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

It won't work Mike. wrote:

Funny thing is though now I go back to his twitter I can't find it, could just be me (hate twitter), is he able to delete it?

It was the same tweet were he wishes he could be wrong 50% of the time.

Ok , now I see the point Thanks

The truth is Mike is just totally jelly of me. I'm real. His is not. I get styled and admired by hundreds of thousands of people everyday at 5, 6, and 11 PM.

plus one guy wrote:

Won't let it die wrote:

Mike is either stupid or addicted to the adrenaline rush or both.

I would have ceased caring by now, but because he is so defiant while so obviously guilty, I want to see him humiliated.

Plus One. Mike is so very very dumb. Look at how many other cheaters there are who have posts about them that flame out and die in relatively quick order. This very thread would have died after the initial hub bub (especially after it went to the NT status) if not for Mike being Mike and unintentionally adding fuel to the fire with his own stupid actions. Rojo would have never even thought to kick things back up if Rossi hadn't helped keep this thing alive.

To the troll (Mike?) who keeps asking why we are obsessed with Mike .... it's this. We would have lost interest long ago .. sorry, while I do care about cheating, I can only hold my outrage for so long. Now, it's all about bringing down a narcissistic, overbearing, cocky, little bully of a man.

Laughable wrote:

Wait. Who are the other 2-4 posters BESIDES Mike? Or are you counting the alter-egos like "Whoa, Bro!" separately?

It's so comical how quiet the trolls were during "Daddy Day" and then trolls using 5 different names all happen to start posting within minutes of each other.... No... that couldn't be Mike trolling... could it? He's not silly enough to be THAT transparent, right?

Whoa, Bro! wrote:

This thread ceased being about a guy cheating long ago. Now it is about just 3-5 posters trying to ruin a someone's life whom they don't even know (except for Stillman). Cyberbullying at it's worst.

Couldn't both be true?

Whoa, Bro! wrote:

This thread ceased being about a guy cheating long ago. Now it is about just 3-5 posters trying to ruin a someone's life whom they don't even know (except for Stillman). Cyberbullying at it's worst.

This is such crap. Trying to turn the cheater into the victim. There is only one person who cares about Mike and his life, and that is Ken. There are trolls, and then every other poster just wants to see him DQ'd or admit he cheated. There is no mob, there is not witch hunt. Mike Rossi cheated, everyone knows he cheated, he's been offered $100,000 to prove he can run the 3:11 marathon he insists he can run - but he keeps egging people on. This thread absolutely keeps going on and is about a guy who cheated because Mike Rossi keep actively denying it all while refusing to say anything of substance or to directly address the evidence against him.

Also, where were you when that poor school principal and her family were actually having their lives ruined? All because she sent out a form letter required of her job. Now you're concerned about cyber-bullying? Totally disingenuous.

Cecily's Hair wrote:

The truth is Mike is just totally jelly of me. I'm real. His is not. I get styled and admired by hundreds of thousands of people everyday at 5, 6, and 11 PM.

She looks to have had a boob job , but thats cool , I love boob jobs , I think it should be a requirement for anyone less than a C cup

Roric's left toe wrote:

I hadn't really paid attention to it before, but why is Mike Riverdancing as he crosses the line? Seriously, what the hell is with that guy's gait?

He's not known as "The Duckster" or "The Duckinator" for nothing

This is a thread about a guy who thinks the rules do not apply to him. He wanted to run Boston but couldn't qualify so he did what he needed to do to get there. He wanted to take his kids to Boston and how dare the principal enforce the rules for his kids. And he seems genuinely surprised that this backlash has happened, because who are we to question the manner in which he gets what he wants? He cheated, and absolutely should have been DQ’d. I find it hard to believe that he picked this race and planned this himself. I wonder how many have been cheating this race and for how long.

Roric's left toe wrote:

It won't work Mike. wrote:

Funny thing is though now I go back to his twitter I can't find it, could just be me (hate twitter), is he able to delete it?

It was the same tweet were he wishes he could be wrong 50% of the time.

Mike Rossi ‏@mikerossi22 · 19h19 hours ago

I wish I had a job where I only had to be right 50% of the time. And in case I wasn't clear before. I didn't cheat. Now go stare @ the sky.

Interesting, you pretend to ask a question but go off on some inane ramble aboiut something you clearly don't understand whilst describing things I don't even recognise as anything to do with running.

You then triumphantly finish with a non sequitur where you misunderstand or don't care about cheating in general. 0.5/10

Wowzaaa wrote:

J.O., does that mean what I think?

