Solomon suddenly world class and Rupp soloing 3.50 indoor miles - Come on Letsun, ask the questions!

I absolutely agree with A Duck and believe that Rupp is clean. Obviously, since A Duck has defended his stance in such an articulate, reasonable, and subtle manner, he hardly needs me to chime in on his behalf. That said, there is one point I would like to bring up to those of you who claim that Rupp’s improvements are too good to be true. I can name at least one extremely well known and respected runner whose progression was similar to Rupp’s in certain respects, and yet who absolutely no one accuses of using PEDs: Quenton Cassidy.

How many years did Cassidy spend banging his head against the 4:00 barrier without quite being able to crack it? Almost his entire collegiate career. Then, as a senior, he finally buckled down, and with the help of a brilliant coach with slightly unorthodox training methods (60 quarters? Who does that?) and enough 100-plus mile weeks, what happens? He pops a 3:52 out of nowhere (just a tick slower than Rupp when you round his up to 3:51). A couple years later, he wins an Olympic silver medal.

Are these two cases exactly the same? Of course not, but there are enough similarities to prove one thing – Rupp’s progression is not unprecedented. These things do happen in real life. I didn’t even have to mention the way Cassidy took the 1980 marathon trials by storm years after his track days were over – a comeback that even the worst cynics never doubted.

I can’t help but feel bad for you Rupp critics as I watch you frolic about in the fantasy world you have created, pointing fingers at doped up hobbits and elves. A Duck and I are living in the real world, and I would like to invite you to join us. We’re waiting.

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gO aFKIka wrote:
But she has or is developing a very common jaw/chin line of a steroid/HGH user. Or maybe thyroid med user?

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Classless act P wrote:
Your insinuation that they (Solomon or whoever else) are doping to run the times they run is SLANDER.

Your entire post essentially amounts to SLANDER.

Your allegations about anything you "think" without definitive proof is SLANDER. Implying he isn't "clean" because of his improvement is SLANDER.

And it's PATHETIC.

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I will bow out of the thread now.

If anyone wants to write anything 'slanderous' or juvenile about me then feel free to call me gay (my girlfriend reassures me I am not so I can handle it).

Also, a hilarious pun on my name could be Fatrick White because I am pretty fat for a wannabe distance runner.

Track Coach;

Totally agree. I had the same response to Solomon's performance, "about time."

And the same with Rupp's, actually, thought for years he was capable of far more in the mile. My second thought was "wait, that's about what he ran at Oxy last year."

As to Wejo's nonsense about Jos Hermans. He was hot on Herman's tail in 97 or whatever when he thought translating some articles from a Spanish paper was going to show that Herman's was connected to a Spanish doping scandal.

For all we know, Hermans was commenting on Rupp, Farah, and Hydroworx. And it is not like Herman's had any reason to have sour grapes (loss of bonus money).

One would think, that Hermans, being an adult and VERY exposed to international sport, would have said "doping" if he meant "doping." He said "science." There is nothing wrong with legal sport science...

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TrackCoach wrote:

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A Duck wrote:

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TrackCoach wrote:

Solomon did not come from out of no where and have one great race, he kelp getting better as the season progressed and then ran the race of his life at the Olympics. I think everyone in that Olympics 800m PRed. Toss out the Olympics 800, which was just one of those magical races for everyone and I would say Nick Symmonds made about the same type of improvement in 2007. Solomon ran 1:49x in H.S. and 1:45x in the NCAA, why is it inconceivable that he would improve in just his 3rd season as a pro and with a coaching change. Like I said, toss out the Olympics and Solomon is basically a 1:43x guy, which is very good, but not off the charts. Solomon is not like a Taoufik Makhloufi who never placed in a major competition and then wins the Olympic gold medal.

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TC;

Exactly.

Great points, and this is precisely one of my points.
The information is out there.

Patrick White didn't take 20 SECONDS to think things through before making this thread.

--People like you have pointed out Solomon's talent for years. Others have pointed out his progression, like you, on this board, for YEARS. Before the Olympic Trials someone posted that Solomon had been running some hot workouts. Solomon has fans and friends out there that post information.

