I think an open, free-speech forum such as Letsrun is vital to discussion and debate. We need it.
When you see people sharing things like this six weeks ago, such as I did here, and then being crucified for saying it in the first place, it calls a lot of the conversation on these message boards into question - and calls a lot of people’s motives in crucifying Shelby and jumping to the same hasty conclusions as CAS/AIU into question as well.
If AIU believed in a fair and honest sport, they would have taken the defense’s arguments more seriously. Some of the most prominent food scientists in the country came to Shelby’s defense and CAS refused to hear any of it. These are flaws in the AIU/CAS system that merit discussion.
When David Epstein, a journalist who has been committed to investigatory journalism and catching cheaters, thinks that Shelby didn’t cheat, this merits discussion as well.
Letsrun, and it’s message boards, can be an advocate for changing the sport so that clean athletes are banned - in the same way that they advocated for Salazar being banned from the sport for legitimate rule breaking. Why do we continue to crucify the innocent? Why can we not believe that Shelby may not have cheated? What is it in us that keeps us from even having the imagination that she may not have cheated?
These boards were made to help runners, not to harm them, yet they often function in a way that causes more harm than discussion and debate. They should absolutely exist, but the way that people have crucified Shelby on these boards, without any context for her story has opened my eyes to the hypocrisy of Letsrun posters. Why do we want to believe that people doped? Why are we fixated on believing this?