Friendly, reminder, you are talking about a real person who very well may read this. I've written up that summarizes the key points that he said on the podcast.
What the New Zealand article fails to mention is that Zane appears to be suicidal. He talked about wanting to end his life 3 or 4 times on the podcast.
If anyone is suicidal, please dial or text 988 in the US. We have the international suicide numbers in the article.
The real q is. How and what did dfnz find that made them decide to target test him at the Manchester run. Clearly it wasn't any recent great performances. Were they tipped off?
If he really only used it once. Something doesn't add up. Also to say it helped his training a lot. Just from one dose? Hmm.
Yes I know the easy answer is that "he was lying." To which I'm inclined to agree. But I'd love to know how they got suspicious.
How did they get the EPO in Ethiopia? Is there a farmer's market or something where they sell it? Seriously, where are all the EPO doses coming from? If we want to clean up the sport, we need to expose the sources of the drugs.
this is a very good point! All these dopers who have come clean over the years never seems to give this info. Are they not ask? Or do they not tell? This is real issue. Why are doping authorities and others not trying to find this out? Is it because they really don't want to know.
Message to all dopers who have come clean and want a clean sport: Tell what you know, tell the whole truth. Be part of the solution.
What I learned from this podcast is that I, like everyone else apparently, would also cheat if we were in the same circumstances. And I guess implicit in that statement is that we would all be in those same circumstances if we chose to run. Which didn't happen. Hmm.
But in any event, I guess we're all equally flawed people.
The real q is. How and what did dfnz find that made them decide to target test him at the Manchester run. Clearly it wasn't any recent great performances. Were they tipped off?
If he really only used it once. Something doesn't add up. Also to say it helped his training a lot. Just from one dose? Hmm.
Yes I know the easy answer is that "he was lying." To which I'm inclined to agree. But I'd love to know how they got suspicious.
I've been wondering that too. Is this a routine thing for them where they ask an event to check a specific athlete just because or do they do it when they're suspicious of a specific athlete. And did they also have his brother checked or just him and what was the reasoning in either event?
How did they get the EPO in Ethiopia? Is there a farmer's market or something where they sell it? Seriously, where are all the EPO doses coming from? If we want to clean up the sport, we need to expose the sources of the drugs.
this is a very good point! All these dopers who have come clean over the years never seems to give this info. Are they not ask? Or do they not tell? This is real issue. Why are doping authorities and others not trying to find this out? Is it because they really don't want to know.
Message to all dopers who have come clean and want a clean sport: Tell what you know, tell the whole truth. Be part of the solution.
I've never been to East Africa but people who have and looked into this say it's sold in pharmacies there. Closer to home, I believe both Liza Hunter-Galvin and Christian Hesch got it in Mexico, though I don't that both physically went there rather than order it over the internet. It doesn't seem like a big mystery.
He said his wife brought the EPO home to Ethiopia (she was busted 5 years ago, they are long separated). He also said due to 'extortion', 'intimidation' over the divorce that he spent time on his farm 'in the mountains in Kenya'.
Now EPO needs to be refrigerated. He held onto EPO for 5 years , carried it over an International border, carried it up to the bush in Kenya all the while keeping it refrigerated?
No. He got it in Kenya, or off a Kenyan. He clearly believes he can't say this (He lives in Kenya, it's dangerous) so he can either say he imported it online (in which case the cops might inquire) or blame his estranged wife and cite a cold trail. He is not telling the truth.
Empathy may need to be shown in this case as well. It all boils down to Money. Many illegal ways to obtain large sums of money now days. Some folks have better character than others that is for sure. Also remember folks that don't run have these same problems daily. He is treated special because he ran fast.
He had everything going for him. At any stage he could have returned to NZ and availed of their elite programs. I am quite sure he was availing of financials from them. He implies he couldn't beat anyone because of doping. But he was no 1. in his country and record holder in marathon. Why cheat? What about all the New Zealanders he conned including teh entire athletics structure and community?
This post was edited 23 seconds after it was posted.
This is what Shelby should be doing instead of peddling the ridiculous burrito story. Even Floyd came good in the end. I have way more sympathy for the dopers that admit it, especially if the testify against the teams and sport.
Agreed. I gained a lot of respect for Tyson Gay when he got popped and he just said "Yup. I did it. How can I cooperate and help?". My belief is that HUGE numbers of elite runners, sadly, are taking PEDs. So when somebody gets caught, I respect honesty and not excuses.
Alternatively, he's admitted to smuggling EPO into Kenya from Ethiopia. There's big jail time for this. The cops will pull him and he'll talk. Yet again, his lies will prove his undoing; only worse this time.
