Gabby Thomas TikTok storytime (explains her Whereabouts saga)

She also says that every year she has been requesting that they just allow athletes to perma-share their location instead.

When you’re protected “for the good of the sport” it doesn’t matter if you’re tested or not, you always get away with it. She a clueless, tone-deaf, grinning cheat.

Ok loser - come back when you have your gold 🤡

Why you gotta be that way Gabby? 😝

Even in just that thumbnail, that's a pure sh!t-eating grin.

I would like to see her get off the tik tok, Instagram, the camera ( yes I know she has made a boat load of money ) and just get back to trying like she did before she blew up to the media world. She got served at USA trials and was EXTREMELY lucky to be running in Tokyo.

I just listened to her TikTok video and her accounts of what happened actually make it sound so much worse than I ever even imagined. I mean SO. MUCH. WORSE. Holy effing shiz.

I don't even know where to begin. But I'll try:

1) She didn't take quick action to enter the testing pool because she thought the initial email was a scam. I'm sorry... what? Who the ef has time to sit around and scam Harvard track athletes with fake emails with anti-doping protocols?

2) The 1st missed test: Something along the lines of "I went to the movies, meanwhile tester came to my dorm. She called me to let me know she was there, so I told her that I would leave the movies to come back to the dorm, but by the time I got there, she was gone. The tester said something like she can't wait longer than 10 minutes. But the rule says they have to wait for one hour. But I didn't think any of the missed test because I didn't know any better."

Ummm... what? How does the tester not know the rules of her own testing? She has ONE job. And woah woah woah, how much time elapsed between the time she got to your dorm, called you, confirmed with you that you were coming back, to you actually showing back up at the dorm? Gabby's version of the story sounds really shaky here and leaves a lot of room for gray area.

3) The 2nd missed test: something along the lines of "She showed back up at my dorm, but I was a Thai restaurant with my friends. She didn't call me, instead, she took a screenshot of my IG story of me at the restaurant as proof that I wasn't there and flagged me for another missed test. But again I didn't think anything of it because I didn't know how serious it was."

Okay, what is really going on here? Either this is the most incompetent tester in the world, or this tester just has some sick agenda to unfairly sabotage Gabby for some unknown reason. What would be her motive here? Why would she screenshot your IG story and use that as proof that you weren't where you were supposed to be? Wait, could it be that she screen-shotted it because you actually weren't where you were supposed to be? Because that would make sense.

4) The 3rd missed test: something along the lines of "I was at my BF's dorm at Yale and the tester came and waited outside and couldn't come up to find me, so I missed another test, but again I didn't think it was a big deal."

This is three times that a Harvard educated neuroscience major has played the "I didn't know any better" card. Come on, you've gotta pick one or the other. You can't be both a Harvard educated genius and a complete dunce who has zero concept of the consequences of missing multiple anti-doping tests, even after being given multiple warnings. Day one, page one, paragraph one of every one her Harvard textbooks is more complicated than understanding how anti-doping works.

I'm at a loss for words.

Wait, did she go to Harvard?

Regardless of whether 2) sounds shaky, if the fact that it was cleared is true then I would err towards believing that AIU agreed the tester didn’t follow protocol.

3) is a common tactic by the testers. They did this with Nick Ponzio when he was competing at a shot put meet and had the wrong location filed (but easily could’ve just been tested at the meet) and the same with Randolph Ross while he was at NCAAs. It’s called a filing failure - and I personally think in those cases they should just test them if they know where they are since they’re clearly not hiding but I don’t deny they should’ve just filed the right location.

Going to Harvard doesn’t make you more likely to internalise the gravitas behind the whereabouts system. Gabby kinda came out of nowhere and at this point was kinda one foot in track and one foot into a medical career. If she never actually followed the sport or had any pro friends it’s also not hard to believe she didn’t really know how serious it was, given you don’t really hear of this stuff as a casual, or in the more popular sports. I think as someone on LetsRun it might be hard to think from that perspective and empathise, but that doesn’t change the reality. If she’s not missed a test since then and it wasn’t until 2 years after this that she became relevant anyway, then I don’t have a reason to doubt her and I don’t buy the argument that she was doping throughout 2019 which allowed her to be good in 2021.

