notaNOPfanboy wrote:
It sounds like we can add Rohatinsky to the list of former NOP athletes who don't believe Rupp's success can be strictly attributed to hard work. Here is a post from his Facebook page:
Lengthy post regarding Alberto Salazar and Galen Rupp for those that are interested. I’ve received loads of questions from people wondering about my take on the recent news the report, so I figured it would be helpful to share a post with some context and my thoughts. In case you don’t have them, links to the article and documentary are below. Read on if you’re interested, and if so please feel free to share this post on your pages to extend the reach of all this.
1. MY BACKGROUND WITH ALBERTO. I trained under Alberto and alongside Galen, Adam and Kara Goucher, and Amy Begley from July 2007 through July 2009, and spent the remaining year and a half of my time in Portland with Jerry Schumacher and his group. For the two years I was part of Alberto’s group we trained together on a daily basis, traveled together, competed together, etc. I was with them day in and day out.
2. WALL OF SEPARATION. The entire time I was with the group there was always what I would call a wall of separation between Alberto/Galen and the rest of the group. Galen was very much Alberto’s son while the rest of the group were his athletes. In saying this I will give credit to Alberto – he worked his butt off for all of us and was very dedicated to taking care of the needs of everyone in the group. But that wall was always there, and the level of secrecy and seclusion was definitely palpable.
3. GRAY AREA. The best way I can describe it is exactly how others have – that Alberto and Galen live in the gray area of the sport. This wasn’t evident to me at the time, but definitely is now years later. The example of Alex (Alberto’s son) testing out testosterone cream and micro-dosing is a perfect example. Alberto is very much a combination of a mad scientist and a pharmacist, and it just became commonplace - I didn’t pay attention to it because it didn’t involve me.
4. SUPPLEMENTS. The only supplements Alberto ever asked me to take were testoboost (do not confuse with testosterone), which was mentioned in the article and is legal, and Alpha Male, which he indicated was legal as well but I never followed up on. These were meant to be taken daily, and I took them both 2 or 3 times and then made a conscious decision to stay away from anything that wasn’t a multivitamin, just to be safe. I was never asked to take anything besides those products – in pill form, cream form, or anything else.
5. GALEN’S PROGRESS. Galen was improving during my time with the group and began making World Championship teams and so forth. He obviously didn’t peak until a few years after I left, when he took silver in London in the 10k. I have to admit, watching that race live was surreal to me. Seeing someone I had trained with consistently for two years not too long before - and beaten several times in races in the years prior to that in college - push through that last lap and accelerate on the homestretch to beat the likes of the Bekele brothers was incredible. And when I say incredible I mean it in the literal sense of the word. How does that amount of progress happen in that short of a time frame? Supporters always point to hard work, but let me break it to you – we all worked our butts off. It reminds me of the Lance Armstrong commercial, “What Am I On?” (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIl5RxhLZ5U). As everyone knew long before he got busted, that pathetic liar was “on” a lot more than his bike. Alberto himself said back around the year 2000 that he believes it’s near impossible to medal in a distance event clean. Did the sport get any cleaner from 2000-2012 to make that possible? No. Galen’s progression from 2006-2012 was highly suspicious to me, particularly since I spent two of those six years with him. Again, he worked his butt off and I can attest to that – but even with that, the progression just doesn’t add up to me.
6. CONTACTED BY INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS. I am one of the 12 individuals mentioned in the documentary that were contacted. I was contacted several times over the past few years by reporters from BBC wanting to get some information from me surrounding this investigation. As recently as a month ago I spoke with Dave Epstein by phone and exchanged several emails with him. The information above is virtually the same content I was able to provide to him, which is obviously not much.
7. I BELIEVE THE WITNESSES AND THE REPORT. I absolutely believe the full extent of the evidence brought forth in the report/documentary by all the witnesses - the Gouchers, John Stiner, and Steve Magness. I know the Gouchers personally and thank them for their work on this. I also was with the team and John Stiner at the altitude camp he spoke about in Park City, and believe his report as well. I have never met Steve but from all accounts believe him to be an honest individual. Furthermore, I firmly believe that any and all PED activity within the NOP while I was there was limited to Galen Rupp. It’s evident from interviews with individuals like Kara Goucher that Alberto tried to push some of this on other athletes to some extent, but they had the integrity to question it and turn it down. Kudos to them. And as I mentioned before, I personally was never asked to take anything besides what was mentioned above.
8. SUMMARY. I hate cheating. Period. The win-at-all-costs mentality is sick. I feel bad for the fools caught up in it and frustrated that I was as trusting as I was. Is there a smoking gun to all of this? No, at least not yet. But the odds of all of these independent accounts being untrue and unsubstantiated gets lower and lower with each independent account.