Malcolm Gladwell Podcast is here: Hot takes on super shoes, Nike, Alberto, Galen, covid doping and more

He admitted to posting on here once. That means he's a regular poster right?

Hi Malcolm. Love your books.

I agree with basically all his takes. Current performances - is it shoes, PEDs, or talent?

Agree that the NOP model of athletes being cloistered away with no media exposure is not the way to grow the sport. Great, we see Rupp once a year when he runs a marathon. How does that help garner interest?

Also agree with retroactive bans. It annoys me both in track and cycling, when people claim "oh I only was doping this one year!" No, you don't get the benefit of the doubt. You get stripped of results.

RunnerOneTime wrote:

I agree with basically all his takes. Current performances - is it shoes, PEDs, or talent?

Agree that the NOP model of athletes being cloistered away with no media exposure is not the way to grow the sport. Great, we see Rupp once a year when he runs a marathon. How does that help garner interest?

Also agree with retroactive bans. It annoys me both in track and cycling, when people claim "oh I only was doping this one year!" No, you don't get the benefit of the doubt. You get stripped of results.

Why would you admit that you agree with M. Gladwell?

Are you also in your late 50s, no kids, no wife and no girlfriend?

"You lose EVERYTHING. We have to assume you were doping your whole career. "

Retroactively convict a person of earlier crimes based on being guilty of a different crime later on ?

That'll be 500 speeding tickets for you at $200 apiece. We have to assume you were speeding every time you drove on this road.

Yikes. Gladwell is considered to be an enlightened thinker. He sounds like a dangerous crank.

DanM wrote:

"You lose EVERYTHING. We have to assume you were doping your whole career. "

Retroactively convict a person of earlier crimes based on being guilty of a different crime later on ?

That'll be 500 speeding tickets for you at $200 apiece. We have to assume you were speeding every time you drove on this road.

Yikes. Gladwell is considered to be an enlightened thinker. He sounds like a dangerous crank.

Well it would deter speeding. Maybe Gladwell is so sick of doping that deterrence is his main interest here.

XXXX wrote:

Well it would deter speeding. Maybe Gladwell is so sick of doping that deterrence is his main interest here.

I think this would be an interesting topic for Gladwell to study. We know that harsher punishments don't always deter crime. What about in this case?

First, if there's no incentive to come clean, then probably nobody will. This might hurt confidence in anti-doping efforts.

Second, maybe there's some merit to the idea of keeping around known dopers. If athlete X serves a doping ban and comes back and runs similar times, you can be more confident than average that they're probably doping again. This can allow you to test them more rigorously and maybe try to improve your anti-doping measures. Although this one individual is causing problems and preventing people from receiving accolades, it could have a net benefit.

I'm not sure if I believe that second point myself, just throwing it out there as devil's advocate. I guess I'd need to know more about how testing works.

XXXX wrote:

Well it would deter speeding. Maybe Gladwell is so sick of doping that deterrence is his main interest here.

Lol, what?

No one sick of doping would go ahead and speak proudly in defense of banned drug cheat coach Salazar.

Drug cheats out!

casual obsever wrote:

XXXX wrote:

Well it would deter speeding. Maybe Gladwell is so sick of doping that deterrence is his main interest here.

Lol, what?

No one sick of doping would go ahead and speak proudly in defense of banned drug cheat coach Salazar.

Drug cheats out!

Except you are missing the point that Gladwell has a fundamental disagreement with you regarding whether Alberto has done what he is alleged to have done. I do not agree with Gladwell regarding Alberto but that does not necessarily mean Gladwell is being inconsistent. It does mean he is likely incorrect in his assessment of Alberto, however.

Who?

DanM wrote:

"You lose EVERYTHING. We have to assume you were doping your whole career. "

Retroactively convict a person of earlier crimes based on being guilty of a different crime later on ?

That'll be 500 speeding tickets for you at $200 apiece. We have to assume you were speeding every time you drove on this road.

Yikes. Gladwell is considered to be an enlightened thinker. He sounds like a dangerous crank.

0/10

Silly analogy.

You wouldn't be convicting a person of earlier crimes, you'd be accepting that the conditional trust that was placed on him being clean earlier was unwarranted. A better analogy would be having your driving licence taken away, or your insurance invalidated, or something like Harvey Weinstein being removed from the actor's guild. Your status as an Olympic champion should be removed. If Asbel Kiprop were to have his Gold taken away, he wouldn' t be being retroactively punished, he'd be having his status removed. Kiprop was revealed to be a doper. Only an idiot would trust his results earlier to have been clean. By similar logic you could say that it's unfair to suspend dopers, because it's like giving a speeding driver caught once a speeding ticket every day for the next 4 years.

Anyway I agree with Bad Wiggins on this.

You know they are not the same person. B. Wiggins years ago posted that he's 6'1". M. Gladwell is 5'9". M. Gladwell is a NY guy or east coast guy in another east coast location. B. Wiggins is in OR or WA.

Haha, yes I admit I never really understood why people thought they were the same.

I did suspect rekrunner might be him, but I guess the stance on dopers expressed in this podcast would rule that out.

This is some great content. Nice job Letsrun.

XXXX wrote:

Except you are missing the point that Gladwell has a fundamental disagreement with you regarding whether Alberto has done what he is alleged to have done. I do not agree with Gladwell regarding Alberto but that does not necessarily mean Gladwell is being inconsistent. It does mean he is likely incorrect in his assessment of Alberto, however.

Well maybe. I understood Gladwell's statement

"I’m not convinced that all of the bad things said about him are true.”

literally, not that he is challenging the well known facts about Salazar. For example, Gladwell could think that Salazar only used testo on his athletes, not EPO. Or that he only doped Galen, not Kara.

Regarding the facts:

1) Salazar was a drug cheat as athlete.

2) Salazar coached a drug cheat.

3) Salazar is now banned for three doping infractions as coach.

Just going with fact 1 alone, Gladwell should be in favor of Salazar getting DQed in Boston and New York etc. Same goes for fact 2.

Fact 3, well if Gladwell were consistent, Salazar should also lose his wins and titles as coach.

Would it be possible to do a podcast with Steve Cram?

:)

DanM wrote:

"You lose EVERYTHING. We have to assume you were doping your whole career. "

Retroactively convict a person of earlier crimes based on being guilty of a different crime later on ?

Yes, unimaginable. While Gladwell's "proposal" sounds nice at first glance, it is completely unrealistic. Such a rule would never survive its first challenge in court, CAS or otherwise.

casual obsever wrote:

DanM wrote:

"You lose EVERYTHING. We have to assume you were doping your whole career. "

Retroactively convict a person of earlier crimes based on being guilty of a different crime later on ?

Yes, unimaginable. While Gladwell's "proposal" sounds nice at first glance, it is completely unrealistic. Such a rule would never survive its first challenge in court, CAS or otherwise.

Why?

If Lance Armstrong - who never failed a single test - could have all his titles taken away, why can't the same thing happen in athletics?

Even if there is some legal issue preventing the stripping of historic dopers now, World Athletics could easily make athletes sign contracts that stated that failing a doping test in future will have their entire careers scrubbed.

What we have now is a kind of statute of limitations. I guess they don't want Olympic history constantly changing.

Coevett wrote:

If Lance Armstrong - who never failed a single test - could have all his titles taken away, why can't the same thing happen in athletics?

Because USADA considered it proven that he had doped during all his TdF wins.

Coevett wrote:

Even if there is some legal issue preventing the stripping of historic dopers now, World Athletics could easily make athletes sign contracts that stated that failing a doping test in future will have their entire careers scrubbed.

Not sure whether that would work, but I'd be in favor of that.