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A Duck,

To be fair, I am not saying Solomon's improvement is absolutely beyond questioning, I am just pointing out that his improvement is not so incredible that people should be accusing him of doping. Being called a doper in our sport is pretty close to being called a pedophile and should be reserved for athletes who have a lot fewer degrees of separation from doping suspicions than Solomon. An obviously talented athlete has to have the opportunity to improve and have a breakout season without being called a doper. In the case of Solomon, lots of people predicted years ago that he was going to be America's next great half miler, the bigger question for a lot of people was why wasn't he running 1:43. I think Solomon ran 1:45 at age 21, so when he finally ran 1:43, my first thought was...about time. There was nothing about his break-out that caused me to have a moment's thought that he was doping. Having run fast at a young age, being in the prime of your career, making a major improvement in an Olympic year, does not equal doping. And, in terms of his 600m AR, it’s really is not that big of a deal, anyone who is a low 46 400m runner and a 1:45 800m runner could have run that time, Solomon just happened to be great early season shape and went for it. Keep in mind that there are H.S. athletes who have run 1:17 in the 600m, who could not break 1:50 in the 800; the record was somewhat soft.

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Gamera wrote:

To anybody that wonders why people would question Rupp, Farah, and others who run fast times, consider this angle: I started running, and following track, in the mid-80's. The men's WRs at the time for 5000m and 10000m were 13:00.41 and 27:13 if I remember correctly. I expected that sooner or later somebody would break the 13-minute and 27-minute barriers. What I didn't expect was that within a few years, everybody and his brother would be doing it. In a short space of time, sub-13 became something that relatively anonymous runners were doing with regularity. In retrospect, it is clear that this surge in distance running performance coincided with the rise of EPO. This doesn't necessarily mean that "everybody was doing it", but you would have to be hopelessly naive to believe that some of the improvement wasn't due to EPO.

Gradually, drug testing seems to have gotten better, or so I am told. There is a test for EPO, although it is hardly foolproof. Drug testing comes down to the details - how often are athletes tested? etc. Anyway, times for the 5000/10000 have basically stalled at where they were in the late-90's. They definitely haven't gotten significantly worse. Basically, people are running about the same times in this supposedly "cleaner era" (the opposite of what has happened in cycling, by the way). So what gives? Did the PED's not help them in the first place? Maybe, but I don't believe that for a second. It's not like there weren't amazingly talented runners willing to train like madmen prior to 1993 or whenever.

Bottom line: when EPO came out, endurance running to markedly faster. Times are roughly the same now, so why wouldn't we at least question Rupp/Farah and the like, when they are a good bit faster than Said Auoita, Henry Rono, etc? The training is still the same - intervals, strength work, etc. The standard excuse "we train smarter" sounds like a pretty standard soundbite from dopers of the past: "I've learned to rest more" or "I've really been working on my nutrition and getting lots of rest" and so on to explain huge improvements. As if nobody had thought of those things before.

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wejo wrote:

And for something else I was looking at I ended up on Lauren Fleshman's website and found her comments that "A Duck" refers to acting like they were scandalous to letsrun.com:


Here is what Lauren said:
http://asklaurenfleshman.com/journal/2012/12/29/why-im-no-longer-with-nike/
"Loren’s (her co-worker) discovery came form Letsrun.com. It’s the most comprehensive running website with up-to-date news, and the Johnson brothers do a good job of representing both the female and male sides of the sport. The message boards, like all anonymous comment forums, are another story all together.
Stanford had a “no posting policy,” but I used to read the boards in college before I knew better, mostly for a laugh. At first it’s this amazing discovery: People are posting about my sport! They have strong opinions! People actually care! But the second you become “fast,” people start posting about you, with everything from opinions about your training, to a litany of reasons you should be dropped in the middle of the Sahara to die, to debating whether you are “hot,” “cute,” or “lucky to get laid by a zombie.”
At some point, every pro runner decides its best to stay off the boards completely. Six years on the wagon now and I’m not missing anything, I can assure you. That is, except for the gems Polster shared with us."


********

I'll take: "It’s the most comprehensive running website with up-to-date news, and the Johnson brothers do a good job of representing both the female and male sides of the sport."

that anyday.

Am I surprised that some pros stay away from the forums? Not at all. Am I offended? Not at all.

People are pretty shocked when athletes do engage directly on fan sites like Curt Schilling does. That is the exception rather than the rule.

