rojo wrote:Sorry for the long post but this was posted almost exactly a year ago and I was feeling sentimental.
Hello everyone. It seems like a lot of people have jumped on here that haven't read the whole thread.
Let me summarize the evidence we have that he didn't run his BQ.
1) A guy who has a 5k pb of 21:52, a half-marathon pb of 1:40:44 supposedly ran a 3:11 marathon. That simply doens't happen.
His half marathon time averages out to 7:41 per mile. His marathon time - twice the distance comes out to be 7:18.8 per mile. Thus hes' 22.2 seconds per mile too slow for just the half. So if he was running it on a track, he'd be more than 5 seconds per lap to slow. Could he run twice as far more than 20 seconds per mile faster? No, Not possible.
Or let's take his 5k time. That comes out to 7:02.3 per mile. People can't run more than 8 times as far just slowing down 16.5 seconds per mile. The world record for the 5k is 12:37.35. That comes out to 4:03.8 per mil
If the world record holder for the 5k could run a marathon slowing down only 16.5 seconds per mile, the world record would roughly be 1:53.45/.
The world record for the marathon is 2:02:57. That comes out to 4:41.36 per mile. So a pro slows down almost 40 seconds per mile when you look at their 5k to marathon differential.
Maybe that doesn't do it for casual observers - non runneres. So please take a look at the research we've done.
We've looked the 20 finishers closest to him at Lehgh Valley (10 that finsihed in front of him, 10 behind him) - all of them have run WAY faster than him. The slowest person within 20 spots of hin ckills him at lower distances. The person who finsihed 10 spots behind him has run a 5k in 20:12 and half in 1:32.16. That runner's 5k time is 32 seconds per mile faster than Mr. Rossi's. That guy's half marathon time is 38.8 seconds per mile faster than Mr. Rossi's, yet Mr. Rossi beat him the marathon? NO.
Non-hard core runners may not understand how much of a difference thirty-some odd seconds per mile is. IT'S A TON. IT'S BASICALLY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN PROFESSIONAL MAN AND PROFESSIONAL WOMAN IN RUNNING. SO UNLESS YOU THINK A WOMAN IS GOING TO WIN THE OLYMPIC MEN'S GOLD MEDAL IN RUNNING ANYTIME SOON, THEN YOU SHOUDLN'T BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE WITH MR. ROSSI'S PRS RAN THAT MARATHON
The other runner's PRs are listed here:
https://goo.gl/i4y8ckSo 1) We've established his other running results AREN'T EVEN IN THE RIGHT BALL PARK . But you want people to believe he had the MOST AMAZING day in the history of running, yet
2) His results came in a race which conveniently doesn't have intermediate chip timing. Most big marathons nowadays have it. This race did not. How convenient. So cutting the course is very doable.
But let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He's from PA and Lehigh is in PA so maybe he chose the race for it's proximity to him. Well I'm sure there are ltos of photos of him on the course right? Wrong.
3) Instead of chips, one would normally rely on race photographs to prove he was out on the course. There are ZERO race photographs of him on the course except at the finish. How convenient.
We've done A LOT OF RESEARCH ABOUT THIS. This spreadsheet -
https://goo.gl/i4y8ck- reveals that the 50 finishers before him and after him were all photographed at least 3 times on the course (two other times not counting the finish). He is nowhere to be seen.
4) The guy loves to brag about his times/performances - yet he was very quite about bragging about his supposed qualifier and didn't upload his GPS.
5) He ran over 3:40 and 4:00 in two recent marathons. THe 3:43 came just two months after his supposed 3:11. In two months, he lost more than a minute per mile yet was happy with the performance post-race?
So there is ZERO reason for me to believe he ran the time he claims to run.
Goodnight. I may try a formal article tomorrow but it will take time as I'll need to contact race directors, hopefully other finishers and Mr. Rossi himself.
-Rojo
PS. I may try to get a stats guy at 538 to figure the odds out but I bet it's wya over one in a million being legitimate.
This is just obsessive. Don't you have things to do with your life? A hobby?
