Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

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LoserMikeRossi wrote:

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The People Must Speak wrote:

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bored troller wrote:. Yes, it'd be nice to have information from them, but whatever's going on I don't think harassing their Facebook page is helpful.

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Wrong, it is the most helpful thing if a DQ is a desired outcome.
I have a feeling that the RD of this marathon is like most people - she wants to slide by, doing as little as possible and trying to avoid any controversy. If everyone here just sits around quietly, no way are they going to do anything. There needs to be a public backlash to them not doing anything to prompt action.
You see this kind of thing all the time. Like the Ray Rice thing. if not for backlash, he would have had just the 2 game suspension or less. People can actually cause change in this world, but only if they do something - such as "like" a FB post. By definition, this is the very LEAST you can do.

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If a Facebook campaign can get Betty White a guest host spot on Saturday Night Live then it can certainly get this jerk DQ'd.

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Fo realz?

If he is not DQ'd he's going to become intolerable. OMG can you imagine the swelling of his ego...we're gonna need a bigger planet.

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Doubler wrote:

Be prepared to view my blog for 'The Decision' at 9 ET tonight, where Lehigh Valley Marathon officials announce whether or not Mike Rossi will be disqualified.

http://marathoncheat.blogspot.com/

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And the Friday afternoon news dump comes out:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/05/the-lehigh-valley-marathon-is-not-going-to-disqualify-mike-rossi-the-viral-boston-marathon-dad-because-no-one-reported-wrongdoing-as-the-race-took-place/

No DQ "unless additional conclusive information" comes out.

In our minds, the statement by the marathon organizers is logically flawed. Imagine if the police in this country weren't allow to charge people with burglary simply because it wasn't reported while it was happening - crime would be even more of a problem than it already is.

When one considers that it's physiologically improbable to say the least (some would say impossible) that Mr. Rossi was even capable of running 3:11:45, given his personal bests at other distances which all equate to a marathon over 3:30, with the fact that he wasn't seen in a single photo on the course, the burden of proof should have shifted to Mr. Rossi to provide some shred of evidence that he ran the race (GPS data, photos, statements from fellow competitors, spectators or family members, etc.) or was at least physically capable of something close to a 3:11:45 (training logs, GPS data, statements from training partners), particularly when one considers that his own contemporaneous statements contradicted his initial explanation that his other PRs were much slower simply because he was injured or not going all out in many of his shorter races.

The integrity of our beloved sport is at stake. We've spent much of the last few weeks researching and writing our own story on Mr. Rossi that lays out the evidence against Mr. Rossi. We were going to publish the story tonight which was going to ask for a DQ.

We were waiting to put it out as we wanted to give Lehigh Valley and Mr. Rossi a chance to comment. Our email to Mr. Rossi was met with a reply by a lawyer who has been "retained to investigate and prosecute any and all claims of defamation arising from false allegations of competition cheating made against my client." And then we got the statement from Lehigh Valley.

We still think our story is well researched and well written. We will publish the story early next week as we don't want it to get lost as a Friday afternoon news dump.. In our minds, the evidence is indeed conclusive that Mike Rossi - the viral Boston Marathon dad - is a marathon cheat and should have not been on starting line in Boston and we hope the organizers consider it as "additional conclusive information."

Unbelievable.
Cheaters and lawyers win the day.

#BoycottLVM #BoycottLehighValleyMarathon

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rojo wrote:

And the Friday afternoon news dump comes out:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/05/the-lehigh-valley-marathon-is-not-going-to-disqualify-mike-rossi-the-viral-boston-marathon-dad-because-no-one-reported-wrongdoing-as-the-race-took-place/

No DQ "unless additional conclusive information" comes out.

In our minds, the statement by the marathon organizers is logically flawed. Imagine if the police in this country weren't allow to charge people with burglary simply because it wasn't reported while it was happening - crime would be even more of a problem than it already is.

When one considers that it's physiologically improbable to say the least (some would say impossible) that Mr. Rossi was even capable of running 3:11:45, given his personal bests at other distances which all equate to a marathon over 3:30, with the fact that he wasn't seen in a single photo on the course, the burden of proof should have shifted to Mr. Rossi to provide some shred of evidence that he ran the race (GPS data, photos, statements from fellow competitors, spectators or family members, etc.) or was at least physically capable of something close to a 3:11:45 (training logs, GPS data, statements from training partners), particularly when one considers that his own contemporaneous statements contradicted his initial explanation that his other PRs were much slower simply because he was injured or not going all out in many of his shorter races.

The integrity of our beloved sport is at stake. We've spent much of the last few weeks researching and writing our own story on Mr. Rossi that lays out the evidence against Mr. Rossi. We were going to publish the story tonight which was going to ask for a DQ.

We were waiting to put it out as we wanted to give Lehigh Valley and Mr. Rossi a chance to comment. Our email to Mr. Rossi was met with a reply by a lawyer who has been "retained to investigate and prosecute any and all claims of defamation arising from false allegations of competition cheating made against my client." And then we got the statement from Lehigh Valley.