Would I expect some Auburn football player to go read up on the Auburn fan forums? or Alabama forums? No.

But a lot more athletes at schools with the "no posting" policy do come to the forums, because they've told me directly.

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this is incorrect. Cram and Coe have 3.46 and 3.47...
Baumann has 12:54:70 ,faster than Rupp. Mottram has a pr
of 3:48.98 for the mile, 7:32, and 12.56 or so.
These are all in line with Rupp's PBs.

I don't know whether Rupp is clean, but I don't like the thyroid thingie.

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wejo wrote:

Well congrats to "A Duck" for posting 30 times on this thread since midnight.

This clearly for you is not about having a discussion but about all of us agreeing with your viewpoint. It's just not going to happen. Apparently we are all supposed to know magically the athletes it is ok to ask questions about and how many questions it is ok to ask.

You have not given any guidelines on how we are supposed to magically determine which discussions should or should not be allowed. Apparently limited Maklouhfi discussions are ok, but only in a limited manner.

On on top of that somehow we are supposed to determine the veracity of posts. You act like we're supposed to be able to determine whether a post is true or false. That is much easier said than done. We have said with doping threads we will have a more hands off approach. The pro athletes who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on the sport I think can handle it.

Now onto one point.

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A Duck wrote:

Wheldon,

One at a time: I dare you to answer 100% honestly.


>1. You allowed immature and hateful people to personally attack Rupp as "g_y" because of his first name. You let it go on for years. You both even posted on the same threads without deleting those kinds of personal attacks on the guy. You allowed it to happen when he was technically a child in high school. At that time you also let people accuse him of being on PEDS. You allowed a hate crime type culture of hate to foster here. You did nothing to stop it for years.


Why?
Why no Zero Tolerance towards hate crime level personal attacks on this kid for years?
Why?

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First of all, people making immature jokes about Galen Rupp's name is not a hate crime. Let's get a little perspective here.

I disagree with the poster who implied we should let such posts stay up. We try and have a certain level of discourse and homophobic posts are not something we want on here. I won't discuss this point too much but I see the posts as being more hurtful to gays than Galen Rupp. It's not the perfect analogy as sexuality is a very personal subject, but if I call you blonde and you have brown hair you're not going to be offended unless there is something wrong with having blonde air. I think the same thing applies to the "GAY"len Rupp posts.

I wish people had not made these posts. We removed them when we were made aware of them. We have over the years continued to implement better moderation techniques but have never pre-screened posts and don't intend to start.

So "we allowed" people to post whatever they wanted. That is how a message board works. Just like in any community online or real, there are trouble makers. And some of them posted the immature posts referenced. Since we don't pre-screen posts, people read them. When things worked well our moderators were made aware of them and they were deleted.

The Rupp posts continued in high volume even with our moderators deleting them and too many were falling through the cracks, so we decided to go one step further. Years ago we implemented a filter so the words "Gay" and "Rupp" could not be posted in the same post. If you wanted to post about Tyson Gay and Galen Rupp in the same thread it could not be done. This is the only athlete we have ever implemented such a filter for.

We removed this filter in the past year because someone wrote wondering why there post wasn't working and I realized it was because it was talking about Tyson Gay and Galen Rupp. Since then we have not had as many problems.

"A Duck" says I posted on these threads where these posts existed. I have no idea of knowing this but I don't pretend to read every post in a thread I post on so it is possible.

I believe most of the letsrun community does not want people making homophobic remarks about an athlete. I believe most people can also see that these are immature trouble makers. Just like when I'm reading an article on the Washington Post and I see some hateful comments in the comments section. People are able to not give this speech too much thought. Would it be better if the posts didn't occur? Yes. Is that how things are going to work with an open forum? No.

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The space below is for your Personal Apology To Galen Rupp And his Family

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I generally don't comment on my personal interactions with athletes and/or coaches and I love how you now speak for Galen and his family.

I personally apologized to Galen in Edinburgh a couple of years ago right after he got married because I heard he was upset that someone on here had found his online wedding website and linked to it. I don't have a problem with that as a public figure with a public website can expect people to find it. Ie I don't have a problem linking to Derek Jeter's wedding website. What I didn't know was the comment section on Galen's website was open and people made posts on it. We were made aware of this and removed the thread. The comments I saw were more clever than distasteful more along the lines of "Hey I'll still beat you" - Josh McDougal, but if I was getting married I wouldn't want my personal site infiltrated that way. So I apologized to him for the trouble as I had heard from people close to him he didn't like it.

