Why Was A Man With A 10-Year Doping Ban Enjoying The 2012 US Olympic Track & Field Trials From The Nike Sky Box?

You clearly missed the posts about her announcing on twitter that she is out for dinner with Mark Block.

What is the current extent of Mr. Block's involvement in the sport? Remember he is supposed to be in the midst of a 10-year ban. What are the conditions of the ban? Anybody have an answer to this question?

We all know what the word "ban" means. Why do you guys think Nike should come out and say its wrong to have drug cheats in or around the sport? They don't care if you cheat or not nor should they. It's their job to sell shoes. The USAtf should get the blame for this once again

Brojos, Overall, I am in support of your reporting on this issue.

Someone needs to do it, and LRC were not the only reporters there nor the only ones who know who Block is and what he looks like.

Some ideas for how the sport could evolve.1. No more false starts bringing racers back. If you false start the race continues but you are disqualified....that way we can get instant replay to see who false started...also we would know a false starter happened while the race was going on....more drama at the finish line. Instant replay has turned into a HUGE win for the nfl on their tv ince there is more drama on calls getting reversed.2. More use of cameras lasers technology on the field events. Why on earth do we have some human sitting in a chair judging long jump fouls. At least the timing is electronic. The HJ could have bar cams showing exactly how the jumpers hitthe bar. Why not put GoPros on rabbits or even plant a decent runner in the pack to show what that looks like in the middle distance events. Create more vantage points, draw in the fans to the drama of the race. See the jostling, how close everyone is....3. Couldn't we organize the Olympic schedule to have the normal doubles separated by a week, but have just two days with nothing but finals...ie 100, 800, LJ, 10000 one Saturday and 200, TJ, 1500, 5000 the next Saturday. All the trial and semi heats could be run on the weekdays for the track nerds like me that gets into that stuff, but the national tv product was just nonstop folks making the Olympic team.4. Take some of the lesser known events and create their own venue...the hammer in Portland was actually really cool and had its own vibe. Why not take the race walk, etc and create more of a cult event....instead it felt peripheral and there is still a cultural rift with the runners. 5. Require every qualifying athlete to tape a 30 second tv "package" telling their story, what they had to sacrifice, but has been the biggest challenge, etc that they are overcoming to be at that championships...so as you get folks to the finals the tv producers can create the moment not just for the obvioius stars but hear the stories in the pack as well. 6. If I were a shoe company, I would also rate and pay folks by their twitter following and engagement. The more you build audiences and tell your story throughout the year the more you get a fan base...that way you get to the big media event like the trials and there are x thousand folks who know your story...ie overcame injury, had a baby, great champion near end of career, up and comer setting pr after pr, high school phenom, etc. all these audiences add up....LoLo only one who really invests time in it. 7. For the sponsors...if you are sponsoring an athlete and they are caught on a drug that requires a four year ban, you are fined $1mm dollars that goes to the sport for athlete development, or you are banned from any athlete wearing your jersey for one championships. Make your own choice.8. Create events that bring in pro athletes from other sports. I want to see Reggie bush LJ, or some WNBA girls LJ or TJ. One or two showcase events done right....they has been really cheesy in the past. More people watch the NFL combine than the US Track Championships. Have the track athletes go to the combine! I want to see Christian Cantwrll test against NFL linemen. 9. If you are injured and unable to train, have a central place where track fans can see that on the usatf site. We don't get the context of folks who have missed a ton of training, or those who have had healthy years....also we could track through the yr on athletes we are following. These are the types of things that NFL demands of the players and teams....USATF could mandate as well to be eligible for championships and prize money. I think this would draw people in to follow athletes stories and understand more what wa happening on the track...for those of us that followed Lauren fleshman through her blog, grabbing a spot in the final and gutting it out was as exciting and dramatic as the three who made the team. Anyways, these are just a few ideas....probably some are bad ideas but none of the above really cost that much money to implement.quote]qwhelgm wrote:

Oldsub4 wrote:

Whoever posted that the structure of the sport and reliance on political bodies is what stifles the sport most is dead right. In all other sports they constantly change the rules of the game to make it more exciting -- the nba used to have no shot clock, zone defense, and dunking was illegal. Track hasn't evolved.

