"The Boston Marathon Was Fixed" thread.

I know a guy, who knows a guy, who's roommates brother's boss said 'the fix is in'

It is too bad then that you could not point out a single "obvious issue".

The only ones in the race who had to be in on the fix were the handful of top Africans. Meb didn't need to know. The other Americans didn't need to know. Only a handful of guys.

So, they didn't pull it off with the best dramatic acting of all time. Instead they simply let Meb go early without even having to put in a surge. In this way they made it too obvious. Thus your theory seems to amount to "The way the race unfolded it was so obviously a fix that it couldn't possibly be a fix".

Not a great argument IMHO.

Someone call the Wambulance.

The field blew it. Im sure they thought let the old man go he will not hold that pace , give him a little glory , don't worry about him.

Id be interested to Meb's splits and hear comments from the chase pack.

Good on Meb , experience , preparation and confidence showed its colors today not some idiotic conspiracy theory.

on the DL wrote:

I know a guy, who knows a guy, who's roommates brother's boss said 'the fix is in'

I know a guy who thinks that there has never been a fix in any sporting event and that groups of individuals have never conspired about anything ever. Name's "on the DL".

The main reasons people have issue w/ this race is

1. Meb's age.

3. Meb's PR at his age.

2. The fact that the women ran blazingly fast.

It was not a slow day, and at least 4-5 guys in the field could close in 61 on a record quality course w/ a slow start.

There were guys sandbagging. The odds that all of them would have bad days all in the same race is much lower than Meb - 2nd tier at best - winning.

agip wrote:

Crying Man wrote:

Except that Meb never "put the hammer down". Go check his splits. Nice race. Never a surge to be found.

um, racing boston at 2:08 pace is a sustained putting the hammer down - no surge needed. Two guys few fear were running 2:08 pace at boston. the pack decided that the winner at boston would not be one of those guys.

If kogo had been running at 2:08 pace they would not have let him go. But these two? eh, let e'm go. 2:10 and 2:12 were the last two years winning times.

Usually you come across as honest on these boards. Today I am not so sure. Here were your exact words:

does it matter at all to you that Meb's surge put him at a pace that would have won 70% of the last 20 Bostons?

does it matter at all to you that the guy making this very fast surge was a 39 year old guy no one was worried about so it was easy to let him go?

remember last year was won in 2:10 and the year before in 2:12. This crazy old man putting a mad surge was easy to let go.

Sorry, but your successive posts border on dishonesty. In your earlier post you mentioned "very fast surge". When it was pointed out to you that no such surge ever existed in this race you apparently realized your error that there was no "very fast surge".

Running at a sustained 2:08 pace in the first half of a major marathon will NEVER drop the pack. And this notion of "crazy old man" is patently absurd. Meb came in 4th in the most recent Olympics. Nobody out there could possibly have been stupid enough to think that he was not a credible threat to sustain his strong (but even and sane) pace.

Sorry, but it just does not hold water.

I know that you always argue against conspiracy theories on these boards. And 99% of the time I agree with you (911, global warming, wall street, Jewish overlords...). But presumably you are not naive enough to think that no conspiracy ever exists. The one today seems almost patently obvious. The timing, the simplicity, the way the race played out that made absolutely no sense. Seriously question: What would it take for you to take the idea of a fix seriously rather than hiding behind the "You all wear tinfoil hats" defense?

Crying Man wrote:

Running at a sustained 2:08 pace in the first half of a major marathon will NEVER drop the pack. And this notion of "crazy old man" is patently absurd. Meb came in 4th in the most recent Olympics. Nobody out there could possibly have been stupid enough to think that he was not a credible threat to sustain his strong (but even and sane) pace.

Sorry, but it just does not hold water.

I know that you always argue against conspiracy theories on these boards. And 99% of the time I agree with you (911, global warming, wall street, Jewish overlords...). But presumably you are not naive enough to think that no conspiracy ever exists. The one today seems almost patently obvious.

