Come on man. I mean seriously. I have been a fan of track since I was a kid. Most people here are lifelong fans as well. We know the trends, we know the facts, we know the history. I have stopped "wanting" someone to be clean or someone to get caught a while ago. But one thing I have learned from following track is that if it smells fishy it usually is. And the US 2009 distance squad smelled pretty fishy. I know this sticks in the crawl with a lot of you (hello, you're a fan), but the reasoning used in defending our great honorable athletes are lame.
Here are a few listed in order of their frequency as used on Letsrun:
1. I met said athlete, and he/she is the hardest working athlete I have ever met and of outstanding morals.
-Yes, the holier than the though clause. This one only applies to white English speakers, and a few international heroes like El G and Wilson Kipketer.
2. We don't have a centralized system.
-a centralized system only means drug distribution will be more efficient and more medals will be won. Too bad for us. But do you mean the connection between Ritz's coach and Teg's coach is the same as the connection between Ritz's coach and say Wanjiru's coach? Their is actually no nationalistic pride or chance meetings between US coaches?
3. He/she had been injured the past few years.
-that goes for every athlete! We are just more familiar with our athletes because we are fans. Thus know more about their ups and downs. Do you think Ritz has had more injury than athletes from China or Morrocco? Everybody's pro career is a series of injuries. Ritz is not some dude with glass bones.
4. If you compare the rise of blank to the rise of blah blah(proven cheater), you will notice it is very different.
-again, it just has to do with having more knowledge of our athletes and the absence of knowledge of the enemy. It's just the skewing of information to defend our heroes.
Do I think the US distance crew was hiding something in 2009? Probably. We will probably never know because the US has has the resources and organization to keep it a secret. Many track fans new the Spaniards were up to something in the 90's and the only reason they got caught was as a side effect into pro cycling investigations. The russian women were up to something last year and the only reason they got caught was treason within the federation.
Usaully the more organized and funded western organizations go without any evidence surfacing until some expose by a former athlete twenty years later, such as the Finnish runners of the seventies and our very own 1984 Olympic cycling team. And yes, most of them were white, spoke English, heck, there were probably a few deeply religious folks in there.