Interesting. How would you propose the sport evolve? I kind of like, "Run x distance faster than the people to your left and right."[/quote]

No, the problem is not that they called Jeter out (if two relatively softball questions can even be characterized as "calling out") it's that no matter how cynical I, the average track fan becomes, I can never keep up with the cynicism of the powers that be in the sport.

Nike lets a guy with a 10 year drug ban hang out in their VIP box with their VIP athletes and guests. Whether that is a violation of the vaguely worded ban or not -- it looks bad. It's bad for sport, period. Athletes don't cheat in a vacuum, they are surrounded by a largely unknown (to the average fan) and unaccountable crowd of enablers and suppliers and paymasters. Block was one of those guys who got caught and sanctioned, but has apparently continued on in the sport without missing a beat.

What's the point of the USADA if it's so toothless? What's the point of sanctions that the corporate interests in the sport can ignore with impunity?

keep in mind, Mark Block and Chris Layne were observed consistently in the same car, with Total Sports Athletes throughout the weekend....and even hanging around the lobby of the hotel. Its a ban on paper really for the most part. Block has been around the sport ever since the ban. Its a farce really. Its not just a "Nike" issue, its more of an enforcement, IAAF, USADA, etc issue. Don't beat up on Nike----there's a lot more folks to point fingers at as to why he is still around as much as he is.

Two quick thoughts on oldsub4s list.

1) If you don't call a false start back then the actual winner of a race may not be the person who comes across first. Sorry, this is a terrible idea.

9) NFL requires an injury report because of gambling. that is the only reason. My injuries are my business and no one else's. This is another terrible idea and incredibly draconian.

Some of us like the sport and don't need to see Reggie Bush moonlighting. If you are not a fan of the sport, that's a shame, there's a lot to it. If you make significant changes you won't bring new people over but you will drive the loyal ones out. Track won't miss "oldsub4" as he obviously doesn't appreciate the sport for what it is. It will miss the people who walk away if you turn it into a carnival. There is a difference between evolving and devolving. Almost every aspect on that list is devolution.

FYI- THIS IS NOT FROM ME!!!!!

There are many people in the US with the same last night - but not many posters. Once again this is not me.

David Katz

1. There are plenty of races where the person coming across first is dq'd....distance races where someone fouls another runner, relays where they step out of bounds, Wallace spearmon in the 2008 Olympics. My point was to let them run the race but have the ability to determine Dqs within minutes like nfl.

2. Injury reports....again, it never is really a secret...there is no competitive advantage to it....but if the fanbase had some clarity on this and a central repository to track it I believe the competition would be more interesting since you would understand what shape folks were in.

Again, I love track. I just spent 9 days at the trials including the hammer event in portland. But I see how hard it is for the athletes to develope without enough money and if there were more revenues we could see more Americans at the top of the world scene in their events, not just the 100m. I am a track nerd and they will get my ticket revenue...just trying to draw in another 3-5mm fans to make the sport continue to flourish....

The argument about it turning into a carnival is literally verbatim what Ollan Cassell said to Pre and Shorter when they wanted to put on exhibition meets or collect their own appearance fees and he threatened to ban them from the sport.

quote]Cash Baby! wrote:

Two quick thoughts on oldsub4s list.

1) If you don't call a false start back then the actual winner of a race may not be the person who comes across first. Sorry, this is a terrible idea.

9) NFL requires an injury report because of gambling. that is the only reason. My injuries are my business and no one else's. This is another terrible idea and incredibly draconian.

