Marlon Bascombe Coach of Lean.Strong.Fast Suspected of Cheating for BQ

Take a person with natural intellectual curiosity, give them a bunch of tools that are available with modern technology (timing mats, online results, athlinks, marathonfoto), and set them about a puzzle relating to something that they are interested in, and putting that puzzle together seems pretty natural to me.

Let's be honest, most runners are a little obsessive compulsive in the first place. So you throw that in with the above, and none of what Derek is doing seems all that odd to me, to be honest.

Finally, when you start getting attention for it, and it helps you make some cash in ad space on your website, and you can also truly take the moral high road - this is pretty easy to relate to.

I just like to say something to Marlon.

Every Step you take
Every Breath you make
I'll be watching you.

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Smoove wrote:

Take a person with natural intellectual curiosity, give them a bunch of tools that are available with modern technology (timing mats, online results, athlinks, marathonfoto), and set them about a puzzle relating to something that they are interested in, and putting that puzzle together seems pretty natural to me.

Let's be honest, most runners are a little obsessive compulsive in the first place. So you throw that in with the above, and none of what Derek is doing seems all that odd to me, to be honest.

Finally, when you start getting attention for it, and it helps you make some cash in ad space on your website, and you can also truly take the moral high road - this is pretty easy to relate to.

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I think its cool that doublr's got his own troll. I hope he sees it as an accomplishment. It sure sounds like the vast majority of them are the same dude with different names. He called him out by name on Bascombe the thread on his blog and the dude threw a hissy fit. Apparently he's under the impression that you can't put someone's first and last name on the internet without their permission.

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Mr. T. wrote:

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Smoove wrote:

Take a person with natural intellectual curiosity, give them a bunch of tools that are available with modern technology (timing mats, online results, athlinks, marathonfoto), and set them about a puzzle relating to something that they are interested in, and putting that puzzle together seems pretty natural to me.

Let's be honest, most runners are a little obsessive compulsive in the first place. So you throw that in with the above, and none of what Derek is doing seems all that odd to me, to be honest.

Finally, when you start getting attention for it, and it helps you make some cash in ad space on your website, and you can also truly take the moral high road - this is pretty easy to relate to.

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The first part - yes.

The second part - yes

The public shaming and outing is going beyond intellectual curiosity and morphs into something more. Again, he does puts up the info without giving them a chance to respond. He says he will retract, but only later. It's like shooting first and asking questions later - the damage is done by the shot.

the public shame is the part of the attempt to monetize it. TMZ does it, Fox news does it. That's what makes it unseemly to me.

If Derek really just wanted to make the races more honest, he wouldn't need to try to capitalize on it. (not his website misstates the number of visitors as he uses page views and visitors) He could report the people to the RDs and get on with this life. there have been other people who have done this.

But he has to set up his "blog," shame people People say "well, they deserve it because they cheated" Their only punishment should be banishment from the races (but it's not like you can stop them from running,. Even drug cheats still race) Many of Derek's victims are harassed on social media and more. they don't deserve that. It's like imagine if everyone knew one of your mistakes and put it on a blog and promoted it for money.

I don't think Derek is a legally sound as he seems to think. someone will find a creative way to use the courts. You can't use the internet to harass people under federal law.

my 2cents

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Peter bloke wrote:

Derek,

Your math is wrong


Boston has 30,000 entries - The actual number is always more than 30,000 by a couple of hundred.

You said 54 were deemed invalid for 2015 and you claim (without any documentation other than a hunch) that as many as 200 may have been ineligible to run.

200/30000 = Less than 1%

even the outside estimate of 400/30000 = Less than 1.5%

So it is a small problem that you are trying to make seem worse. I suspect that your "number" of cheaters will go up as you attempt to validate your efforts.

It's also conceivable that there are more people who get entries from other ways - not charity, not qualification - than who cheat.

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Are you afraid he'll catch you?

