The Biggest ... Liar?? (Page 4)

WOW i just read this article on RunnersWorld.com today.

I actually felt a little bad for the fat guy - As runner's world stated - if you offer a 280 pound man a ride at mile 23 (when even experienced athlete's brains are telling there bodies to shut down) he's likely to take it.  I guess my problem with the loser is that after the fact he still felt good about it, accepted a finishers medal and allowed everyone to believe he did the whole thing.

The show should not have given him the option of a ride.  Giving the ride wasn't the biggest problem though.  They should have come clean at the finish line and said "Hey we are glad he got in 23 miles but he did need some help."

At least after other people at the show found out SOMEONE should have said something.  

They even managed to get his not real finish wrong bettering his time by 2 full hours.

People don't finish marathons, people get assistance during them.  They don't get a finishing time but they don't get lynched either.  The problem's here were in the aftermath.

Well, I would leave it to the organization to police that person if they were caught.  If they were, they would be barred from membership and trying to get coaching certification.

But would everyone be on BT or ST roasting that person?  It might get a mention or two on the regional sites, certainly not at the national level like this is now.

I understand in some ways what people are trying to convey.  To me however, this is just a simple guy who made a mistake and displayed some poor judgement in the aftermath.  And from what I understand, it is more his wife that has propogated some of the diatribe people have had on the topic (not just here, but other places as well).

Does the fact that he is in the middle of his 15 minutes as a celebrity make it any different?  Based on the comments, it seems to be the case.  But would anyone here give a sh-t if he wasn't on TV and did the same thing??  I doubt it.

We can throw out a lot of "what abouts" for other scenarios.  In the coaching one, if the "coach" is coaching well and his/her athletes are seeing the results that they want then he/she is doing what was requested of them.  But as a certified coach you have an ethical obligation that you sign up with.  You break the ethics code, you are barred from coaching.  This person you said was not a coach, only represented himself/herself as one, so then are they breaking the ethical code by misrepresenting themselves?  Yes.  Can anything be done?  Other than barring the person from actually getting their certification, no.  And they could still coach.

As I mentioned, I am not condoning their behavior at all and they were wrong.  What I AM disagreeing with is the way that they are being treated for their actions.  Instead of proferring that they f-cked up and made a mistake, they are getting crucified by the endurance community.  That is what bothers me.

@Daremo: Well, I suppose you're right and the gentlemenly thing to do would be discouraging others from lambasting of this poor knucklehead on the internet.  But, this is BT...a.k.a. the athletic mob--of which I'm an admitted soldato and proudly a part of its famiglia).  We thrive on as much passion, as we do hard and consistent work.  To ask us to forgive a poseur seeking celebrity with one of our laurels puts us out of sorts.   I suppose one can be consoled to also remember the mob is fickle, and will soon not remember him at all.

@bryancd: The coaching example above was just that, an example.

I have to agree with Rick on this one.  A guy cheating in a marathon would not have received this sort of attention under 'normal' circumstances.

I think that there are good and bad reasons to be 'outraged' by cheating.  A bad reason would be that (in this case) other people would fail to appreciate the commitment or skill or talent required to accomplish the goal without cheating.  On this one, I'm with Scout and others who say 'who cares?'  What does it matter what some random person in your office (who probably doesn't even know how long a marathon is) thinks about your athletic prowess?  If you want to impress people, there are much easier ways than training for and completing a marathon.  I'd suggest one of them.  (Learn a cool bar trick or something.)

A good reason to be 'outraged' by cheating is that this is, after all, a race, and many people are there to...race.  The 'race' aspect of the event is cheapened to the extent that some participants are cheating.  (That's why moving the ball during a causal round is 'screwing around' while moving the ball during a tournament is cheating.)  And the race isn't just at the front of the pack.  There are races within the race.  The expectation at both ends of the pack is that those against whom we are racing are playing by the rules.  That's what makes it a race.  There's no point in racing someone who will, if the going gets tough, grab a ride.  You aren't really racing in that case.  You may be running as fast as you can, but you aren't racing.

But there's cheating and there's cheating, and this case strikes me as the former, not the latter.  I've never seen this show, nor do I intend to, and I don't know anything about this guy, but it seems plausible that this is a case of naive poor judgment (probably encouraged by producers of dubious virtue) rather than a deliberate attempt to undermine the integrity of the race.  If that's right, then I don't see any need for outrage.  Yes, he should have been disqualified, and was.  Yes, NBC should be called to task -- for this, and oh so many other things.  But roasted?  I don't get it.

(Finman appears to be a totally different story, by the why.  That guy seems to have known precisely what he was doing, and seems indeed to have had a history of that sort of activity.)

Can we let this drop now? 

kevin