"BBC World: Why Did IAAF General Secretary Nick Davies Write a Passionate Letter to LetsRun.com Instead of Issuing a More Traditional Statement ?"
It screamed "weird" straight away. When I first posted it, I linked it to previous actions of Pat and Hein because it was just the same sort of stunt the pair of them would do.
Nick is taking pictures of Paula running the local Monaco 10k and posting them up on the IAAF website. "Paula sets new course record ......"
The response from Davies was because he is undoubtedly like so many at the higher echelons of the management of sport, clueless as to the practises of the dopers. Too many who should be bulwarks and be the most suspicious people are exactly the wrong sorts of people. They have been hoodwinked by druggies into friendship and consequent support.
Say it was Radcliffe who had been on that list years ago. A nice gesture of contact from the IAAF and a letter back from her medical team stating the values were all over the place because of pregnancy and and injury, would be received and hey presto, the case can be closed on her and normal socialising around Monaco can resume.
The last thing these idiots want is their life-long crush destroyed. Anything but that.
Shift it across to British Cycling and Cookson. The guy is expert in looking the other way when he thinks he might see something dodgy. He has in his employment ex-pro rider Lillistone. Lance's soigneur is accused of ferrying drugs across borders for Lance. She spouts some stuff about not knowing what was in the brown bag she was driving 1,000 miles to hand deliver to the person who put it in her hand. If she was genuinely too dumb to know what was in it, ex pro Lillistone would have not had the slightest doubt why he was in the car driving so far with Emma. Cookson could have put some very serious skids under Lance right then and there. As an employee of BC, paid out of public funds, Cookson would have been justified in questioning Lillistone to find out how much he knew about conducting criminal acts in illegal trafficking, particularly when he was in such a relevant position within BC. Instead the Muppet does nothing. The ineptness of people like Davies and Cookson are what enable the doping criminals to run rings round them.
OK so Reed made her twitter private this morning. From the original story it looks like she was just a silly girl who said some very inappropriate stuff and was then put under surveillance. Is the third runner likely to be her ? The evidence stacks up.
Radcliffe - last week she was calling for life bans for dopers. Then on Friday this regular tweeter suddenly lost her voice for 24 hours. A thread on LETSRUN picks up this point and suggests that she should be on with her usual calls and suddenly, after this, she is on twitter again. Not personally mark you, but re-tweeting other calls for harsh penalties. Actions like this do not need the best advising team out there to spot that thread and respond. It is quite a basic monitor and respond system. We saw what the Lance bots could do. And then there is an interview on radio five live today. Long term-planned or a recent move, "just in case" ?
The Mail and Telegraph have both run multiple stories as the news was breaking about the list. The Telegraph ran a double page spread complete with map in the printed version and now absolute silence. That ain't the silence bought with no low-cost legal jock Christine has employed. That silence has come with a high powered QC with matching statements from the athlete backed up by the IAAF both singing the exact same song from the song-sheet they have composed together. "Illegally gained information from the safe at Monaco - being used to tarnish the reputation of our client with innuendo and gossip. blah blah blah gathered expert medical evidence - blah blah blah See you in court for millions blah blah blah."
Lock-down achieved. Speculation - it might not be true in any way. But I look forward to reading about other hypotheses as to why the story is dropped completely.
Why does a Marathon runner get Walsh to do her autobiography ? On one side it was because he is an award winning journalist and "get in the best to do the best". Well why hire in a F1 car and then only drive at 30 mph ? That autobiography was appalling. If he was going to do a good job he would need access to the athlete and her story - that is logic of the most basic form. The opposite view was he was deliberately hired in for the coats of white paint his presence would add to the story.
Did he write such a rubbish 'bio because he realised he was being used ? Only Walsh will know that. But the facts are that through the height of epo usage in endurance sports Radcliffe holds the 3 fastest ever marathon times and none of those caught using epo have got near it. Three minutes back. On the one side we have a story nearly as good as the Lance story - plucky Brit shows dirty johnny foreigner a clean pair of heels. On the other we have an athlete who realises that the running track is on one hell of a slope and the idiots in charge will never do anything meaningful about it during her athletic career so just act smart. You only have one life - if you do it well - you will never get caught.
If I felt life bans were all-right for other nationalities and then had a scintilla of suspicion that one of my team-mates was "red" and selling me down the plug-hole, and I was a regular twitter user; I think I would be into overdrive (like that legal team was on Wednesday night). I would be saying "expose the crooks, I don't want them contaminating my achievements by association. Get the whole lot of the names published. Get those blood values out there".
But all that is speculation. I don't think a day passes when I think how superb it was that Lance was exposed. In 2005, he had his bag of swag and had waltzed off stage. Do I think it will be likely that there are similar busts in my life-time? Was "Al-Capone" the only Mr Big or was he the only "Mr Big" that got busted ? Was I a believer in Paula Radcliffe ? Sure as hell. When she first protested in the late 90s about the epo drug abusers I was. Do I now think that, like Sir Bradley, she protested then and now there is a ring of hollowness about the protests ? Yes I sure do. Do I think the truth will ever come out in respect of Paula Radcliffe ? No.
I think that is one happy bunny that played the field with the slope, exactly like Sir Brad and Mr Badzilla. This is exactly like the Lance story.
Big brands and big names are behind Saint Paula. The most heavyweight legal team has leant on the Mail and the Telegraph. She might have the three fastest times up the Alpe d'Huez, faster than Pantani or whoever has been busted for epo usage, but she is not going to fall any time soon. Cookson and Davies and the other fools, with their brains fully disengaged, will ensure sanctity.
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