Fantastic Johnny Gray interview now live

@CrenshawASB @CrenshawHigh

Just after the 800M Final at 2012 Trials I almost got trampled by Johnny Gray as he came bounding down the bleacher steps to jump on the track and congratulate Solomon on making the team (and getting the standard).

kmaclam wrote:

Just after the 800M Final at 2012 Trials I almost got trampled by Johnny Gray as he came bounding down the bleacher steps to jump on the track and congratulate Solomon on making the team (and getting the standard).

Those Los Angeles jocks never give up.

Jonathan Gault has done an excellent Q&A with Gray - who has held the 800 record a ridiculous 32 years. Gray share a lot in the no-holds-barred interview. Who does he think has more potential – Clayton Murphy, Donavan Brazier or Boris Berian? Does he have doubts about Ajee Wilson after her positive test? All of that and more.

Should be a nice a nice way to help get you over hump day.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/10/johnny-gray-talks-american-800-record-32-years-considered-taking-drugs-thoughts-ajee-wilson/

kmaclam wrote:

Just after the 800M Final at 2012 Trials I almost got trampled by Johnny Gray as he came bounding down the bleacher steps to jump on the track and congratulate Solomon on making the team (and getting the standard).

Such an amazing run.

Johnny Grays honesty is very refreshing. He doesn't hide from telling it how it is.

And he sure was a great runner. If he had cheated he could have been in Coe's shoes now.

So he's accusing Billy Konchellah, Ajee Wilson and Charlene Lipsey of doping

hey rojo, or anyone...can you give a summary of what he said?

Quite a shame he ends this interview with speculation and innuendo. Few things:

In his day, testing was a joke. Now, they actually pick up things like insignificant trace amounts of a non-steroid and make you take 3 months off of competition and prove what happened.

He can improve 3 seconds in one year but he wants to implicate Lipsey for also breaking through? He knows "they eat the same thing"? Of course not, because they don't even live together as he submits. He knows nothing about their training program, diet, coach, etc, let alone the circumstances, resulting tests, evidence gathering and process Ajee went through to get cleared.

There is a line between being candid and then being responsible for what you say. This crosses the line. It would have only been fair for Letsrun to couch his comments with facts instead of letting him speculate wildly and drag people down and then promoting it in the headline.

Dude it's his opinion. Just like the opinion of the baying LR trolls. I enjoyed this interview...I watched JG during his glory days of the 80s/early 90s and he always made it an honest race. Everyone knew what was coming when he lined up. He was also very consistent. He's right that drug users glow... we can all read their signs, classic being the 153-->143 progression in very short timeframes to peak for major games (yes I know that he may not have gotten the exact times correct, but we all understand the point he is making, Ramzi et al).

One thing that came out from this interview was the contrast between his good swing training methodology and the Nazi system used by his opponent Coe... although I get his point about running for the clock causing angst and defeating the purpose, I wonder if this leads to an inability to gauge pace and rationalize what's happening in ways that support good race decision making.

After reading this

"And I got tripped. Nobody never mentioned anything about me getting tripped with 150 to go. But Jose Barbosa tripped me. The announcers were so busy talking about everybody else, they didn’t even notice me getting tripped. And I almost fell, I took two long strides and lost my composure and that is what made me tie up. Because I wasn’t tied up at that point. I was ready to hit a gear and go for it, but then when I got tripped,"

I expected to see a video of Gray almost hitting the track face first, and it turns out that Barbosa gave him a nudge...nothing by standards of typical championship middle-distance running. Gray is about the most unreliable witness ever, even with video proof. He obviously ran from the front in terror of getting nudged.

Gray is proof that even knuckleheads can run very fast in occasion.

rojo wrote:

Jonathan Gault has done an excellent Q&A with Gray - who has held the 800 record a ridiculous 32 years. Gray share a lot in the no-holds-barred interview. Who does he think has more potential – Clayton Murphy, Donavan Brazier or Boris Berian? Does he have doubts about Ajee Wilson after her positive test? All of that and more.

Should be a nice a nice way to help get you over hump day.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/10/johnny-gray-talks-american-800-record-32-years-considered-taking-drugs-thoughts-ajee-wilson/

In the day he was rude and arrogant. I remember him in Atlanta and many other meets. Its one thing to get an interview or read about somebody, its another to be around them when your involved in sport. You see true colors and all sides.

When I read "will go live" I assumed that audio would be up.

No?

Not so pretty wrote:

rojo wrote:

Jonathan Gault has done an excellent Q&A with Gray - who has held the 800 record a ridiculous 32 years. Gray share a lot in the no-holds-barred interview. Who does he think has more potential – Clayton Murphy, Donavan Brazier or Boris Berian? Does he have doubts about Ajee Wilson after her positive test? All of that and more.

Should be a nice a nice way to help get you over hump day.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/10/johnny-gray-talks-american-800-record-32-years-considered-taking-drugs-thoughts-ajee-wilson/

In the day he was rude and arrogant. I remember him in Atlanta and many other meets. Its one thing to get an interview or read about somebody, its another to be around them when your involved in sport. You see true colors and all sides.

Growing up in South Central puts a razor sharp hard edge on you that you can never retreat from

Where were you when Flanagan accused Rupp and Hasay of doping? ...and they never got busted...unlike Wilson

It was fun to hear him accuse people of using PEDs, but I would probably stop short of saying that it was a fantastic interview. Nice work for sure.

Not so pretty wrote:

In the day he was rude and arrogant. I remember him in Atlanta and many other meets. Its one thing to get an interview or read about somebody, its another to be around them when your involved in sport. You see true colors and all sides.

I met Johnny at the 96 Trials. He was in lobby of hotel before we went to some club. I had just graduated college. I thought he was super friendly but then again I might have been star struck.

I appreciate Gray's candidness, but refusing to name athletes from decades ago who took medals away from him, while at the same basically naming a current U.S. athlete is not good. Wilson does not fit with his own logic as in an athlete running 1:53 and the 1:43 a few weeks later. Wilson has made what looks like a normal progression and anyone who has followed her career should not be surprised by her current performances. Wilson was found to have trace amounts of Zeranol in her body. The amount of Zeranol was way below what's required to have performance enhancing capabilities and was consistent with inadvertent usage. Wilson was able to provide a sample of what she ate and proof of purchase. Zeranol would be a poor choice of dope for a number of reasons, it requires sustained use of over a long period of time, it been on the ban list for over 15 years and is easily detected. Perhaps the most important thing that points to Wilson unintentionally doping is the fact that she had her best season after testing positive.

wejo wrote:

Not so pretty wrote:

In the day he was rude and arrogant. I remember him in Atlanta and many other meets. Its one thing to get an interview or read about somebody, its another to be around them when your involved in sport. You see true colors and all sides.

I met Johnny at the 96 Trials. He was in lobby of hotel before we went to some club. I had just graduated college. I thought he was super friendly but then again I might have been star struck.

I've been around Gray on several occasions and had the misfortune of competing against him twice; I have never head anyone refer to Gray as "super friendly". That entire SMTC group was pretty much in their own orbit.