(German is my mothertongue)

Dunno what you're thinking cos you didn't tell us, but I'm reading it as 'jerk off'.

Mike Rossi‏@mikerossi22 · 6h6 hours ago

@gerry_creighton sure Gerry. Whatever you say. J.O.

Nowhere in my post did I state or even imply that I thought being a runner gave me or anyone special status. Rossi's cheating and lying came up in the context of a marathon, and Lets Run is mostly populated by runners, but this story is universal. If Rossi had cheated at golf to gain an invite to a pretigious event, I would feel the same way. I may not have run across the story because I don't play golf, but once I heard about it, I would feel the same way.

After the Boston Marathon bombing, Rossi made it his publicly stated goal to qualify for and run in the Boston Marathon. That is a goal shared by many runners, who appreciate how hard it is for most people to achieve that goal. Once Rossi realized how hard it was going to be to reach his goal, he could have aimed lower and maintained his honor, but he chose instead to cheat, no doubt about it. When he got caught, he again could have fessed up and retained a shred of decency, but he chose to lie about it, brag about what a great father and example he is to his (step)-kids, and lash out at people who have called him a cheater. If that doesn't bother you, good for you. It bothers me, and obviously a lot of other people.

By posting here and in the comment sections of some of the stories about Rossi, I don't expect to personally gain anything from it or to specifically improve my life. But, I do agree with the statement attributed to Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." I would like to see Rossi DQ'd, but I will be just fine if it never happens. In my mind, it is enough that virtually everybody who has actually reviewed all of the publicly available evidence discussed on this thread has concluded that Rossi did not run 26.2 miles in the 2014 LVM, and thus never should have been allowed to run the Boston Marathon in 2015. Due in large part to this thread, Rossi is known both in his local area and across the globe as that guy who cheated to gain entry to the Boston Marathon. The cheater and liar Mike Rossi did not triumph because many good men and women exposed him. I am glad I contributed to that cause in my own small way.

Nice fella that Mike wrote:

Roric's left toe wrote:

It was the same tweet were he wishes he could be wrong 50% of the time.

Mike Rossi ‏@mikerossi22 · 19h19 hours ago

I wish I had a job where I only had to be right 50% of the time. And in case I wasn't clear before. I didn't cheat. Now go stare @ the sky.

I get the impression Cecily Tynan is everything Mike would like to be.

On it's initial surface the 100k offer looks really great , but here is how it looks to others ; offering someone a ridiculously amount of money to repeat what he already did seems like a no-brainer to those who are accusing him of cheating and using it to prove their point , however to Mike Rossi and those who support him it is an admission of defeat . It is a refusal to accept the initial attempt to have him DQ'd . you waived the surrender flag ! And sure, I get the whole reasoning behind "putting your money where your mouth is" and by offering him that much dough and him refusing to accept it , you liken that to his admission that he can't do it . Where as others see it as him "thumbing his nose at you " and telling you that 100k is still not worth as much as irritating you is . But here in lies where the problem is , he claims ( and with documented medical pictures of a diagnosis ) that he has a pretty bad injury , an injury that makes him unable to repeat that performance , an injury he could claim he got from that 3:11 performance , pushing himself beyond his performance level to the point of injury . So , like every disagreement this story has " he said/she said " all over it .

There is no way for one side or the other to change the other sides thinking. And even if this gut did accept the offer , and did repeat his performance and did win the money , you all would still say he cheated, and then the next goal would be to start badgering him to donate the money to some charity . So there is no way for him to change your opinions of him , and he knows this. Apparently he really does not care what you or some semi-celebrity news woman cares about him . All the posts about him and his pictures with his kids at ball games and Dave & Busters etc , is aggravating you further because he is showing you he is having a fun summer , this is not affecting him at all . He's pretty thick skinned I guess , I do not see a satisfactory solution to this for either side .

Someone should post this pic:

http://www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rossiwreck-e1437151132163-240x300.png

to the Cecily tweet and remind everyone how Mike tries to play the victim and ignore the fact that he's been the bully.

Word on the street is that Mike hired a coach and plans to earn 100k in October.

Telling it like it is wrote:

The cheater and liar Mike Rossi did not triumph because many good men and women exposed him. I am glad I contributed to that cause in my own small way.

Professor Peter Finley put it well:

"As a professor of sport and recreation management (I teach Sport Law and Sport Ethics and write about sports scandals), I am disturbed by this entire episode. We should all be troubled by Mike Rossi cheating and claiming an honor he did not earn. Taking the starting line in Boston should be reserved for those qualify fairly, as reward for the incredible work it takes for most people to get there."

