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

dsaflkjsadkf wrote:

hayward102 wrote:

Either you guys are all a lot more observant than me, or I don't pay attention much. In the last race I ran, a half marathon in March, I remember exactly two people from the race and one was running in a pair of depends and no shirt in the rain. People aren't necessarily going to remember a guy wearing a non-memorable outfit.

Yeah, but I can recognize every single hot girl that finished within 1 min ahead of me ...

You got 3+ hours to remember everybody's butt. Just sayin

Yeah, butt Rossi aint a hot girl so that doesn't seem very relevant.

Maybe that's what he did but it's not possible he ran those first few miles at 3:11 pace even. I think he's in damage control mode right now with that ridiculous FB post. Mike, if you haven't done so yet, please sit the wife and kids down tonight and come clean to them first. It will then be easier to come clean to others with their support. To keep this going you'll either have to stay in a hole for a long time or you'll have to keep the pack of lies going.

So if he hopped in and ran the last 3.6 miles at normal Rossi pace (8-9 minutes a mile), that would have put him leaving the final relay exchange around 2:39-2:43ish. There are 10 relay teams that finished between 3:00 and 3:20 that might have had a runner starting at a similar time, might have pictures of him standing in the relay exchange zone, etc.

Claiming he has GPS is a huge mistake. Already knowing that he cheated (and the organizers know this as surely as we do), I would tell him that he needs to grant access to it today or he will be DQed. I wouldn't even give him time to try to figure out how to fake something. He would probably mutter something about a lawyer. I would tell him he is DQed. He isn't suing anyone.

And lost in all of this is that he is a public figure, as a radio host and then for the letter that went viral, there is no question about it. So it is unbelievably difficult for him to win a defamation case.

NotABQer wrote:

Mike, if you are following this thread, do the right thing.

No, here's how this plays out. Rosie Rossi's supposed MRI results for his supposed knee injury will come back Monday, as he claims on Facebook. And, miraculously, his knee problem will turn out to be a career-ending injury, so Rosie will never race again. And, he will fade away to join the legendary annals of Kip, Dane, the real Rosie, and on and on and on.

The interesting thing to me about the logistics of this marathon is that his cheating was almost certainly premeditated. If he were going to run legit, he would have to either park at the finish and take the race shuttle to the start, or get a ride from a non-running friend to the start. There was no post-race shuttle back to the start line, so if he had his car near the start, he knew what he was going to do.

(It's possible he made a mid-race decision to use the sag wagon and was mistakenly never disqualified, but that seems unlikely.)

gatorade&vodka wrote:

(It's possible he made a mid-race decision to use the sag wagon and was mistakenly never disqualified, but that seems unlikely.)

Except he crosses the finish line running with his hands in the air.

Runner gal wrote:

How many race directors does the race have?

From this article:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/-dad-of-the-year--boston-marathon-runner-under-investigation-over-qualification-questions-205004421.html

Gerry Yasso, race director for the Lehigh Valley VIA Marathon where Russo received his qualifying time in September 2014, told Philadelphia Magazine on Tuesday that he’s asked USA Track & Field for a “thorough and impartial” investigation into whether Rossi actually completed the full race and deserved the three-hour, 11-minute, 45-second (3:11:45) finishing time that qualified him to enter the Boston Marathon.

hey, is he related to Bart by any chance?

poor reporting by Yahoo... Gerry Yasso is vice president of resource development for Via Lehigh Valley, not a race director. And they stupidly illustrated the Mike Rossi piece with their standard Boston slideshow, starting with Carlos Arredondo.. but yeah.

dingus KHAN wrote:

gatorade&vodka wrote:

(It's possible he made a mid-race decision to use the sag wagon and was mistakenly never disqualified, but that seems unlikely.)

Except he crosses the finish line running with his hands in the air.

Right, the sag wagon transports runners to the finish, but he would have to hop back on course and cross the line. Again, unlikely.

So, specifically, at that 23.49 exchange, it's pretty easy to get in by car? And what is the parking situation like at the start? Would it be easy to jump off the course at the start, get in your car, and then drive to the 3rd exchange? I'm trying to guess if someone picked him up, or if he drove himself.

The photo's alone are enough right now. Next step should be from the race director:

"Hi Mike,

Concerns have been raced that you cheated to run your 3:11. We have looked into this, and your lack of photos at any check point leads us to believe that you did not, in fact, run the race in its entirety.

Please provide us with proof of some sort that you ran the race, or we will be forced to disqualify you and update our results to reflect that.

Thank you,

RD"

If he has the GPS data like he claims in the yahoo article, then he should provide that ASAP. Otherwise, DQ him.

Rojo or whoever can share the spreadsheet with the RD. Not me. I'm lazy.

klsdjjfklsd wrote:

NotABQer wrote:

Mike, if you are following this thread, do the right thing.

No, here's how this plays out. Rosie Rossi's supposed MRI results for his supposed knee injury will come back Monday, as he claims on Facebook. And, miraculously, his knee problem will turn out to be a career-ending injury, so Rosie will never race again. And, he will fade away to join the legendary annals of Kip, Dane, the real Rosie, and on and on and on.

Leave me out of this, I only cheated in the AOR202 and fled my 202 miles by eating beef products for energy.

Mike,

Do not falsify your GPS data. The file will have thousands of data points. If just one data point is out of line, LR will be all over it and it will be worse.

Own up to it and all will be forgiven.

i.c. weiner wrote:

If he has the GPS data like he claims in the yahoo article, then he should provide that ASAP. Otherwise, DQ him.

I cannot emphasize enough how easy it is to alter a gps file.

A text editor works for some, for others:

Even if Rossi finds GPS data from a runner with similar times and passes it off as his own-- when we cross reverence the times with when he should have passed in front of photographers and Rossi is ghost, then what? It would be self-incriminating evidence from Mike himself.

For this reason, I encourage Mike to submit his best attempt at a doctored GPS log, which somehow accounts for missing EVERY photographer along the course. It would take a genius to do this-- id be impressed.

runDirtyrun wrote:

I cannot emphasize enough how easy it is to alter a gps file.

A text editor works for some, for others:

http://www.gpsbabel.org/

I can't wait to see what splits he gives himself.

klsdjjfklsd wrote:

NotABQer wrote:

Mike, if you are following this thread, do the right thing.

No, here's how this plays out. Rosie Rossi's supposed MRI results for his supposed knee injury will come back Monday, as he claims on Facebook. And, miraculously, his knee problem will turn out to be a career-ending injury, so Rosie will never race again. And, he will fade away to join the legendary annals of Kip, Dane, the real Rosie, and on and on and on.

Yep, I was thinking how he could redeem himself with an 3:11 or better in say 6 months or so. Not going to happen. Rosie Rossi will become a legend, maybe a book or some appearance fees, but will never come close to 3:11 to be close enough.

I feel badly because I got a first impression he was so happy celebrating that Boston medal. It means nothing now, even less than zero. A sincere apology and the acceptance of it is the only way, the right way. When his kids grow up they need to see this is what happened. Send the medal back to the BAA.

iiagdtr wrote:

PopcornNomz wrote:

Wow. So he DOES have GPS data. Why would he not share it?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/-dad-of-the-year--boston-marathon-runner-under-investigation-over-qualification-questions-205004421.html

"Yahoo Canada asked if Rossi had any GPS logs of his training, or of his race at Lehigh Valley. He said yes, but declined to provide them for verification."

I think what we have here is Rosie Rossi.

Mike "Rosie Ruiz Redux" Rossi

It is too late for GPS data. A release of this type of information would have been immediate exoneration.