Goucher: I didn't go to Rio because Shalane and Amy wore VFs (which is the same as EPO)

Rupp Fan Boy wrote:

rojo wrote:

I don't understand the vitriol for Goucher.

She is off-putting because she is always complaining about things and doing so with lots of exaggeration and drama.

Back to the subject matter:

The argument she missed the Olympics because of the shoes is flawed. The Olympic Trials are not a time trial but a championship race. Even if these early VFs conveyed an advantage, we don't know without them how a championship race would have played out. Ie, the top three may have finished even faster if Goucher was threatening them.

I think the quote is missing a word. The Vaporfly and EPO weren't the same in that one was clearly illegal. The quote should have been along the lines of "EPO and VaporFly have about the same level of performance enhancement". That is somewhat debateable (i.e. who knows if EPO is worth 2 mins or 5 mins over a marathon) but an argument you can defend.

That being said, this is type of analogy that shouldn't be made. Just say that research suggest those shoes were 2 mins faster than what I was wearing and that was the difference between making the team and not. When the Swim suits were being debated, nobody compared them to taking steriods.

Kara Grouchier wrote:

Apparently now hubby is upset that his darling wife is not as adoring to others as she is to him. It's comical how he describes her, you would think she is Mother Teresa or something.

https://twitter.com/Adam_Goucher/status/1220011668106702849?s=20

Adam you and Kara should have reported Salazar when you were still employed by Nike >Same with Fleshman .

Adam you and Kara should have reported Salazar when you were still employed by Nike >Same with Fleshman .[/quote]

Yes, because whistle-blowing against your current employer is always a safe bet.

Of course, they are athletes, so they don't actually need an income, because they live on Mt Olympus and everything is free there.

Kara Grouchier wrote:

Apparently now hubby is upset that his darling wife is not as adoring to others as she is to him. It's comical how he describes her, you would think she is Mother Teresa or something.

https://twitter.com/Adam_Goucher/status/1220011668106702849?s=20

Seriously. She should stop going out there and annoying everyone with ridiculous statements like wearing legal shoes is the moral equivalence of taking illegal drugs.

"Adam Goucher

It is exhausting to watch my wife fight for integrity and fairness in our sport for current and future generations, only to watch her be smeared, ridiculed, and degraded."

When will people learn that if you put yourself out there and live by social media, PR, media in general, forums, etc, then, rightly or wrongly, that's what you die by.

If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

This is true, but the Gouchers are still brave and are heroes!

Black Market Bob wrote:

Kara Grouchier wrote:

Apparently now hubby is upset that his darling wife is not as adoring to others as she is to him. It's comical how he describes her, you would think she is Mother Teresa or something.

https://twitter.com/Adam_Goucher/status/1220011668106702849?s=20

Adam you and Kara should have reported Salazar when you were still employed by Nike >Same with Fleshman .

This is true, but the Gouchers are still brave and are heroes!

wow wow wrote:

I'm glad she spoke up. Nike broke the rules about what shoes are allowed and nothing has been done about it!

Kara looked great during the OT.

Ironic that Skechers started with similar bouncy technology. She also had an advantage wearing Skechers.

Man of bastardised metaphors. wrote:

"Adam Goucher

It is exhausting to watch my wife fight for integrity and fairness in our sport for current and future generations, only to watch her be smeared, ridiculed, and degraded."

When will people learn that if you put yourself out there and live by social media, PR, media in general, forums, etc, then, rightly or wrongly, that's what you die by.

If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

___________________________

This is obviously true about social media, but people are also being ridiculous. Nike is the most powerful company in sports, yet when former athletes speak out about their shadiness and abuse, they are ridiculed as cry babies. Very few people have any idea what it's like to be a professional athlete, much less a professional athlete and whistleblower against a corporate powerhouse with the resources to ruin you, personally and professionally.

How many athletes have to speak out about the problems at Nike before you believe them?

With regard to the Kara hatred, I think some people (mostly men) are enraged by a woman who wears her emotions on her sleeve, is very attractive, and has an incredible athletic resume. It's one thing to dislike a person based on their personality and other traits; it takes things up a notch when this dislike is layered with desire. Hatred is the flip side of positive emotions, like love and attraction.

Man of bastardised metaphors. wrote:

"Adam Goucher

It is exhausting to watch my wife fight for integrity and fairness in our sport for current and future generations, only to watch her be smeared, ridiculed, and degraded."

When will people learn that if you put yourself out there and live by social media, PR, media in general, forums, etc, then, rightly or wrongly, that's what you die by.

If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable statement by Adam Goucher. He doesn't like seeing his wife insulted, especially when he believes she is fighting for positive changes. What's wrong with that? Why shouldn't he say that? Just because you're on social media, doesn't mean you are thereby obligated to happily accept all insults hurled your way.

To add to the previous poster's analysis of why there is such resentment towards the Gouchers (from some quarters), I think another factor is that the people doing the complaining are pro-authoritarian types. They don't like the Gouchers because they took on "The Authority" - in this case, Nike. In these people's views, the Gouchers should have accepted their fates and kept their mouths shut. Same with Kara feeling gypped over what happened at the 2016 Trials: keep your thoughts to yourself. Never question the decisions of the powers-that-be! Just stoically accept your fate. And when your wife receives numerous insults over social media, accept that too! One should never complain about anything, because ultimately, it is all your own fault for not keeping in line.