So LR claims Gabby was doping and her Whereabouts “violation” (she never has a violation, btw) is proof of that but from her TikTok, it sounds like all the missed tests occurred when she was a senior at Harvard? So at least two full years before Olympic Trials

Also, if she hasn’t a missed test since 2019, how does that explain her going a PB into a headwind in 2023? Seems like LR is once again focused on accusing the wrong person

4x1 camp is gonna be awkward!!

though honestly, she probably shouldn't even have a spot at this point. not top 20 in the usa. and then there's SCR who isn't top 25 right now!

will be interesting to see what they do there

They can’t fathom that not everyone in the testing pool is trying to become a professional track athlete, and that Harvard T&F was simply not a historic track program, despite really good coaching

Anyways she basically said missed test #1 was tossed out immediately (as the tester clearly violated protocol by not waiting the entire window), and she didn’t bother fighting the rest bc it would have been pointless (no violation occurred anyway), and it would cost $$$

I think #2 and #3 would have been harder to toss out but good she’s learned her lesson and has not missed a test since then!

Dennis has way too much pull so I assume the relay will be all star athletics or Melissa, TeeTee, Kayla and Aleia Hobbs (if Sha'Carri isn't healthy enough).

The location your phone reports can be faked so this is never gonna happen.

Surely this makes things better actually? If the tester pulls up to that exact location, doesn't see you, then gives you a courtesy X minute warning and you can't be there - that sounds like foolproof evidence for an evasion/tampering charge. Skips all the 3 strikes bs

just make huge penalties for this.

Correct - all her missed tests occurred in her senior year.

She made a lot of rookie mistakes when she first went pro. She shared financial details of her pro contract in a local newspaper (the financial info was later retracted - see LRC thread about it here: https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9050144). She also went on a Twitter rant against various things at Harvard (professors not being understanding of athletes her caliber, sucky training facility options and housing over the summer, teammates not taking training seriously beyond conference meet), but that was taken down a few hours later. And this testing fiasco. She's either got good mentors or grown up a lot since then.

Here's my take on this:

2) With regards to the first missed test, Thomas obviously shouldn't have been at the movies during her one-hour window. If the tester had not called her and had just waited the full hour, this would have been on Thomas. But after the DCO calls her, the DCO can't just leave before Thomas's hour is up. The AIU was correct to withdraw this one.

And if you're wondering about the timeline, Thomas provided an Uber receipt showing that she was back to her dorm before the window expired. This was the new evidence she provided to the AIU while appealing her case and it's ultimately what got her cleared.

3) It's not uncommon for the AIU to stop calling athletes if they think that athlete is trying to dodge a test. Recall in the Christian Coleman situation, he went Christmas shopping during his window because he claimed that testers would usually call him if he wasn't at home. The problem is, they're not required to call you. So if they're suspicious about you -- and I guess the AIU was suspicious after Thomas's first missed test -- they are not going to be as lenient.

My opinion is that testers should call an athlete if they cannot locate them during their window because I would rather get the test done. Others say that even a small heads up like that -- the testers call you at 10:10 a.m. and the athlete shows up for the test at 10:50 a.m. -- is enough to help the athlete cover up doping. Either way, the current rule doesn't require the AIU to call you, which is why it's super important to be there during your entire one-hour window.

4) It's interesting to me that Thomas admitted in this video that the last missed test was "probably her fault lol." Because I interviewed her about the missed tests back in 2020 and she didn't seem to feel that way at the time. She told me she was staying with her boyfriend at Yale and described the location as a "house" (as opposed to a dorm, which is the word she used in her most recent TikTok). In 2020, she told me she thought it was strange that no one could hear the DCO:

"It's strange because there are so many people in the house, a lot of people are awake, and nobody heard him. Which is unusual, because we don't normally have that problem."

Whereas in the TikTok video, she said it was a dorm where the DCO would have to be let in and it made sense why she couldn't hear him knocking.

"Obviously, I can't hear him, nobody can hear him," Thomas said.

If you want the full details on Thomas's case, I wrote about it in the article below from 2020 when a lot of stars were getting wherabouts failures. She said that once the first missed test was withdrawn, she began recording herself during her one-hour window every day while she was still sitting on two missed tests because she was paranoid about missing a third.

I think Thomas was careless with her whereabouts in 2019, which I'm sure she would admit. But as I said above, I think the AIU was correct to withdraw the whereabouts charge on Thomas given the DCO left early during her first missed test.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/10/2020-has-been-the-year-of-whereabouts-failures-why/