To those on the site complaining of doubler's "public shaming" of those suspected of blatant cheating, do not forget that many of the suspected cheaters brought the attention to themselves by crowing about their coveted BQs on social media, blogs, websites etc. As someone else put it, they are getting the attention they crave but not the desired type of attention. All doubler does is put publically accessible information out there and asks them to explain the results. He does not name call etc.

I think calling out those who not so humbly brag about their running accomplishments is fair game if those accomplishments are questionable. Making someone think twice about cheating in a race is fine by me. Quietly having them dq'd does nothing. And more often than not it works - some have admitted, some have been dq'd. Did Litton and Rossi deserve their fates? I think so.

The cheating epidemic is fascinatingly entertaining, pathetic, and a very interesting phenomenon of narcissism. I look forward to reading more on his site and this one.

Marlon and Derek, thank you, thank you, thank you.

You are right, I was going off the top of my head. The 1% was the conservative estimate.

Don't count the charity runners. The # was based on those that have bibs through qualifying.

Call it 25000 qualified runners - non charity - non exemption.

1409 runners reviewed - 53 deemed to have cheated with 100% certainty.

On the bottom end of where we reviewed, the incidence rate was about 2%.

Being conservative, if 1% of the runners I didn't review cheated, that gets you to 236 additional - 289 estimated total. The 400 estimate was factoring in those we couldn't quite prove 100% and factoring a 1.5% overall rate for the runners we didn't review.

As I state on the blog - we plan to review a decent # of the non flagged runners to get a real estimate of the rest.

Also that doesn't factor in those that Boston DQs for cutting, riding a bike, or whatever.

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Math major wrote:

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Peter bloke wrote:

Derek,

Your math is wrong


Boston has 30,000 entries - The actual number is always more than 30,000 by a couple of hundred.

You said 54 were deemed invalid for 2015 and you claim (without any documentation other than a hunch) that as many as 200 may have been ineligible to run.

200/30000 = Less than 1%

even the outside estimate of 400/30000 = Less than 1.5%

So it is a small problem that you are trying to make seem worse. I suspect that your "number" of cheaters will go up as you attempt to validate your efforts.

It's also conceivable that there are more people who get entries from other ways - not charity, not qualification - than who cheat.

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But he only names like 3-4 people that he thinks cheated on ghe blog. Who are the other 396 or even 196? Seems like he is making up numbers on pure speculation.

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give a guy a break wrote:

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saaaaaaaaaaaaaaa wrote:

doubler do you have a family?

I feel bad for them if you do.

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So he found something he's passionate about and enjoys doing as a hobby after the family has gone to bed.

I'll admit that I sometimes feel bad for some of these people who get exposed, but aren't they bringing it down on themselves?

And .. it makes me think twice these days if I consider doing something unethical.

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To the 'doubler' detractors. wrote:
Yeah, he's doing something a few people think he shouldn't, so friggin what, they should get over it and move on otherwise they come across as the same as the person they're having a go at. Incidentally, there seem to be more in favor than against.
.

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Call out Cheats wrote:

Quite a heated debate going on about Marlon Bascombe Coach of Lean.Strong.Fast in the NYC area. It looks like a pretty clear case of cheating and fraud to gain entry into Boston this year.

Full details at: http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2016/05/suspicious-boston-qualifying-result-for.html

Derek has done a good job presenting the evidence here. Looks like Marlon took after Mike Rossi and found a route to cut the course of his chosen BQ marathon and was the ONLY runner to have not recorded times at the intermediate timing mats that also finished.

His prior race results do not show anywhere near his BQ level of fitness, he has claimed he once ran a marathon on his own that he doesn't have data on but you have to believe him that was at this level of fitness. He also appears to have edited other race results on Nike + like our friend Mike Rossi.

Given Marlon has a following and a coach, he should be held to an even higher standard than your everyday hobby jogger cheat. His case is far more severe than Gia Alvarez who was outed and ultimately apologized and took ownership of her actions.

What do you think LRC? Should we force the issue and demand his accountability and an apology? Seems to be a very vigorous debate already going on elsewhere so wanted to add it here as I am surprised it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

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5 wrote:

Terrible!
What is it that keeps being said about Mike Rossi cheating? is there evidence?
He likes to post everything and anything on his FB page. He seems pretty impressed with himself. I would love to see any evidence of him cheating.