Here is his full comment from the Runners World article

Peter Finley Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Affairs/Associate Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Huizenga Business School

I will draw the reader's attention to a few things.

First, since the accusations were made, Mike Rossi has never released a statement in which he claims to have run the marathon in its entirety. He has said that he, "achieved a qualifying time," but never that he ran the entire race. Nor has he described the race experience, discussed people he ran alongside, detailed his splits, or made any other comment that substantiates his presence on the course. Ask yourself, if you ran a marathon and thousands of people said you didn't, wouldn't you have stories to tell about the experience beyond "I took a selfie at the start and was photographed at the finish"?

Second, he claims that it is anonymous posters who accuse him of cheating. This is not entirely true. While there are many who choose to remain anonymous, there are also people like me who have and will continue to openly call Mike Rossi a cheater. As a professor of sport and recreation management (I teach Sport Law and Sport Ethics and write about sports scandals), I am disturbed by this entire episode. We should all be troubled by Mike Rossi cheating and claiming an honor he did not earn. Taking the starting line in Boston should be reserved for those qualify fairly, as reward for the incredible work it takes for most people to get there. But the mismanagement of this situation by the race officials is also a tremendous let down. They have a responsibility to the participants, their sponsors, and to the Boston Marathon to handle situations like this appropriately. They were given a mountain of evidence that is beyond conclusive. The conclusion they reached is untenable. I am not anonymous. I am putting my name to these comments, as I have before.

In addition, I have and continue to welcome a defamation lawsuit from Mike Rossi and we can let a jury decide whether he ran the marathon.

I will share with you a post on a FanBuzz story about Mike Rossi and the viral letter to the principal. And like this post, there's nothing anonymous about this. I wrote...

Mike Rossi cheated his way into the Boston Marathon.

He posted a qualifying time at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon. He took a selfie at the start line, reappeared at the finish line, but was never photographed on the course at any of the photo checkpoints in between. Every runner was photographed multiple times (generally as many as a dozen times at varied locations) but Rossi was never photographed. Time stamps on the photos show that pictures were generally being taken at a rate of one every 1.25 seconds as the runners went past and you can often see the runners in frame and everything for 100 yards behind them. Rossi never showed up along the race route. The odds of him running the marathon and not being photographed have been calculated at close to one in 600,000. At one point, about six miles into the race, 199 of the top 200 runners are clearly photographed. You can guess who was missing and should have been right in the middle of the stream of runners. Lehigh is not a big marathon. Just a few miles into the race the runners have stretched out and getting photographs of everyone (to be sold to the runners later) is very easy. Everyone who ran across that bridge was photographed. Mike Rossi wasn't because he was in a car on the highway at the time.

In addition, Rossi's race history does not support that he has the ability to run a 3:11 marathon. All his previous races indicated he should run between 3:40 and 4:00 (he claims he never tried in ANY race, EVER, until his miracle perfomance at Lehigh). Rossi ran a predictable 4:01 at Boston, where security measures are in place to prevent cheating. Rossi's bragging posts on Twitter and Facebook about previous races do not support that he NEVER tried in ANY previous race.

The race management team at Lehigh declined to disqualify Rossi but left the door open to consider further evidence, should it be made available. It seems they don't believe that his complete absence from photos or his obvious inability to run 3:11 are conclusive. They probably want a witness who saw him leave the course after his "chip" crossed the start line or saw him jump back in just prior to the finish. The running community is angered by this, as it essentially means that a runner is allowed to cheat, provided they are good at it. The race management team did NOT, however, exonerate Mike Rossi. They wrote, "the Marathon committee concluded that while there is data from Rossis participation in other racing events indicating that Rossis time may not be accurate, there is not conclusive evidence..." and continued, "Therefore the LVHN Via Marathon Committee concluded that Rossi will not be disqualified unless additional conclusive information arises in the future." They also promised "the course will have a minimum of six timing mats - at the start, finish line and four additional on-course locations. In addition, there will be video surveillance of the course at several locations which Via will archive annually." In other words, they don't want to get "Rossied" again.

If you would care to watch the video of Mike Rossi NOT qualifying for the Boston Marathon, you can do so here:

Or just watch Rossi NOT cross the bridge within the top 200 runners (he finished 114th), here:

Whether you like the letter to the principal or not, Mike Rossi cheated his way into the Boston Marathon.

Read more:

Bullshit excuses Mike