Similarly, one of the reasons we implemented the "gay" and "rupp" filter was we heard from Vin Lananna and Alberto about it. They said we needed to do a better job on combatting the posts. So we took things a step further and pre-screened out these posts when that is not our traditional policy.

We don't pretend to be perfect here at letsrun.com and like getting feedback. This is an open forum, there are going to be trouble makers. That is one of the drawbacks of an open forum. We are aware of that.

And one more point, just because I may ask athletes and/or coaches questions privately or publicly about drugs does not mean that fans can't come on here and discuss whether they think someone is or is not doping. That's what you are missing "A Duck". The guy who started this thread said he thinks Galen is clean, he just wants to discuss it and people to ask questions. I think that is appropriate.

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yes
let's be adult about this

hermens isn't going to explicity call out NOP for doping if he knows something

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odelltrclan wrote:


This is just one shining example of the idiocracy of people here. Accusing people (Rupp & Farah) and pretending to have facts but provide nothing of real substance.

Tell us Conica exactly when did the EPO era begin? Take away that era and Rupp and Farah are the fastest, huh?

Rupp's personal bests are 3:34.7; 12:58; 26:48. In 2012 there were 10 other athletes who ran faster than Farah or Rupp over 5,000 and 28 others faster than Rupp and 27 others faster than Farah over 10,000.

In 2011, there were still 2 others faster than Rupp & Farah over 10,000 and many over 5,000? Which ones of those have you mentioned/accused.

As per the 5,000, Lagat, Solinsky, Ritzenhein and Tegenkamp all have run a faster 5k, not to mention Bob Kennedy. Which among those are people on this board ranting and raving about drug use. There were a 6 people who broke 12:50 last year as well as a number of others before Rupp and Farah came up on the list. Why no mention of a single one of those? Do they get a free pass? If so, why?

Why don't they talk about how a 165 lb Chris Solinsky can break that magical "EPO" barrier [allegedly] but not fall under suspicion but others are?

You could at least try and get your facts straight before starting to look like you know what your talking about.

Instead of yet another rail on Rupp diatribe, maybe you should direct suspicions and what is the human limit of performance for 5,000 & 10,000?

Stop this idiotic crusade. If you really want to talk drugs in sport then bring up every athlete. If sub 13 and sub 27 are suspicious, bring them all up, every single name.

Chances are you (and the collective group here) won't because it goes against their real agendas.

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A Duck wrote:



As usual Wejo distracts from my point:

"At some point, every pro runner decides its best to stay off the boards completely."


Did Lauren say or not say that?

And any fool can post links on their front page.

She could have said all the positive things about TFN or Ken Goe, for that matter.

You and LRC are the only place that elites and Pro's talk about as a "f____ sewar" to quote an Australian Elite I met at Stanford two years ago.

AND, you'll not she's stayed away for 6 years, imagine what her opinion would be if she was newly elite and found this site today????

Point in case, I read some threads from 2003 and 2005 today. And, while they had some biting nonsense, they were FAR nicer than the sht you foster today.

--Which is another one of my points, not truly moderating these boards have seen them DECLINE over the years.

They've decline in TWO WAYS:

1. Civility. Obviously.
2. Usefulness.


And you are proud of that?

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post it noter wrote:

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wejo wrote:


With this thread we are saying it is ok for people to post and discuss whether athlete X or Y is doping. It leads to a cleaner sport.

The point you are missing "A Duck" is that just because you wonder about an improved performance has to mean you conclude it is because of doping. But here is nothing wrong with wondering or having the conversation.

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You're just being disingenuous and you know it.

This thread is about DOPING and was created solely because Patrick White couldn't fathom Rupp's long term improvement and the performances of he and Solomon.

That's the ONLY REASON.

Personal insecurity.

Your endorsement of that and then your insinuation that this mud-slinging will somehow "clean up the sport" is flat-out delusional.

