As someone who became a fan of running during Ryan Hall's heyday, I couldn't have imagined a much more exciting development for US distance running than an American-born athlete winning the Boston Marathon. Well, it certainly seems inevitable that Galen is going to win Boston this year, but for me the accomplishment will ring hollow and engender little more than a shrug (just as his Chicago victory did).
It's truly unfortunate; I vividly remember skipping class to watch Hall run Boston in 09, 10, and 11, and even though he didn't win, I found his performances to be compelling and inspiring. And I always thought it would be so, so cool if an American-born runner ever somehow managed to win Boston. But for it to be Rupp after all we've learned from the ProPublica and USADA reports ... man, what a bummer.
An intelligent person can't read all the facts in the USADA report and NOT come to the conclusion that Rupp and Salazar have almost certainly violated antidoping rules. More specifically, based on the facts, it's HIGHLY likely that Rupp and Salazar have abused synthetic testosterone for performance gains. (So spare me your cries of "Rupp and Salazar only operate in the gray area" because that's not remotely true.) Consequently, when Galen wins, it'll do nothing to show that CLEAN American-born athletes can compete with the top East Africans in the marathon. At least in my mind.
I hope this post doesn't get deleted. I can't be the only running fan who feels this way.