"The Boston Marathon Was Fixed" thread.

Nice analysis. Marathons are funny things. Meb risked a lot (who's to say he WASN'T gonna blow up? Get injured? Crash and burn?) and it worked out for him. Hearty--and deserved--congratulations.

Watching him come back to life when he saw Chebet behind him was glorious--and Chebet immediately knew he wasn't going to catch him and got all worried about ensuring second place. You can see it in the tape.

Go Meb!

People always loved watching Carl Lewis win. Later one we found out that more than one of his positive drug test were covered up both in 1984 and '88. The seemingly unassailable testing regime was inherently corrupt, and working mostly to create good TV.

Why is that not possible in this case? The value to the sponsors of increased media hype for this and next year would more than offset the costs of getting a "desirable" outcome.

This is entertainment. US audiences like seeing Meb win at US events. There is a large price tag on that, well over what it would cost to throw the race.

This is how it was done in the US in the past, so why should we assume it is not occurring now?

Same thing happened with L. Armstrong in 1999. Positive test disappeared after meeting with the sport governing body. Money money money.

rekrunner wrote:

Was it broken?

Letsrun Conspiracy Theorist wrote:

Interesting theory, but you overlook the fact that the race was fixed.

YES, it was broken! Tom Menino (mayor at the time of the bombing)said the week before this year's marathon "you are strong in this BROKEN place". Joe Biden (Vice President) said, "We are America. We respond, we endure, we overcome, and we OWN THE FINISH LINE!" So the race was broken and they fixed it because they own it! Why is that so hard to understand when they ADMIT IT?

James Driving wrote:

Same thing happened with L. Armstrong in 1999. Positive test disappeared after meeting with the sport governing body. Money money money.

Haters gotta hatehatehate

T-Rex wrote:

James Driving wrote:

Same thing happened with L. Armstrong in 1999. Positive test disappeared after meeting with the sport governing body. Money money money.

Haters gotta hatehatehate

Heaven forbid the truth derail a wonderful narrative.

Bump to mention the Wall Street Journal referencing this thread.

"The 'Boston Marathon Was Fixed' drew about 450 posts, about 40 times higher than the average thread...'all of the 14 faster people had a bad day and could not reel (Keflezighi) in... The year the whole world and especially the USA have their eyes on the Boston Marathon' noted onr skeptic."

I don't have a link (i think they have a pay site anyways) since I still get a hardcopy of the paper. The article is "Boston marathon mystery: why didn't anyone beat Meb?" In case you want to look for it.

A couple of quotes.......

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303948104579534360720766656

"That so many faster runners would all fall apart on the same day just doesn't make sense," said Raymond Britt, publisher of an endurance-race statistics firm called RunTri.com. "The odds against that seem astronomical."

"By all accounts, the men's race last week was peculiar. Conditions on race morning were so favorable—with temperatures in the 40s at the start—that four women broke their gender's 12-year-old course record. Winner Rita Jeptoo of Kenya knocked nearly two minutes off the old record with a finish of 2 hours, 18 minutes, 57 seconds.

By contrast, Keflezighi's winning time—2:08:37—fell 5 minutes, 35 seconds behind the men's three-year-old course record.

"On a beautiful day on which four women broke the women's course record, no one in the men's field could come within 5.5 minutes of the course record. That is hard for the casual sports fan—or even pretty hard-core running fan, really—to grasp," said Robert Johnson, a LetsRun.com founder who understands but doesn't share the belief that something fishy occurred."

"In the final mile, however, Chebet faded, essentially running out of gas, according to his agent. Chebet finished 11 seconds behind Keflezighi. "If his closing 2,195 (meters) were as expected, we would be talking about probably the least favorite guy in Boston now," Savija said.

Not everyone is convinced. Britt, a 13-time Boston Marathon finisher who was working the race as a writer and photographer, said film and photos of the finish raise questions about why Chebet suddenly stalled. "That close, you don't just tire out," Britt said.

Also unclear is why top runners wouldn't respect Keflezighi, who finished fourth at the 2012 Olympics, won the 2009 New York City Marathon and took silver at the 2004 Olympics."

All points us sceptics have already rehearsed on here in this thread.

I'm glad that though I couldn't get some of the Meb cheerleaders on here to even admit the race was bizarre, seems the WSJ and other professional observers agree with that conclusion.

Also from the article: "These skeptics represent a distinct minority and offer no serious explanation...", a conclusion also repeated often in this thread. They probably sourced the article from Letsrun.

As bizarre as it may seem, what played out was that the Africans ran a tactical race, while the Americans ran their own race. It doesn't make sense to compare tactical results to course records. Despite so many suggestions otherwise, 4th in the Olympics from a 2:09 runner does not merit respect from an elite pack. For casual observers, this may be hard to understand. But seasoned racers like Amby Burfoot saw "nothing conspiratorial about the outcome". There is NO CHANCE that an elite runner would waste his energy running with Meb, and away from the real threats in the pack. I would find it surprising to hear that any elite African had in their race plans, at the start line, to keep an eye on Meb, and don't let him get away. Their failure was not adapting their plan as the race played out.