We still think our story is well researched and well written. We will publish the story early next week as we don't want it to get lost as a Friday afternoon news dump.. In our minds, the evidence is indeed conclusive that Mike Rossi - the viral Boston Marathon dad - is a marathon cheat and should have not been on starting line in Boston and we hope the organizers consider it as "additional conclusive information."

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theese is not good wrote:

Unbelievable.
Cheaters and lawyers win the day.

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rojo wrote:

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theese is not good wrote:

Unbelievable.
Cheaters and lawyers win the day.

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The lawyer definitely delayed made me think twice about publishing. We probably would have published before the Lehigh Valley statement came out but after his threatening statement we wanted to dot our I's and cross our T's.

If there is a defamation lawsuit, hopefully you guys got our back on kickstarter.

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In the end, Mike was right all along. He didn't have to prove he ran, we had to PROVE he didn't run. *shake my head*

And I am not saying sending Lehigh anything we produced in this thread will be useful. They have obviously made up their minds. Unless someone has the smoking gun photograph or another runner saw him enter the course, the man is innocent as not proven guilty. Sad day for running justice all over. What are the odds we can get an ESPN 30/30 done on this story?

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NowFindJimmyHoffa wrote:

#BoycottLVM #BoycottLehighValleyMarathon

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Their letter seems to say that anything short of a witness saying "I saw Mike Rossi leave the course, get in a car, drive 20 miles, and then cut back onto the course" was not going to be enough. They could have taken a middle ground and not disqualified him, but advised that he will not be allowed to run the race next year. That way they don't have to worry about getting sued, but they can make it clear what they really think. Or maybe they really do think he ran the whole race??!

#BoycottLVM #BoycottLehighValleyMarathon

And all associated sponsors

#BoycottLVMSponsors

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NowFindJimmyHoffa wrote:

#BoycottLVM #BoycottLehighValleyMarathon

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rojo wrote:

And the Friday afternoon news dump comes out:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/05/the-lehigh-valley-marathon-is-not-going-to-disqualify-mike-rossi-the-viral-boston-marathon-dad-because-no-one-reported-wrongdoing-as-the-race-took-place/

No DQ "unless additional conclusive information" comes out.

In our minds, the statement by the marathon organizers is logically flawed. Imagine if the police in this country weren't allow to charge people with burglary simply because it wasn't reported while it was happening - crime would be even more of a problem than it already is.

When one considers that it's physiologically improbable to say the least (some would say impossible) that Mr. Rossi was even capable of running 3:11:45, given his personal bests at other distances which all equate to a marathon over 3:30, with the fact that he wasn't seen in a single photo on the course, the burden of proof should have shifted to Mr. Rossi to provide some shred of evidence that he ran the race (GPS data, photos, statements from fellow competitors, spectators or family members, etc.) or was at least physically capable of something close to a 3:11:45 (training logs, GPS data, statements from training partners), particularly when one considers that his own contemporaneous statements contradicted his initial explanation that his other PRs were much slower simply because he was injured or not going all out in many of his shorter races.

The integrity of our beloved sport is at stake. We've spent much of the last few weeks researching and writing our own story on Mr. Rossi that lays out the evidence against Mr. Rossi. We were going to publish the story tonight which was going to ask for a DQ.

We were waiting to put it out as we wanted to give Lehigh Valley and Mr. Rossi a chance to comment. Our email to Mr. Rossi was met with a reply by a lawyer who has been "retained to investigate and prosecute any and all claims of defamation arising from false allegations of competition cheating made against my client." And then we got the statement from Lehigh Valley.

We still think our story is well researched and well written. We will publish the story early next week as we don't want it to get lost as a Friday afternoon news dump.. In our minds, the evidence is indeed conclusive that Mike Rossi - the viral Boston Marathon dad - is a marathon cheat and should have not been on starting line in Boston and we hope the organizers consider it as "additional conclusive information."

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Thank goodness, now we can finally close the door on whether or not MR will get DQ'd and back to proving that doubler is MR.

The decision really doesn't matter. There's been several articles and news stories that will always pop up if you Google his name which are much more significant and circulated than the news published today. Let's Run won this argument weeks ago.

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Doesn't matter at all wrote:

The decision really doesn't matter. There's been several articles and news stories that will always pop up if you Google his name which are much more significant and circulated than the news published today. Let's Run won this argument weeks ago.

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His twitter account is active again. @mikerossi22

Should we flood him with follow requests?

I kept my kids out of school to watch that SNL episode with Betty White. They learned more in that hour and a half than they do in an entire year in school.

Very disappointed with the decision

What a joke. Way to go LVM.

I would love to see a flood of people show up at the marathon this year in "I am Mike Rossi" t-shirts, hop the fence at the start, drive to the finish line, and finish in ridiculous times.