In general, in social situations in which there is an obvious bully and someone trying to fight the bully, many people (perhaps counterintuitively) take the side of the bully. A large chunk of the populace loves strongmen. When they see someone defying their beloved strongman, they become infuriated and vengeful towards the defiant person.

1. Kara last week quoted "people get a life " for people who are on social troll sites . Her reactions say she and Adam must spend all day on this site .

2. And inside knowledge , Kara demeaning the accomplishments of certain Nike athletes has not gone unnoticed .

How much do you charge her to live inside your head?

So much silliness here. Kara's getting flack because of the outrageousness of what she says, and ridiculous attempt to "what if" herself into Rio.

> Honestly, I felt devastated. I felt like something I had worked so hard for had been stolen from me, similar to how I felt when I learned people ahead of me were doping. I could handle not being good enough to make our team, but learning that a propulsion device in a shoe might have kept me out was just devastating

People with potentially better shoes is not the same thing as doping. There was no "propulsion device" in the shoes.

On her twitter feed she says there are "spring like" devices in the shoes. All shoes with any foam are "spring like". Zoomx is just a slightly less crappy spring than other foams.

The total nonsense she spouts about propulsion and springs and it being "on part with EPO" is why she's being derided. If she had given an interview saying "it sucks that I had switched to sketchers at exactly the wrong time... Despite all my saying differently through my career as a spokesperson for various brands, I truly thought that shoes make no difference... Oh well, life goes on." I at least wouldn't have anything to complain about. She made a decision (that very well might have been the right one!) and is now blaming others for the outcome.

On twitter, someone asked her if she ever wore prototype or custom made shoes. Of course she did... and obviously it was in search of an edge. It's great that she feels conflicted about it now... but after the fact blaming others with tons of bogus claims for not getting to Rio is a bad look.

Any prototype shoe that is not available to the public is illegal. That is a fact. It doesn’t matter whether it works or makes a difference in results it is still illegal.

Therefore Shalane and Amy used an illegal product in the 2016 Trials.

That is a fact.

Black market Bob - you clearly have a personal issue with Kara Goucher. However, that in itself doesn't affect the point being debated about whether or not Nike's athletes had an unfair advantage thanks to their shoes in 2016. And it's not just Kara who was affected. She was 4th in the US Trials, so being the first finisher not to qualify makes her one of the people most likely to have been affected; more so than, say, the 50th place finisher. Likewise, it is an especially important issue for the 4th, 5th, 6th place finishers in the Olympic Marathon, etc.

The point being, your issues with Goucher (which in my opinion are just tedious to read about) are merely a distraction from the actual issue of whether or not she raised a valid point, which I think she clearly did.

Kara Grouchier wrote:

Apparently now hubby is upset that his darling wife is not as adoring to others as she is to him. It's comical how he describes her, you would think she is Mother Teresa or something.

https://twitter.com/Adam_Goucher/status/1220011668106702849?s=20

So much conflating. It's wonderful that Kara is fighting against doping. Seriously.

But implying that her interview on vaporflys in the OTs had anything to do with "integrity" is supremely insulting to Amy and Shalane.

this is the silliest of arguments. Literally every top tier elite runner runs races in prototypes or customized shoes not available to the public.

The rules have been extremely vague for a long time and never enforced. It's absurd to suddenly demand enforcement and claim cheating/unfairness/unethicalness/whatever at some arbitrary point in time in pursuit of an agenda.

If WA wants to make clear rules, that's fine. But applying some standard that was never previously applied screams of of an agenda.

waaaaaaaaah wrote:

this is the silliest of arguments. Literally every top tier elite runner runs races in prototypes or customized shoes not available to the public.

The rules have been extremely vague for a long time and never enforced. It's absurd to suddenly demand enforcement and claim cheating/unfairness/unethicalness/whatever at some arbitrary point in time in pursuit of an agenda.

If WA wants to make clear rules, that's fine. But applying some standard that was never previously applied screams of of an agenda.

"Literally every top tier elite runner" in prototypes - I don't think so. You add in "or customized shoes", but that's not the same thing. Nobody is complaining about the unfairness of customized shoes.

Look at it this way: how would YOU react if you qualified for the Trials and ended up getting 4th, and it turned out that 2 of the the runners ahead of you had an unannounced new technology in their shoes that many sports scientists agreed probably gave them a couple of minutes advantage? I suspect you might not dismiss the matter so cavalierly if it actually applied to YOU, affected YOUR livelihood, YOUR future earning power, etc.

100% not true.

When Brooks created a shoe for Des Linden for the 2012 Olympics. The IOC intervened and required Brooks to make these shoes available to the public before she was allowed to wear them. I heard this in a podcast with Kevin Hanson back in 2012 and heard it repeated in 2016 when Amy and Shalane wore shoes that fell into the same category. Hansons cried foul but because it was Nike USATF looked the other way.