I've drawn no conclusions - reread all of my posts - I've simply outlined how bizarre the race was. Which some of the cheerleaders on here seem to be in denial about.

Amby Burfoot - the American ?

I note normal service was resumed at Hamburg this morning - East Africans filled the top 8 places.

We know the race wasn't fixed because Meb won and Ryan Hall didn't.

How come everyone in the 2004 Olympic 5,000 let the pace dawdle so el G could win? Must have been fixed. The IOC paid everyone off, they wanted a white Moroccan winner.

Buncha morons in this thread.

Nothing weird went down at Boston. The distance is notoriously unpredictable.

If the BAA wanted to drum up some nationalistic "Boston Strong" fervor why fix the race so an Eritrean-American immigrant wins instead of a white guy?

The writer of that WSJ piece knows dick about running if he thinks Meb's time was slow. Comparing it to the tailwind-aided 2:03, and ignoring the fact that the 2013 winning time was 2:10, is beyond stupid.

Hmmm. Whatever you drew or didn't draw, you called the "bizarre race" a "conclusion":

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I'm glad that though I couldn't get some of the Meb cheerleaders on here to even admit the race was bizarre, seems the WSJ and other professional observers agree with that conclusion.

Was "normal service" ever stopped? What's not normal about a "tactical" race where two "non-threats" were let go? After all, one came back as expected -- they were half right.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I've drawn no conclusions - reread all of my posts - I've simply outlined how bizarre the race was. Which some of the cheerleaders on here seem to be in denial about.

Amby Burfoot - the American ?

I note normal service was resumed at Hamburg this morning - East Africans filled the top 8 places.

rekrunner wrote:

Hmmm. Whatever you drew or didn't draw, you called the "bizarre race" a "conclusion":

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I'm glad that though I couldn't get some of the Meb cheerleaders on here to even admit the race was bizarre, seems the WSJ and other professional observers agree with that conclusion.

Was "normal service" ever stopped? What's not normal about a "tactical" race where two "non-threats" were let go? After all, one came back as expected -- they were half right.

Frightened Inmate # 5 wrote:

I've drawn no conclusions - reread all of my posts - I've simply outlined how bizarre the race was. Which some of the cheerleaders on here seem to be in denial about.

Amby Burfoot - the American ?

I note normal service was resumed at Hamburg this morning - East Africans filled the top 8 places.

0 + 1 = 0 seems not normal to me.

But hey, maybe that's just me.

With a 2:09 PB, Meb wasn't perceived as a credible threat. He lacked credentials.

0 + 0 = 0.

rekrunner wrote:

With a 2:09 PB, Meb wasn't perceived as a credible threat. He lacked credentials.

0 + 0 = 0.

As the reigning 4th place finisher at the Olympics there is absolutely zero chance that he was perceived as a non-threat to maintain a 2:09 pace.

0 + 0 does indeed equal zero which makes the race VERY not normal.

That's the whole debate isn't it? There is no doubt that they let him go, but did anyone in the pack honestly believe that he wouldn't come back? The available facts equally supports "absolutely zero chance" and "absolute certainty". The perception to maintain a 2:09 pace almost certainly wasn't even considered, because everyone was thinking the winner was coming from the elite pack, and breaking away from the pack to chase Meb would guarantee a loss. That sounds like a more realistic game plan, for the top 10 challengers.4th place in the 2012 Olympics, while a great individual achievement for Meb, is not a strong showing in any absolute sense. He was 3 minutes behind another slow 2:07 runner and surprise winner Stephen Kiprotich. Did they let him win too, because he was Ugandan? It boggles the mind that Abshero and Kipsang couldn't maintain the pace, and let Kiprotich break away at 37K. How can a 2:07 runner gap a 2:03 and 2:04 runner by 1:36 in the last 5K, in such a slow race? Fast runners just don't slow down like that at the finish.It' s more likely that most of the pack was unaware Meb even participated in the 2012 Olympics. Even if they knew his PB, his last 2:09 was two years earlier in Houston, and Meb isn't getting any younger.

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

With a 2:09 PB, Meb wasn't perceived as a credible threat. He lacked credentials.

0 + 0 = 0.

As the reigning 4th place finisher at the Olympics there is absolutely zero chance that he was perceived as a non-threat to maintain a 2:09 pace.

0 + 0 does indeed equal zero which makes the race VERY not normal.

It wasn't fixed. All of this is extremely silly.

Chef Gordon Ramzi wrote:

How come everyone in the 2004 Olympic 5,000 let the pace dawdle so el G could win? Must have been fixed. The IOC paid everyone off, they wanted a white Moroccan winner.

In every other race, in particular ones w/ a negative split (hint - fast finish), everybody competes until the very end. If the leader is running 3:10/km, and the chasers are running 2:55....they WILL catch him. That is what happens.

How often to elites "go out slow and die"?