Salvatore Stitchmo wrote:
Okay couple of things
1) Of course Nike are backing him - what else are they going to do? Fire him? Riiiight - because what happens then is Alberto just releases emails, texts, everything that has gone on between those walls involving himself, Matt, Phil, Cap - f%$king all of them. And the reality is Nike are backing him not because they probably even like or care for him - it's because the other option is simply bad for business.
2) I'm kind of interested to understand the "none of his athletes have tested positive for anything so what has he done wrong anyways" narrative. I mean we are at least all in agreement he was doing SOMETHING right? I mean he's an athletic coach who is employed to make his athletes better and has been involved in actions (deemed illegal) that make athletes better. I mean he isn't conducting experiments on his son, working closely with doctors and behaving like a mad scientist with anything he possibly believes improves athletic performance for the sake of his f%$king memoirs okay?
And of course not all of the NOP cheat, as I said in another post and as Kara Goucher alluded to in her "testimony", it's only with a select group of athletes where the benefit to Nike the brand outweighs the risk of what's going on. That's why you saw Galens name on charts mapping his testosterone that were updated daily, why Mo (forgot he) had a vial of adrenaline in his backpack at airport security going through Heathrow back in 2012, why Ritz ran 12.56 despite being a 13.10 talent and why Matthew Centrowitz left a coach that took him to an Olympic title at the age of 26.
Okay, none of his athletes fail drug tests. But all of them essentially have the best of every important biochemical metric that you need to be good distance runners. All have maximum hematocrit and testosterone levels as allowable by law, boosted by artificial means. All have thyroid conditions, all have asthma - all things that require performance enhancing substances to control.
So my ultimate question is to those of you supporting this, those of you who believe this is an unjust witch-hunt, is there any value to you whatsoever in the concept of natural human sport? And by this I mean the inherent physiological differences that each and every one of possess that make us unique as humans and athletes - that someone may have naturally high testosterone but low hematocrit and vice versa. That someones lung capillaries absorb more than others, yet have a lower VO2 max, and vice versa. That it's the combination and compromise our bodies have and make along with how we attempt to evolve it through athletic activity is the real essence of sport and human competition.
Because if we all have maxed out testosterone, hematocrit, oxygen uptake, VO2max, vVO2max and everything else we can manipulate to the point of scientific plausibility then what the f%$k is exactly supposed to make sport interesting? What is the difference between running and robot wars? If everybody could do what Nike, Alberto Salazar and the NOP do is it really interesting anymore? I think if we ever got to that you may change your minds.
But please, feel free to answer my question - I'd love to know the answer.