You keep making all these conclusory assertions. If the conspiracy is as obvious as you claim, it should be very easy for you to show the pace Meb was running while he got separation and then compare it to the pace the pack was running. And then you can compare it to other instances when a couple of runners broke away from the pack.

You're the one with the special theory. Back it up, dude. If it's "patently obvious," the comparative data will surely be in your favor.

well thanks I think

it's not a matter of honesty - I didn't have Meb's splits in front of me - I'm actually sort of working here. maybe he did throw in a couple 4:40 miles - I dunno. But I didn't have the data so I just thought well what's the difference - two 4:40 miles or sustained perceived unrealistic pace?

what would it take for me to accep tthe idea of a fix? A confession with some evidence.

how did the race make no sense? Boston is usually won in 2:09ish by an absolutely top kenyan or ethopian. So a 39 year old with a slow PR and an unknown american get sepearation at 2:08 pace or thereabouts. The pack if full of watchers that early - they all want to negative split because everyone knows that's how you win boston. And Kenyans and ethiopians win every boston.

so they sit. And sit.

And meb got away, ran a PR and an very fast time.

How doesn't that make sense to you? Your better option is a wild conspiracy? really?

Fixed your subject line for you.

Sorry but the women's race was only fast because Shalane made that pace. She would not allow anyone else to run in front and forced a fast pace. That's what made the women's race fast. Maybe you weren't watching. Boston has been won in 2:10 and 2:08 recently so when a 39 year old who hasn't had any good races of note broke away from the pack, no one took him seriously and why should they? Ok great he was fourth in the last olympics. That was in 2012. Meb ran a 2:11HE WAS THREE MINUTES BEHIND THE WINNER AND TWO MINUTES BEHIND THIRD PLACE. HE WAS 10 SECONDS AHEAD OF KENTARO NAKAMOTO OF JAPAN. Does that mean that everyone who races against Nakamoto fears him? Please tell me, do you think the pack would have taken a move by Dennis Kimetto a bit more seriously? I would say so. I was unaware that you were judged by how you raced two years ago and not on your recent races. What you're saying does not hold water. Ok, nike has the USATF in their pocket but when it's time for a conspiracy to go down, two foreigners one of whom is a no name and one of whom is sponsored my Sketchers are the chosen ones to carry out the conspiracy.

so who has meb's splits? did he surge to get separation?

No, not a "wild conspiracy". Rather a simple conspiracy. With an obvious motive (a LOT of money is going to be made off of this - not by Meb, but by some very large corporations), a simple method (pay off a small number of poor people who do not speak English very well and are completely dependent on access to future major marathons), and pretty clear evidence for anyone who has watched these sort of marathons for years (the pack dropped with absolutely no surge and no crazy pace - doesn't happen).

Now let us talk about "wild".

1) It is wild to suggest that nobody (among the African elites) would take Meb seriously. He came in 4th in the Olympics just 2 years ago for crying out loud. How much more cred does he need?

2) There were no surges. None. Nothing that could even be remotely interpreted as such.

3) 2:08 pace for the first half of the marathon has all of these elites scared to keep up? You almost have to be joking when suggesting something like that. Has them thinking that this is a crazy pace by a crazy old man? Again, you would have to be crazy to think something like that.

But, at the end of the day, if it is going to take a confession for you to smell a rat then the only thing that I can think of to tell you is this. These has never in the history of the world been a conspiracy or fix about anything and there never will be.

trackcoach wrote:

the skeptic wrote:

Too obvious.

There is a lot prestige and money at stake in winning; you would have to have deep pockets to fix a MM. What I saw Meb do today was no difference than what I have seen many times in Marathons. Meb got his separation in a 1-2 mile surge which would have put him on a 2:05 pace and everyone assumed he would blow up. The beauty of Boston is that if you get far enough ahead, the chase pack can't see you and they kind of let Meb and of course he never blew up. - That's basically it.