Some of us like the sport and don't need to see Reggie Bush moonlighting. If you are not a fan of the sport, that's a shame, there's a lot to it. If you make significant changes you won't bring new people over but you will drive the loyal ones out. Track won't miss "oldsub4" as he obviously doesn't appreciate the sport for what it is. It will miss the people who walk away if you turn it into a carnival. There is a difference between evolving and devolving. Almost every aspect on that list is devolution.[/quote]

Katz wrote:

Good job rojo,

I've always appreciated LR's zero tolerance for cheaters.

Strangely even you admit their was a price at which you were willing to look the other way on this story.

Agree that this is good work by Rojo and an important story to tell and to continue to probe.

Weldon's comment about having a price struck me as a funny piece of information to include, too. I can only imagine that it was the product of a light-hearted conversation about how Nike might want to buy their silence -- and not rooted at all in reality.

If they hoped to be bribed or even seriously decided that they would succumb to a large enough bribe, that would be a sad admission indeed. Perhaps we all do have a price, but if the Johnsons would really sell their integrity for five million dollars, it's awfully hard to take them seriously when they express outrage about Justin Gatlin or (perhaps) Carmelita Jeter doing essentially the same thing.

Juris Luzens Prudence wrote:

A Duck - you have completely missed the point and your response is an inarticulate jumble of words. If you are a U of O grad, you must have opted out of any classes devoted to composition. BTW, everyone is impressed that you went right to Alberto. Did you share a DMSO cocktail?

You don't know what DMSO is, do you? It's an anti-inflammatory. That's like saying, "Did you enjoy an Advil cocktail together?" I get what your point is, but at least type in a substance that is bad/banned like EPO, steroids, etc.

In regards to things more important to this thread, there are a lot of things that are wrong with our sport. Why does it seem there are so many people who are willing to simply bury their heads in the sand? Is this sport ever going to be completely clean? No. Does that mean we shouldn't strive for that? Of course not.

No matter how much different companies fund our sport, that shouldn't stop us from making this the best sport it can be. If that means pissing off those that currently make this all happen, maybe that's just the kind of shake-up we need. It wouldn't be easy to "start from scratch," but maybe that's not as big of a problem as we are all afraid it might be.

Someone brought up an interesting point earlier about the athletes being able to use drugs. Body builders have "drug" and "clean" competitions. However, without knowing for sure, I'd guess that the "clean" competitions have some that aren't oh-so-clean as well. But it's something to contemplate. I don't think we can get there with our sport because it's too big of a sport in terms of numbers, but it's still an interesting idea to contemplate.

While I am absolutely anti-drug, it still is interesting to learn and see what the body can do with additional help. It's just that it would also be nice to know what the body can do WITHOUT the additional help - and to know the difference between the two.

Finally, thanks to Wejo and Rojo for having the guts to put this information out there. I honestly don't know exactly what it all means in terms of what's legal for Block to be doing and what isn't, but things sure look fishy. When you're talking about money, Olympic fame and fortune, etc., if something looks fishy, it most likely looks that way for good reason.

Well, until we find out what the conditions of the mother trucker's 10-year ban is, this discussion is pointless.

Very nice reporting job! Really proves the value to have a person "on the ground" where stories are likely to happen. Keep up the good work!

Big Bob wrote:

Well, until we find out what the conditions of the mother trucker's 10-year ban is, this discussion is pointless.

Not true at all.

The goal is not to figure out whether he violated some clause in his ban or not. The goal is to figure out why Nike condones his presence, how closely he is still working with these athletes, and why a ban would allow this kind of involvement in the sport.

perhaps to figure out why jeter is running such pedestrian times. from running in the 10.8s and 10.70s she's now running what? 10.9s. dosage obviously needs to be tweaked. she should speak to fraser

Nike are clearly just going to ignore this.

It's a bloody disgrace.

We do Nike is an amoral unethical company, don't we? I mean, you can say that here, can't you?

Yes we do.