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Mr. T. wrote:

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Smoove wrote:

Take a person with natural intellectual curiosity, give them a bunch of tools that are available with modern technology (timing mats, online results, athlinks, marathonfoto), and set them about a puzzle relating to something that they are interested in, and putting that puzzle together seems pretty natural to me.

Let's be honest, most runners are a little obsessive compulsive in the first place. So you throw that in with the above, and none of what Derek is doing seems all that odd to me, to be honest.

Finally, when you start getting attention for it, and it helps you make some cash in ad space on your website, and you can also truly take the moral high road - this is pretty easy to relate to.

---

The first part - yes.

The second part - yes

The public shaming and outing is going beyond intellectual curiosity and morphs into something more. Again, he does puts up the info without giving them a chance to respond. He says he will retract, but only later. It's like shooting first and asking questions later - the damage is done by the shot.

the public shame is the part of the attempt to monetize it. TMZ does it, Fox news does it. That's what makes it unseemly to me.

If Derek really just wanted to make the races more honest, he wouldn't need to try to capitalize on it. (not his website misstates the number of visitors as he uses page views and visitors) He could report the people to the RDs and get on with this life. there have been other people who have done this.

But he has to set up his "blog," shame people People say "well, they deserve it because they cheated" Their only punishment should be banishment from the races (but it's not like you can stop them from running,. Even drug cheats still race) Many of Derek's victims are harassed on social media and more. they don't deserve that. It's like imagine if everyone knew one of your mistakes and put it on a blog and promoted it for money.

I don't think Derek is a legally sound as he seems to think. someone will find a creative way to use the courts. You can't use the internet to harass people under federal law.

my 2cents

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There is a simple method of not being publically named and shamed for cheating in races, don't cheat or if you must cheat, don't draw attention to yourselves and own up when found out.
If Doubler's considerable efforts dissuade would-be cheaters then he is doing a valuable service, if cheats aren't dissuaded we can only assume that potentially getting caught and outed is part of the thrill for them.
Apologists for cheats are no better than the cheat and people who do the whole "haven't you got something better you could be doing?" are morons.

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doubler wrote:

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Math major wrote:

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Peter bloke wrote:

Derek,

Your math is wrong


Boston has 30,000 entries - The actual number is always more than 30,000 by a couple of hundred.

You said 54 were deemed invalid for 2015 and you claim (without any documentation other than a hunch) that as many as 200 may have been ineligible to run.

200/30000 = Less than 1%

even the outside estimate of 400/30000 = Less than 1.5%

So it is a small problem that you are trying to make seem worse. I suspect that your "number" of cheaters will go up as you attempt to validate your efforts.

It's also conceivable that there are more people who get entries from other ways - not charity, not qualification - than who cheat.

---

But he only names like 3-4 people that he thinks cheated on ghe blog. Who are the other 396 or even 196? Seems like he is making up numbers on pure speculation.

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Found 53 from 2015 with 100% certainty. I estimated the % of cheating in the rest of the field. This year, we will review groupings outside of the flagged runners to get a better estimate.

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wrecktangle wrote:

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To the 'doubler' detractors. wrote:
Yeah, he's doing something a few people think he shouldn't, so friggin what, they should get over it and move on otherwise they come across as the same as the person they're having a go at. Incidentally, there seem to be more in favor than against.
.

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I think there is a real possibility the few people who don't like what he's doing are the cheaters or the cheaters friends. So many people have already pointed out the obvious - there is a reason people cheat at marathons and it's not to keep their time a secret. They want the public attention. Well, that cuts both ways. The real simple solution is to simply not cheat. If you do cheat, those that are forgotten quickly are the ones that apologize. So, apologize if you get caught.

Personally - much like true crime - I find the marathon cheating stories interesting. I don't think it's public shaming at all, I think it's public interest. It's just so crazy the lengths people go to and crazy people are interesting.

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