What Would Epstein do? wrote:
Epstein isn't Jesus, doesn't walk on water, and is not beyond a rush to judgement, while trying to pile on something the BBC had conned him into thinking had real evidence.
Epstein effed up.
Wait for it, Radar O'Reilly.
As I said, I'm deeply divided about Salazar. Anyone old enough to throw around M*A*S*H references is old enough remember Salazar from the Duel in the Sun days, and of course part of me can't help but love someone who would run himself so hard that he was once administered last rites after crossing the finish line. (C'mon, he was muy guapo back in the day, to boot.)
But we're talking about Salazar as coach here, and I have a much harder time with that. Do I think that same indomitable will that drove him to running greatness as a young man might be a bit of a double-edged sword in the context of him being a coach? Quite possibly.
I'm not interested in what I personally believe is pretty hare-brained speculation about things like EPO micro-dosing. Look, this isn't cycling, where several members of the peloton dropped dead from turning their blood to heart-stopping treacle on EPO. However, I do think it's eminently possible that Salazar walked right up to the line of what is explicitly banned without ever technically crossing it, because he's like that: competitive, detail-oriented, go-big-or-go-home.
And that's where I think Epstein has done some really good work. If you actually listen, start to finish, to his interview with Lauren Fleshman, it's not a sensationalistic witch-hunt. Fleshman credits Salazar with reaching out to her after she left Nike and introducing her to the sports psychologist who she says saved her career, and says "He just wanted me to succeed... Alberto cares... I really believe he wants to do things the right way... I believe that he justifies, at least to himself, that he's doing things legally and in the interest of his athletes. And I believe that if it was decided that it was no longer okay to use medical exemptions in this way, that he would stop doing it."
Prior to that, Epstein says: "...I've reported unorthodox medicine and doping stories in a lot of sports, and never have I kind of experienced what I did with this story, in terms of the athletes almost rising up and wanting public discussion of things that AREN'T banned... Having a discussion of how they want their sport to be, basically. And in every other sport it was usually -- well, first of all, there was a lot of... omerta, not even talking about it. But then it was more like, 'Well, that's not strictly illegal, so it's fine.' And it seems like we're at this different point that I don't ever remember in any sport, in track and field where people are discussing what they want the sport to be, regardless of what the current rules are, necessarily -- if someone's just on the right side of it, or just on the wrong side of it."
Just as cycling has begun ushering in a new generation of young athletes who are not confronted with the same terrible, limited choices as those riding 15-20 years ago, the same can happen for track and field. What's important is not a referendum on Salazar, but about continuing to move the sport forward and freeing the stars of tomorrow from shouldering a difficult and dubious legacy.
Enter the young -- I would say "Wait for it," but hell, they're already here.