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

It is interesting that the King of the Selfie doesn't appear in any of the pictures he tweeted last Saturday. Lots of crowd and kankle shots, but no Rossi. He tweeted a pic after his age group win at the Dog Days 5k with his medal hung proudly around his neck, but no selfies after his remarkable 20:25. Hmmmm.

I also wonder if he picked up his third place medal after the turkey trot.

Fire Barb McKeever! wrote:

Has anybody yet tried doing a search for sprained or swollen ankle pictures on Google? Rossi may well have injured himself but, due to his history of being a pathological liar, it's also possible that he found some pictures online and is using injury as a ready-made excuse for why he won't be meeting the brojos' challenge.

It would be awesome if we proved that he was faking an injury. I'll take a quick look to see if I find anything. I wouldn't expect most people to be THAT stupid, but this is Rossi we're talking about.

Didn't he say somewhere that he hurt his ankle AFTER the race? If so, that has no bearing on his race performance.

The article has totally taken off on social media. Sad to say it's way more popular than our recaps of Boston or New York Marathons.

The emails are streaming in as a result.

One guy emailed and said MIchael Rossi appears in the list of the Philadelphia Marathon this year at 3:17. But that Rossi appears to be a different guy. He's 52 years old and from Warrington PA.

http://live.xacte.com/templates/philadelphiamarathon.com/for-runners/race-results

How old is our Rossi? And what's his hometown again?

You can see the photos of that Rossi in Philly by typing in bib # 2945 here:

http://orders.islandphoto.com/RACE/Proofs.aspx#26871447-10887-0033

In other news, you can see Rossi running the Rocky Run by typing in bib # 6099 into this link:

https://rm.gamefacemedia.com/races/1390/landing

I think there are a few more emails. I'll post anything interesting from them soon.

Hobby Ironmanner wrote:

Fire Barb McKeever! wrote:

Has anybody yet tried doing a search for sprained or swollen ankle pictures on Google? Rossi may well have injured himself but, due to his history of being a pathological liar, it's also possible that he found some pictures online and is using injury as a ready-made excuse for why he won't be meeting the brojos' challenge.

It would be awesome if we proved that he was faking an injury. I'll take a quick look to see if I find anything. I wouldn't expect most people to be THAT stupid, but this is Rossi we're talking about.

Didn't he say somewhere that he hurt his ankle AFTER the race? If so, that has no bearing on his race performance.

Stepped in a hole after the race is what he claimed.

Now do I believe it...meh...

His explanation of the slow start was. shoe malfunction. That was after the pic he posted being a good 15 rows back at the start of the 5K.

Now do I believe that either.... meh...

Rossi just has the most bizzare things to seem to happen to him.

Yes there is another legit runner called Michael Rossi who got mentioned early in this thread, a few people seemed to me to be trying to confuse the two intentionally.

Also when Rossi dropped the final "i" of his surname trying to hide for a 5K, one of our resident liars tried to create confusion with a different legit Mike Ross.

Hobby Ironmanner wrote:

Fire Barb McKeever! wrote:

Has anybody yet tried doing a search for sprained or swollen ankle pictures on Google? Rossi may well have injured himself but, due to his history of being a pathological liar, it's also possible that he found some pictures online and is using injury as a ready-made excuse for why he won't be meeting the brojos' challenge.

It would be awesome if we proved that he was faking an injury. I'll take a quick look to see if I find anything. I wouldn't expect most people to be THAT stupid, but this is Rossi we're talking about.

Didn't he say somewhere that he hurt his ankle AFTER the race? If so, that has no bearing on his race performance.

I know but it would show that he was lying to try to get out of racing a 5 km, since he knows that he can't go sub-20 by the end of the year without cheating. He's already manipulated images from the Lehigh Valley Marathon, in the hopes that his supporters would believe that they were of him on the course, so taking a photo from the internet wouldn't be without precedent.

Anyways, here's the link to the ankle pics:

I quickly scanned through the Google results for "sprained ankle", "swollen ankle", and "injured ankle" and I didn't see any matches. I'm inclined to believe that he did actually sprain his ankle after the race, although there are of course other possibilities, such as him taking a picture of a self-inflicted sprain years ago.

rojo wrote:

One guy emailed and said MIchael Rossi appears in the list of the Philadelphia Marathon this year at 3:17.

It's been discussed here many time before, but that is the other Mike Rossi runner and a totally legit one too.

It is pretty interesting how the post count falls into the cellar when Mike and Ken shut down their social media. I would love to know what percentage of posts they account for. I'm thinking way over 50%.

The pic he tweeted after the race is of his (or someone else's!) right ankle. If he did sprain it (the pictures look pretty bad) and he was at the race alone, he had drive all the way home from New Jersey using that foot. That would freaking hurt.

Also, if I had hurt myself like that after a race, I'd go the medial tent at the very least to ask for a bag of ice before I left for home.

Our Rossi is 48. He has listed his hometowns as Rydal, Jenkintown and Abington. As confusing as that seems they all may true, PA makes it very confusing.

No shortcuts wrote:

The pic he tweeted after the race is of his (or someone else's!) right ankle. If he did sprain it (the pictures look pretty bad) and he was at the race alone, he had drive all the way home from New Jersey using that foot. That would freaking hurt.

Also, if I had hurt myself like that after a race, I'd go the medial tent at the very least to ask for a bag of ice before I left for home.

I don't know... I've sprained a few ankles pretty badly over the years and they hurt like crazy when the sprain occured but the ankle usually doesn't swell up badly, with a concomitant loss of mobility, until several hours after the injury.

