Of course I was excited about the experience. Not only had I run a ten second PR, bettering a time from eight years prior, but I had run with and briefly led one of my sporting heroes, Lance Armstrong. I definitely posted about the experience on Facebook and Twitter (even though I don’t tweet often):
Knowing that I ran several miles of the race with
Lance, I spent hours scouring the internet trying to find a photo of
me running with him. I had
purchased the official race photos but I really wanted to find one of Lance and
I. It took a lot of searching, there are a lot of photos of Lance on the
internet, but I finally found one!
Lance was the focal point of the photo, but
hidden behind Lance, you could see my distinct orange shoes and my blue tank
top. Of course, we all know now, Lance
was a lying cheater who used legal intimidation, accusations of a “witchhunt by
the French”, and the “I’ve been tested hundreds of times and never failed a
drug test” line, to avoid being labeled a cheater for many years despite rumors
and suspicion of his drug use.
I learned about Michael Rossi the same way many people did,
the “viral open letter” he wrote. Mike
Rossi ran the 2015 Boston Marathon and took his two young school aged children
and wife with him, making a family vacation out of the experience. Shortly
after, Mike received a standard letter from his children’s principal informing
him that this trip would count as an unexcused absence against his kids. Mike
promptly wrote an “open letter” to the principal and published it on his
Facebook page and various other social media outlets, but he never actually
mailed it to the principal. The open letter was scathing and it quickly went
viral. I must admit, on first blush, the letter struck a nerve with me as I
tend to react negatively to the ever encroaching arm of government into family
matters. I promptly forgot about the whole deal until I happened to see a
thread on letsrun.com – “Did Mike
Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?”
As it turns out, the “educational experience” that Mike Rossi
had taken his two children on was achieved through an act of cheating; Mike
Rossi never ran a Boston Qualifying marathon time! How do we know that?
1.
Lack of physiological ability – He did not have the physiological
ability to run a 3:11 marathon when he supposedly ran one
2.
Lack of publicity – He didn’t publicize his PR/Boston BQ on social
media like he would have if it were legit
3.
Lack of photos – There is not a single photo of him on the race
course besides the finish, yet every other runner in the marathon was
photographed multiple times
Letsrun.com has written an excellent article
that thoroughly covers all of these points. However, pulling a page out of
Lance Armstrong’s playbook, Mike Rossi apparently lawyered up threatening
Letsrun.com with a defamation lawsuit so their well written article has
remained unpublished behind the password “rossi” on their website.
When I ran my PR in Austin, I tweeted about it, I let
everyone know and it was only a 10 second PR. Mike Rossi at the age of 47
supposedly ran his first marathon in a time of 3:11:45, qualifying for Boston
in the process. His half marathon PR at the time was 1:40:44, so he ran back to
back half marathon PRs of 1:35:52, yet he remained silent on social media, even after he had posted this to his social media several days before the marathon:
That's because he didn't actually run a 3:11:45, it didn’t happen, he cheated! He was quite about it because he didn't want to draw attention to his unbelievable time before he had actually gotten into and run the Boston Marathon.
Following my half marathon PR, there were a bunch of
official race photos of me. In addition to the official photos, I found the
photo of Lance and I from on the course. At the 2014 Via Marathon, thousands of
official photos were taken. Additionally, thousands of photos can be found
online at various news outlets, but not a single photo of Mike Rossi exists
from the Via Marathon course (besides the finish) because he didn’t run the
marathon, he is a marathon cheat!
The whole Mike Rossi saga has unfolded through various news
articles, but the primary and continuing story is taking place on a letsrun.com
message board thread I mentioned before which can be found here: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6479539&page=0
It is by far the longest thread on letsrun, should be topping 10,000 posts
soon! I came across this thread fairly early on and followed it with interest
as various runners crowd sourced the daunting task of looking through all the
official race photos and identifying runners. While I was convinced fairly
early on based upon the physiological aspect that Mike Rossi is a cheater, the
photographic evidence was conclusive. I was fully convinced and thought a DQ of
Rossi’s time by the race director of Lehigh Valley Via Marathon was a
no-brainer. When the DQ didn’t happen, I (along with many others) was surprised
and quite frankly disgusted.
I was already open with my belief that Rossi had cheated and
was not being anonymous on letsrun.com, using the registered username –
triathleteguru. When a runner on the forum had difficulty converting an
animated gif to video so it could be uploaded to Youtube, I stepped in and
helped converting the gif to video and uploading it to Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxKfEiOfGmY
The
following day, Mike Rossi tweeted this:
followed by this (after a few unrelated tweets):
 |
| An 06' photo of me following a near death collision with a van in a triathlon |
I am fairly certain he’s the one who posted this on the
letsrun forum as well:
Taken as a whole, all of these are intimidation attempts,
possibly even death threats. The threats and intimidation tactics go well
beyond what has been directed at me. Several other regular posters on the Rossi
thread have received direct communication from Mike Rossi that are veiled threats
and even the children of some of his skeptics have been targeted. So much for
“Father of the year”!
Do all cheaters, when confronted with evidence they cheated
resort to threats and intimidation tactics? Those of you who know me well know
that I was very vocal, you might say obsessive with Lance Armstrong and his
cheating. I spent years as a fan of Lance, had books, videos, and posters, I
still find myself googling his name occasionally and catching up on the latest
Lance news. He tried to threaten and
intimidate his critics, how did that work for him? In the end, Lance was
exposed for the cheat he was.
Mike, do you think you’re better than Lance? It is obvious to me and anyone with half a
brain you cheated. I understand lots of people cheat. The desire for attention,
fame, glory, money, these are all motivating factors. With Lance, he was a
great athlete who cheated to become even greater. I still consider it an honor
to have led him in a race. Mike, you are an average runner who cheated your way
to running Boston, but you remain an average runner, running a “scintillating”
4:01 at Boston. I don’t take kindly to your threats and intimidation tactics.
You can become better, I have no doubt you could train and run a legitimate BQ
time. You can also become a better person by admitting to your cheating, stop
living a lie. I have nothing against you personally; I just can’t stand the threatening,
lying, and cheating!
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