Btw, to fix a MM you would have to pay off several guys and what's the chance that one would ever mention it. Who would take that risk?

Thanks for distilling the whole thread into some bedrock sense. POD.

KudzuRunner wrote:

trackcoach wrote:

There is a lot prestige and money at stake in winning; you would have to have deep pockets to fix a MM. What I saw Meb do today was no difference than what I have seen many times in Marathons. Meb got his separation in a 1-2 mile surge which would have put him on a 2:05 pace and everyone assumed he would blow up. The beauty of Boston is that if you get far enough ahead, the chase pack can't see you and they kind of let Meb and of course he never blew up. - That's basically it.

Btw, to fix a MM you would have to pay off several guys and what's the chance that one would ever mention it. Who would take that risk?

Thanks for distilling the whole thread into some bedrock sense. POD.

Well, yeah, except that the guys you would have to pay off are all from a different country, don't speak English very well, have no credibility or bullhorn in American, are all poor and desperately dependent on running to make a living, and could very easily be black-listed from ever competing again if they spilled the beans...

And that's not even mentioning the fact that they would be met with the tidal wave of "STFU, there is no such thing as a conspiracy" that is so transparently in evidence here and elsewhere.

No risk whatsoever. None.

Boston is not above a little graft here and there. Support could possibly have been made available to facilitate a fairy tale result in this year's race if it looked do-able. However the only kind of fairy tale that would even tempt the powers that be would far more likely involve a Boston native of Irish heritage (blonde/blue?...even better) than someone that Nike apparently feels is unmarketable. I doubt that Sketchers has the $ to sweeten any bribes.

I'm not above a conspiracy theory but in this case it doesn't add up.

Meb has paid dearly in the past because people (sponsors, race directors...even the BAA?) tend to under-rate him. Today he took full advantage of this tendency and was able to gap the field early. He took full advantage of the only strategic advantage he had. He won this thing fair and square imo.

Shalane had an impressive effort today but instead of sneaking away from the field, she dragged it to a course record. In as much as I would have been happy to see her win today, maybe it's better she races somewhere else where a win would be far less likely to be tainted by cries of conspiracy.

From

:

Not much of a surge visible here, unless there was a big hill to climb when it happened.

Also puzzling how Wilson Chebet went from a 1:21 gap to just 8 seconds and conveniently ran out of gas with two kilometres to go with Meb Keflezighi in sight (also from the Letsrun report). Had this been the only funny thing in this race, that would not raise an eyebrow, but the accumulation of all these incredible events just on the right day are striking.

It is funny to see how some people cannot cope with uncertainty and absolutely convince themselves of something they are comfortable with. (And this is not directed at you particularly, I appreciate how you grasp the concept of having an honest discussion. Unfortunately not everyone here does.)

Well, there is always this wrote:

KudzuRunner wrote:

Thanks for distilling the whole thread into some bedrock sense. POD.

Well, yeah, except that the guys you would have to pay off are all from a different country, don't speak English very well, have no credibility or bullhorn in American, are all poor and desperately dependent on running to make a living, and could very easily be black-listed from ever competing again if they spilled the beans...

And that's not even mentioning the fact that they would be met with the tidal wave of "STFU, there is no such thing as a conspiracy" that is so transparently in evidence here and elsewhere.

No risk whatsoever. None.

Every one of these guys that are from different countries, don't speak English very well, have no credibility in America all have friends and training partners and agents. We're talking at least 15 runners had to be paid off. Multiply that by whose around them and thats at least 60 people that would have knowledge of it and that doesn't include the planners....how many of them are there? No way, no how does a fix go down and not one person saying something.

Meb's first half was faster than the leaders in either of the last two years.

2012 - 1:06:11

2013 - 1:04:54

Meb 2014 - 1:04:21

chase 2014 - 1:04:51

doesn't seem that far off from the last couple of years. A lot of people are looking at the two outliers in 2010 and 2011 to draw conclusions