Theory: Houlihan was taking a supplement provided to her by a BTC/Nike employee. They never told her what was in it so that she could have plausible deniability to some extent. Other members of the team were taking the same thing. It would explain why so many team members continue to support her and pretend to believe the ridiculous burriot excuse. Nike probably also paid her to take the fall -- it's how she's been able to afford to continue training and traveling to meets.
Could be made up, but allegedly a former Nike runner may have unknowingly doped. He may have received a call shortly before his planned last race that he would "probably test positive" and he may have decided to retire after that. It's possible. Guess who was maybe coaching him then?
Here are some totally unrelated articles I thought would be an interesting read for no real reason.
Not here to spread "conspiracy theories," but it has been established that Salazar has done plenty of things like this and I've directly heard another one of his former athletes warn him/her to skip a race because the athlete would test positive.
The Russian gold medalist at 800m in 2004 sure looks like Ovett. And Yuriy was born nine months after Steve won his 800 gold in Moscow in 1980.
I was at least vaguely aware of most of the theories on here, though some posters added a lot of great details I didn't know about some of them. This one is totally new to me though, and is honestly really funny. Ovett seems like just the type to do that in my opinion, and I see from Wikipedia that Yuriy was born in the Moscow oblast. Obviously it's the biggest city, but the theory would be less plausible had he been born in St. Petersburg or Kazan or someplace. This would be absolutely hilarious if it could be proved.
I actually 100% believe this is true. Ovett has also interacted with Borzakovskiy a fair amount too.
Out of everything on this thread, this is by far the best one. I love it.
And get this, Borza was born 12 April 1981 which means his mother Ekaterina must have shared a night of passion with someone clearly of some positive genetic disposition around early July 1980.
The Summer Olympics in 1980 started on the 19th of July...
The Kip Litton saga was the work of a performance artist who intended to highlight the absurdity of hobby joggers taking Sub 3 marathons far too seriously.
I heard basically the same story about Hicham EG getting caught but not reported, IAAF told him "enough, retire" . I heard the same story from two sources, both very connected.
Could be made up, but allegedly a former Nike runner may have unknowingly doped. He may have received a call shortly before his planned last race that he would "probably test positive" and he may have decided to retire after that. It's possible. Guess who was maybe coaching him then?
Here are some totally unrelated articles I thought would be an interesting read for no real reason.
Not here to spread "conspiracy theories," but it has been established that Salazar has done plenty of things like this and I've directly heard another one of his former athletes warn him/her to skip a race because the athlete would test positive.
Yes I'm in no way saying that what I wrote is true at all. Definitely not. Nothing to see here. Those linked articles definitely have nothing to do with the athlete I'm talking about.
One I remember well was Chinese women distance runners 1990's suspected of gender fraud. There has to be more info out there, but AI seems to "think" it started as gender fraud suspicions and just ended as doping when they dropped out of Sydney Olympics.
Background: China's Dominance in Women's Distance Running
In the early 1990s, Chinese women shocked the world by breaking multiple long-distance running records. At the 1993 World Championships in Athletics, Chinese runners, coached by Ma Junren, dominated the women’s middle and long-distance events. His athletes, known as the "Ma’s Army," set astonishing records in events like the 1,500m, 3,000m, and 10,000m, many of which stood for decades.
Why the Gender Suspicion?
While gender fraud (men competing as women) has occurred in sports history, there is no concrete evidence that Ma's runners were men. However, the following factors fueled speculation:
Extreme Physicality: Some runners displayed unusually high endurance, muscular builds, and deep voices—traits often associated with doping rather than gender fraud.
Sudden, Unbelievable Success: Unknown athletes from China started dominating events, leading to skepticism.
Systematic Doping Allegations: Years later, multiple sources—including a 2016 letter allegedly from former athletes—accused Ma Junren of forcing them to take performance-enhancing drugs.
China’s History of State-Sponsored Doping: Similar to East Germany in the 1980s, China had a track record of questionable practices in sports performance.
Doping Scandal and Fallout
In 2000, six of Ma Junren’s top runners were dropped from the Sydney Olympics team after failing drug tests. The scandal reinforced beliefs that doping, rather than gender fraud, was behind their success.
Conclusion:
While there have been rumors about some of China's female runners possibly being men, no credible evidence supports this claim. The more widely accepted explanation is systematic doping and controversial training methods, rather than gender manipulation.
The shared gold medal in the men's high jump in Tokyo was a feel-good plant. Tamberi was likely to beat an aging but still great Barrshim. Both likely were paid handsomely to accept this
Why would someone of Barrashim's caliber and cache settle for a shared gold? The world 'needed' a feel good story from the spectator-less Olympics to generate attention for the games amidst COVID
is there any proof of this? or any of the X is short claims
The only case of a "short track" that might actually be true outside of the memes on here is the 1993 National Chinese games where the there were some various suspicious womens' world records were set including the still standing 8:06 3000m by Wang Junxia (according to Wikipedia 8:06 was actually run twice at the meet, by two different runners in the heats and final respectively). These athletes were not able to ever replicate these performances before or after.
As far as I am aware there are no videos of any of these races and the track does not exist anymore. I would not put these types of shenanigans above the Chinese Communists party either.
Forgot about this one. Same with the 1993 Chinese national games where Wang Junxia ran 8:06. The track was torn up directly after the national games finished. I'm convinced it was short. I don't care how many drugs they took, there is no way a damn 8:06 is legit.
is there any proof of this? or any of the X is short claims
The only case of a "short track" that might actually be true outside of the memes on here is the 1993 National Chinese games where the there were some various suspicious womens' world records were set including the still standing 8:06 3000m by Wang Junxia (according to Wikipedia 8:06 was actually run twice at the meet, by two different runners in the heats and final respectively). These athletes were not able to ever replicate these performances before or after.
As far as I am aware there are no videos of any of these races and the track does not exist anymore. I would not put these types of shenanigans above the Chinese Communists party either.
Whoops, looks like we had the same thoughts lol Anyway, here is a video of the 8:06
The only case of a "short track" that might actually be true outside of the memes on here is the 1993 National Chinese games where the there were some various suspicious womens' world records were set including the still standing 8:06 3000m by Wang Junxia (according to Wikipedia 8:06 was actually run twice at the meet, by two different runners in the heats and final respectively). These athletes were not able to ever replicate these performances before or after.
As far as I am aware there are no videos of any of these races and the track does not exist anymore. I would not put these types of shenanigans above the Chinese Communists party either.
Whoops, looks like we had the same thoughts lol Anyway, here is a video of the 8:06
ya, and nearly ran the 3k record en route to the 10k WR, and ran a fraction off the 1500m WR as well.
while i knew the East German coach's protocols were in effect, after this. I completely considered the times as a circus trick, and I don't go to the circus.
when you see world records in route for 1/2 the distance or less, you are allowed to call em out.
2. There was only one good Mercado twin in college, Diego or Danny would run using the others name to keep both on scholarship (depending on who needed the performance to stay in the good graces)
They did finish within 20 seconds of each other at the 2009 NCAA XC Championships as second-place Oregon's # 4 and #5.