You insisting that anyone and everyone should do what YOU want is ridiculous. You treat some people like crap in your interviews. Why would they want to go so far out of their way to satisfy whatever demands you have as far as proving their innocence? It'll NEVER be enough. Ever! Plus the questions posed. Disgusting! Abdi and Rupp both spring to mind last year when you or Rojo or whoever tried one of your asinine "gotcha" moments.

It's sickening, it's horrible form, and it is a disgrace to "journalism".

And that you do that under the pretense of "cleaning up the sport" just shows the lengths that you will go to try and justify your ridiculous behavior.

You SHOULD feel like scumbags because the way you bring it up and the slimy, disgusting behavior you ENCOURAGE on these boards is precisely the work of scumbags.

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Rupp reminds me a bit of our David Moorcroft who only improved his 800m and mile times when he started moving up to 5,000m

Doe not prove he's clean but his mile is now in line with his other distance times

Not having read the whole thread, I have a few things I want to say:


1) I have no idea if Rupp and Farah are clean. Yes, the thyroid thing gives me pause, too. On the other hand, no, I don't think Rupp's progression is suspicious. He ran 3:34 last year, so this mile PR was a big jump on paper only. As for running sub-13 and sub-27, well, I think those breakthroughs were overdue. They certainly didn't come after years of "struggling." Rupp's college years saw huge consistent development, and now I think he's showing the strength that comes from years and years of uninterrupted training.

2) I think it's one thing to "ask the question" about an athlete's cleanliness. Making vague accusations based on your personal inability to believe a time without any real credible evidence is bullsh*t, however. Looking an athlete like Solomon and saying "He had a breakthrough season, what's he on?" is the same thing Glenn Beck does when he says "Oh, well I'm not SAYING Obama is a Manchurian candidate out to destroy us all, I'm just ASKING what if he Is?" "Asking the question" can be a veiled personal attack and any adult should know that.

Are there suspicious things about athletes? Maggie Vessey tested positive for a banned diuretic- was it an innocent mistake or something more sinister? That's a good question to ask. I don't have any insight. When Tegenkamp, a few years ago, mentioned he was having blood-spinning done to help a tendon heal, was he doing something that's banned? Good question. Does Rupp's asthma/thyroid medication have an effect similar to banned substances, allowing his TUE to cover his use? I don't know either, but it's a good question.

Saying "Rupp couldn't run sub4 in the mile until 2009, now in 2013, he's faster. WHAT'S HE ON?!?!" is not asking a valid question, it's nothing more than a attack.


3) These boards are disgusting. The Brojos do a horrible job moderating, and seem to think elite athletes and coaches quitting the board in disgust is fine, and even evidence of "real dialogue" or something. Jack Daniels used to post all the time and answer questions and foster substantive debate. He was open about his research and his experiences with athletes most of us only got to read about. He also got run out of town on a rail. Lots of other great posters dealt with the same poisonous atmosphere and got shouted down by a mob of trolls. I don't know why the Brojos don't at least try to do a better job, instead of lauding anonymous people launching personal attacks and justifying it by saying so-and-so is a "public figure." As much as I find ADuck personally annoying, I largely agree with his points about this board being less and less civil and useful.

4) I don't think the Brojos understand that being a jerk and fostering "controversy" isn't doing squat for the sport. TMZ and Entertainment Television doesn't elevate journalism, the Sunday pundit bitchfests don't elevate political discourse, and the bunch of mean posts and pseudoarticles meant to attack athletes (I'm thinking the feature on Webb being mad after a race) certainly don't elevate running as a sport here.

Anyway, those are my 4 cents. Troll me as you will. I hang around here for the weekly training thread and the occasional gem. They get tougher to find each year.

I wonder very much why the notion of the "EPO-era".
Supposedly this refers to the era from the introduction of EPO until the first EPO test in 2000.

This is a big error.
The EPO era never ended. EPO is still by far the most prevalent drug in endurance sport.

One simply needed to use a tiny bit more caution. Not dosing right before competitions.
EPO is detectable for 3 days in regular doses. The effect lasts for 4-6 weeks.
If microdoses is used, the detection time is less than 10hours.
Microdoses is not less effective than regular doses, you simply have to dose more often when "loading" loading means incresing hematocrit from 40-45 (normal) to 50-55%. The loading phase takes 2-3weeks. After loading is completed, hematocrit can be kept high for a long time (whole season) by microdosing a few times per week.

