. But, for an article to be taken seriously you will need to have a copy of them as well. Or at least in case a lawyer comes popping up you can show them he cheated to back up your article.

Mike you picked a bad day to draw attention to yourself. I'm sure you're reading this and it's time to come clean..

I have shot for MarathonFoto and other race photo companies.

Taking breaks, especially at a 3:11 race pace, just isn't done. If ya can't "hold it" don't be a race photographer.

So based on that other guy who wrote in about DQing people over the years, we very well could have another cheater or two when we're done with the photos. Let's finish off the spreadsheet and then I'll try to contact the race director. Maybe he can email any other cheaters if they exist and they'll fess up privately.

If I was the race director, I'd already have DQd Mr. Rossi.

So let's finish up the "Other runners with no photos" here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o6QNphLQ7ZV_sPSCyaFV4Tm1rmOlol_AO5cxF3Lam-Q/edit#gid=119642394

I've done at least 3 of them. Put your initials in theree so we don't double dip.

To find out who you are looking for (unless they have a post-race photo), go to the race resutls website:

http://results.chronotrack.com/event/results/event/event-10268?lc=en

Type in their big #. THen click on "Timing" and get their gun time. Then go back to "Video" and watch until a person comes across the finish line at that time. The spreadsheet will tell you what you are looking for. Freeze frame it and then go here:

http://www.racephotonetwork.com/QPPlus/SearchBibNumber.aspx?EventID=1557975&_AccountNumber=2770

and start scrolling through "lost and found". Change it to "180 per page" and you'll only have 5-6 pages to look for.

If you can' find someone , note it in the column on the right and at the bottom as well.

That's true. Not only will runners not care, they know he finished Boston in the time he says he finished Boston and won't understand why he should be DQ'ed, even if he may or may not have cheated to get there.

they just won't understand that a 3:40 marathoner that ran comparable times at other distances can't run 3:11 on a day that slowed the course down by as much as 10 minutes...

Prediction: Mike Rossi NEVER gets convicted of this. His 3:11 will stand, his BQ will stand and his Boston finish will stand. There will never be enough evidence to sway any RD, jurisdiction or public opinion. All Mike has to do is continue monitoring this thread and he'll know there will be never enough to convict so he'll go to the grave with this. He will actually become a sympathetic figure because of cyberbulling from a bunch of nutjobs on a running website.

First, let me agree with your latter point: we should more carefully document the locations where there is an almost continuous stream of pictures, and make a list of all of the runners to either side of Rossi that were seen. (Like, all of the 20 people before and after him in the finish results, for example.) The later in the course this is, the more convincing - and we should try to nail down the positions of these pictures along the course.

Second, I disagree with your criticism of the statistical argument about Mike only having one photo. You make a good point, that multiple photos of a person might be lost when a photographer takes a break, but *this is why we counted how many locations somebody was captured at, not how photographs of them were taken*. That is the key. So we have a list of how many locations each of the 100 runners around Rossi were captured at, and we can do statistics on that list. It follows a normal distribution, justifying a z-test, and this test implies that the probability of Mr. Rossi missing all locations by chance, assuming he actually ran the race, is about 1 in 11 thousand.

Sure, it's possible. But it didn't happen to any of those other 100 people, or even come close to happening to any of them. And if you crunch the numbers, the result matches the obvious intuition - that it's unlikely to be by chance.

irony killed the cat wrote:

Prediction: I NEVER get convicted of this. My 3:11 will stand, my BQ will stand and my Boston finish will stand. There will never be enough evidence to sway any RD, jurisdiction or public opinion. All I have to do is continue monitoring this thread and I'll know there will be never enough to convict so I'll go to the grave with this. I will actually become a sympathetic figure because of cyberbulling from a bunch of nutjobs on a running website.

Fixed it for you

we can also find out who the photographers were and ask them if they took breaks.

Also, are the time/date stamps on the photos? that would show if a break was taken. If you see the timedate stamp continuing thru a period of time that he would of HAVE to have run thru then you have him.