I had a pretty catastrophic right ankle injury last year, of which I'm still not 100% recovered, and was able to drive home after the injury. The gas and brake pedals don't require that much foot pressure to move.

I didn't say he couldn't drive home, I just said it would hurt. Besides, I'm guessing Mr. Rossi's threshold for pain might not be as high as yours or mine, or anyone else posting on this thread ;)

rojo wrote:

The article has totally taken off on social media. Sad to say it's way more popular than our recaps of Boston or New York Marathons.

The emails are streaming in as a result.

One guy emailed and said MIchael Rossi appears in the list of the Philadelphia Marathon this year at 3:17. But that Rossi appears to be a different guy. He's 52 years old and from Warrington PA.

http://live.xacte.com/templates/philadelphiamarathon.com/for-runners/race-results

How old is our Rossi? And what's his hometown again?

You can see the photos of that Rossi in Philly by typing in bib # 2945 here:

http://orders.islandphoto.com/RACE/Proofs.aspx#26871447-10887-0033

In other news, you can see Rossi running the Rocky Run by typing in bib # 6099 into this link:

https://rm.gamefacemedia.com/races/1390/landing

I think there are a few more emails. I'll post anything interesting from them soon.

unfortunately for this other guy, he has the same name as the cheater mike rossi. he is legit though.

She blocked me on Twitter as did Via:

I suggest following and tweeting to them at least until you get blocked to make this point clear. Bart Yasso too:

EZPass Mike wrote:

Barb McKeever -- do the right thing and DQ this cheater.

Same promise goes to you as it does Rossi - if you DQ him (or he admits he cheated), I am done mentioning you in this thread. I think a lot of others would, too.

I've heard back from Chuck with DQ events. Unfortunately, there is not enough basis at this point to DQ Rossi from the Turkey Trot. While it is obvious from our perspective that Rossi cheated, as Chuck said "As an athlete myself I am concerned over the integrity of the sport and this does send up a red flag but I really have no solid proof to dq him."Chuck timed this race for free -

yes we timed the Haddon Township Turkey Trot, which is a small time local race for charity, we chip time it with chronotrack timing system (used at NY Marathon) but we do not have a video of the start or the finish. The timing is donated to this race (I make nothing on the timing) so the charity makes more proceeds so we keep the costs of timing low.

So at this point, unless if someone comes up with clear pictures/video of the start that shows Rossi crossing quicker than the 42" chip offset in the results, or a witness that saw him cut the course, everyone should leave DQ Events & Chuck alone.

I am a little irritated that we had a 5k that people knew Rossi was going to run, and yet nobody showed up! Ken claimed he would be there, yet decided to stay in bed, I guess we shouldn't be surprised at that... I'm not putting any more effort into this. Certainly some of you that live in PA have friends that ran this race. Aren't there running clubs out there you can communicate with and come up with a photo or two of the start? Certainly somebody was video taping the start, somebody's mom, dad, or significant other... If you really want to find something, travel the race course looking for security cameras that face the course. We aren't even a week out, chances are good there is footage on a hard drive, but the more time goes by, the more likely it gets written over...

I live in MO, yet I found the photos of the start and had a post written/published by Sunday morning. Yet since then not a single person has found a photo of Rossi at that 5k. Disappointed...

Letsrun front page wrote:

If Mr. Rossi is going to take us up on the $100,000 challenge, we request one week’s notice and have the right to conduct one pre and one post-race drug test. Any positive test (according to WADA standards) or refusal to take a drug test will invalidate our offer.

J.R. wrote:

A one week's notice is quite fair, but asking him to allow invasive and subjective drug tests by you is petty and a major cop out on your part.

rojo wrote:

What's invasive about it? This guy has proven himself to be a course cutter. The only way he could possibly run 3:11 without cutting the course is drugs.

Seriously, a needle in your arm is extremely invasive, and can be quite dangerous too, i.e. people don't know what you're injecting in their bodies. Many people have died just from getting supposedly innocuous injections.

Secondly, you are taking a person's bodily fluids to examine at your leisure, which smacks of perversion to me, and is totally not acceptable.

It's a cop out because any drug test is meaningless and ambiguous, and you have to be a major drug supporter believer to think otherwise. Drugs don't help anyone to run any faster, and if you think so that just sucks, but what you are doing with your constant advertising is that they do and are great, which is total BS.

Regardless of that, any type of supposed performance enhancing drug test is GREATLY SUBJECT TO INTERPRETATION by the testers, by journalists, by the gullible public, and by trolls in the internet, certainly by yourselves who would be out by money and ego when and if Mike Rossi wins.

A good example of interpretation influence is Radcliffe having constant strange test results, deemed perfectly fine, and Yegorova being banned, just because Radcliffe said she is dirty and held up a sign. Another was Jacobs being banned by you on the internet, not surprisingly being banned officially, and with impossible conditions to appeal. Those are a couple of examples, there are many, right in everyone's face right out in public, and one can imagine the total lack of credibility that goes on in private.

Details of procedures nor the people in question's test results ever see light of day.

To try and impose such conditions on a 3:10 marathon is petty and a cop out.

The bottom line is, Mike Rossi breaks 3:10 and you pay, period, or else as far as I'm concerned, any other ludicrous qualifying conditions you want to add on, and he wins.

Did they have race photographers on the course? If so, we should be able to get some evidence one way or another.

J.R. wrote:

The bottom line is, Mike Rossi breaks 3:10 and you pay, period, or else as far as I'm concerned, any other ludicrous qualifying conditions you want to add on, and he wins.

LetsRun is the one paying out the money. They can set up conditions that Rossi can either accept or refuse.