If you really want to be safe (e.g. are afraid of testing in the middle of the night). You can use modified EPO, this is EPO with new protein chains on the nonactive part of the molecule. These chains doesnt alter the drugs effect, but gives the molecule completely different properties with regards to isoelectric focusing and mass spectrography (the methods used to detect epo). This has already for a long time been done with steroids (see e.g. the BALCO case). Adding new chains to non-functional parts of drug molecules is one reason why dopers will always be ahead of the testers (unless they stick to the same modification of the drug for too long time and a test is invented).

Another alternative is autologous self-transfusion, old fashioned blood doping. Just as effective, but more of a hassle, and for most athletes would require a medical team (only accessible to pro athletes).

What HAVE improved the last few years is the introduction of the bio-passport. The bio-passport prevents athletes of having too large variations in their blood profile over the year. The bio-passport prevents too large fluctuations in hematocrit. But athletes solve it by having relatively high values for the whole season, or by using plasma expanders (infusion of saline water with added dextran or other carbohydrate, unless marked it cant be detected and never will). So people can still dope, but it is harder to reach extreme values of hematocrit, like several cyclist in the 90s having hematocrit values exceeding 60%. The benefit of increasing hematocrit above 53-55% is, however, small. In addition it is very dangerous.

What I dont understand and what we should all work for is having the 50% hematocrit rule applied to athletics. For some reason the IAAF rejects to implement this rule. Maybe due to the decreasing popularity of track, being afraid that times far slower than the world recors would lead to a decline in sponsor money. The 50% rule has successfully been applied in cycling and xc-skiing for years.
While the 50% rule does not rule out doping (Lance overcame it with great simplicity). It makes doping harder, is very easy to implement and would result in a more fair competition.

Right now any unknow talent can simply buy EPO for 500$, load his hematocrit to 55%, stop 1-2 weeks before competition and run a 5-10min PR. With ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANCE OF GETTING COUGHT.

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conica wrote:

as someone else mentioned, take away the EPO era and rupp and farrah are the fastest in the history of distance running, and are running times that were only reached in the epo era. and rupp is running WAY faster than any white boy did in all of the EPO era, even though it is a commonly held belief that several of the top white boys of that era were doping.

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if were at a bar and talking about who was caught on p.e.d.'s, then that would be fine.

once in a while, a stranger from out of town will enter the bar and give his own opinion.

sometimes, a bar fight happens and they get kicked out.

i don't know why some people here seem to get very defensive. we're in a bar that's open to the public. you can't just tape a person's mouth shut because you think he's being rude and disrespectful.

defenders have been proven wrong before.

there were people who were ferociously defending lance armstrong, saying he was clean, that he never failed a drug test, that he was naturally a very good endurance athlete as a teenager, that he was the greatest endurance athlete of all time, that usada was out to get him out of anger, etc.

they've disappeared. the defenders were proven to be flat out wrong.

if i say that tom cruise still looks young, i think he had plastic surgery. is that "mudslinging"? he has millions of dollars, and other celebrities have admitted to surgery before. am i not allowed an opinion?

Note:
My above post is a general post. About drugs in sport in general, and athletics in particular.
It is was not directed at Rupp or Farah or Solomon or anyone else, by any other means that they are top class class athletes where fame, glory and money is involved. I know nothing more than the general poster about these particular athletes.

Also speaking in general. It is not the athletes fault that they start doping, it is the system. Who would blame a poor boy who spent all his resources the last 10 years at becoming the best runner possible. Encouraged by coaches and parents yelling everything is possile if you want it enough. Then he finds learns that it really isnt true after all, by himself, by a manager, coach or agent.
In addition studies has shown that a large majority of us would use a drug if it was undetectable and gave the advantage for winning an olympic medal. The same studies even show that more than 50% would use the drug if it was seriously detrimental to their own long term health. Humans are obsessed at gaining competitive advantages in every part of life.

Go after the system, the IAAF, the coaches, the agents and the managers. Not the athletes. The athletes in general want an equal playing field without doping, the reality is just not like that at the moment. Just have in the back of your head that 90% of the best are doped. And do your son or daughter a favor, dont have them play cards into sport, because everything isnt possible.