Salient points of the podcast with Zane Robertson: Despite spending 16 years in Kenya he has no real friends there aside from his brother-in-law‘s family. The Manchester 10 km doping scenario was a one off and he had never done that before that race. It was a question of desperation at the end of his career. The authorities still have his samples and the samples can be retested and so all his records will be judged by that and the world will see that all his records are clean. He has nothing to hide and all his samples can be re tested and the world will see that he is legit. He made one single mistake in his life and he has to live with that and the consequences. He has been disgraced by the New Zealand Olympic movement but the Olympic movement in New Zealand does not realize that in world athletics it is not a level playing field. People who don’t understand this situation are not elite sports people. He’s not looking for sympathy there are different angles to this. He’s been tested over 50 times before after and in between and he’s been targeted by drug free sport New Zealand so many times and he’s never had anything untoward happen. People should look at the global perspective that he’s a clean athlete except for that one mistake. He was tested in Manchester by the UK anti-doping agency. The Covid vaccine scenario was a far-fetched idea but Zane was just out try to cover “his posterior.” In the Manchester run despite having taken EPO, he felt terrible after 800 m and then he felt he had Covid and an ear infection which resulted that he was not able to run properly for six weeks after the Manchester run. There was a lot of pressure from his ex-wife from Ethiopia and one day she came and gave him EPO and then he held onto it for a long time and took it with him to Kenya and finally he reached a breaking point after Olympic Games in 2021. He succumbed to temptation in a little moment. Zane would like to dispel the myth that in Kenya and Ethiopia a foreigner can go into a pharmacy and buy EPO - in fact that is impossible and if a foreigner tried to go into pharmacy to buy EPO he would be thought of as a spy or someone with an agenda to trap the pharmacist and athletes. Pete Pfitzinger was very concerned about Zane Robertson once he found out and he was given all the care from New Zealand sports including psychiatric help which he never had before. He received free treatment. Zane stresses that athletes are human first and he shouldn’t be judged solely on his athletics Zane was recently in a car accident resulting in internal bleeding on the left side of his brain and he thought at the time that it might’ve been better had he succumbed in the accident. In September 2022 he knew that the story would blow up as it eventually did. It made him anxious and a lot of dark moments were passed by him. He was well supported by certain aspects of the sports authorities in New Zealand. Counseling offered after September 2021. Pfitzinger, the former American elite marathoner was the instigator to help Zane. Even though after the O.G. 2021, he considered retiring he continued because athletics was his entire identity and he invested his whole life in it. He thinks that he may have had a better life had he not made the decision to invest all his time in Kenya and just lived a “normal life.” Regrets. As a kid he was full of dreams and it took many years to make the dream come true. In recent years he really started to hate what he saw in professional athletics in Kenya. He knows he no longer loves the professional side of the sport in Kenya. He still loves running and will always run. He would not like to coach elite runners but he has an ambition to coach fun runners to achieve their best. He will always run. He’s not a criminal and his infraction should not be viewed as such and maybe he can’t race professionally but he can run and participate in sports as a fun runner. No one can stop him and he’s not a criminal he stresses. A lot of athletes of high-level are prone to anxiety. New Zealand is an extremely expensive country and he cannot afford to live there and he couldn’t even afford a plane ticket to go home there. He went through a lot of stress and depression after the O.G. He wished he had taken 2 to 4 years to study instead of solely functioning and focusing on athletics for the past 16 years. He wants to come back to the Gold Coast and win the marathon there. What are the next steps? He’s living day by day and he recently passed a course in sports nutrition and personal training and he would like to branch out into those activities. He only wants to coach fun runners - he doesn’t want to coach elites! He hasn’t forgiven himself yet and it will take a long time but he thinks he’ll eventually come to terms with what he did and he hopes time will be the great healer. He hopes everyone will forgive him for his mistake but unfortunately his mistake was seen by the entire world.
You forgot where he states that he got the EPO from his ex wife in Ethiopia, about 5 years ago, kept it refrigerated for 5 years after transporting it to Kenya.
His story means
a) The trail is cold
b) The blame is laid at the door of someone in some other country.
Look. This isn't going away. He needs to address it. He needs to tell the truth and do his bit now. Clearly he was getting his EPO in Kenya. I appreciate the mental health and self esteem issues, but they can only be addressed by standing up now and doing the right thing.
Apparently on his most recent podcast interview he is talking about coaching...really?
He said his wife brought the EPO home to Ethiopia (she was busted 5 years ago, they are long separated). He also said due to 'extortion', 'intimidation' over the divorce that he spent time on his farm 'in the mountains in Kenya'.
Now EPO needs to be refrigerated. He held onto EPO for 5 years , carried it over an International border, carried it up to the bush in Kenya all the while keeping it refrigerated?
No. He got it in Kenya, or off a Kenyan. He clearly believes he can't say this (He lives in Kenya, it's dangerous) so he can either say he imported it online (in which case the cops might inquire) or blame his estranged wife and cite a cold trail. He is not telling the truth.
That’s not his wife. That’s his ex girlfriend. Different people.
Recently, he, or his brother, I'm too lazy to double-check, offered his services as a coach. I would train with him. Not because he is necessarily a good coach or a good guy. I would be curious about his approach. I don't care about his "reputation".
He had everything going for him. At any stage he could have returned to NZ and availed of their elite programs. I am quite sure he was availing of financials from them. He implies he couldn't beat anyone because of doping. But he was no 1. in his country and record holder in marathon. Why cheat? What about all the New Zealanders he conned including teh entire athletics structure and community?
The logical answer is that he had to cheat to become no 1. in his country and record holder in marathon.