Fans of this ridiculous sport many be hapless dupes, but they're obviously willing to open their wallets to the right people. Why not crowd-source the whole circus?
Gread read. I never thought I would see "Jarmila Kratochvilova" and "cover girl" used in the same sentence, at least not sensibly, but that post is a fantastic review of not only the macabre pharmacological distortion of the women's 400m and 800m records, but also the financial implications to today's sprinters of those records being essentially out of reach to natural women.
Enjoyable read as always! Brutally honest, unvarnished with a dash of literary flair turbocharged with radioactive napalm. Just the way I like it. Bravo!
Now onto the topic at hand:
You have gotta be kidding me! The evidence against SH is piled high enough to reach the Sun! I've lost count of the number of strawmen being put up by the doping apologists. This is a grift, plain and simple. Don't be a fool, save your money!
I should have divided Team Shelbo into three groups of people: The purely deluded, the quietly win-at-any-cost (including doping), and those who believe she cheated but want to help her stay out of the poorhouse anyway (maybe an extension of the second group). I'm fine with that. If someone fights a doping case, it is going to cost him or her a ton of money, and now and then there are good reasons for fighting such cases.
I don't think her whole life should be ruined over this.
Now, I'd be pissed if I found out she doesn't really have $300K in legal bills, but that much I can believe.
I would be fine with "I fucked up and would like some help getting back on my feet." We all make mistakes. But SH and her crew have completely abdicated all responsibility and are clearly delusional. This case is as cut and dry as it can be. I am hard pressed to believe that Nike made her foot the legal bill. This is a scam. How about getting a damn job? What happened to personal responsibility?
I would like a complete admission of every banned substance she took other than nandrolone. Seems unlikely that by itself would have gotten her to 14:23, and it also seems unlikely that any distance runner who would take the steroid plunge would stop with that dive into malfeasance.
I am suspicious of that entire program. When the head coach states unequivocally that "I have never heard of nandrolone", you know that there are many more skeletons in that closet. The common refrain among the doping apologists is " Nandrolone is useless for distance runners". A cursory search on pubMed yields hundreds of hits confirming its role in muscle repair and recovery. I hate to say it, but she has the classic anabolic steroid face (a la FloJo/Jarmila Kratochvílova), hairline and musculature. I do sound like a boorish old cynic, but it is increasingly hard to believe any of the recent top results.
WOW! I thought I was an avid reader who read widely. This article just exposed me to a language, whose grotesqueness I shall struggle to come across possibly for the rest of my days. However strong/valid the message was, the language alone negates it, crushes it, and buries it completely.
"This article just exposed me to a language, whose grotesqueness I shall struggle to come across possibly for the rest of my days."
Come on, English isn't that gross. And you've seen it before ;o)
For what it's worth, I pay attention to comments like these, rather than dismiss them as tone-policing.
My first reaction is that "A valid message is negated by coarse language," which I have seen all over the place for years, is silly on its face. It's not merely demonstrably untrue, it's illogical in some cases. It's like saying the statement "2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect" is true, but the statement "2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect, dumbass!" is false or leaves the matter unresolved.
But that is probably too literal an interpretation of your comment. What you actually seem to saying is that coarse language discourages both the internalization and the sharing of a valid message -- that it makes it unlikely opponents or topic-naive people will agree with it if they read it, and that it gives people an automatic excuse for disregarding anything I say in its entirety.
And you are, in the main, correct. Given how public discourse works nowadays, I would have to change things up if writing for someone else or merely aiming to become widely liked as well as more widely read.
But I'm also confident that despite my own aversion to strategies that would greatly expand the reach of my posts with little effort, the right people are reading them. The number of page views my articles typically get is modest by most standards, but exceeds the number of actively engaged distance runners in North America. Besides, I'm not out to out-shout the rest of the running world or rise to the top of the Substack yammer-heap -- I'm just writing for the sake of anyone who might be more interested in crude reality than even cruder fantasy.
And that brings me to my last, inevitable point, which is that I'm not convinced that calibrating a politeness level on a personal blog, or anywhere, is really necessary or helpful at all when confronting people who are lying outright for gain, writing badly slanted stories, capering hypocritically all over social media, and openly practicing racism and other forms of discrimination in the supposed name of equality -- in the process encouraging and participating in antics and displays that have suddenly become morally acceptable only for a few select people of color, heft, gender identity, et cetera. And critically, very few of these people are economically needy -- the "diversity" stuff is aimed at diversifying a class of already comfortable people. That spits in the face -- albeit unknowingly at times, but still -- of the very aims it purports to achieve. Which is sort of what you're accusing me of, I think.
I don't have any experience responding to mass nonsense from ostensibly sane allies, and even if I did, I doubt I would have a perfectly well-honed strategic response to it. So, for now, "Look at this stupidity again," plus a few thousand words or purple prose expressing the same idea, will have to suffice.
On a final note, I would think the most alarming part of the above post is the "Do away with shoe contracts" part, which is in the title. I mentioned at the bottom that I was kidding, but I hope no one decides to act on it. That would screw over a lot of people. Unless the part about crowdsourcing caught on, but that would just make the sport even more wealth-unequal at the top than it already is (a topic for another day, put pertinent to doping).
I recognize that I find your style unique to what am accustomed to. Very few modern writers can be this hard hitting. Makes it easier for me as a reader to recognise points I agree with you, those that I may have some reservations & those that I disagree altogether.
"But I'm also confident that despite my own aversion to strategies that would greatly expand the reach of my posts with little effort, the right people are reading them." This is indeed commendable. Your confidence is not misplaced.
Like I stated earlier, I found it shocking. But it's for that reason that it will stand memorable. Heck! It just opened my eyes to my prejudices against what would be described as strong language.
Here is an old blog post that fits the context. I had it bookmarked for historical context.
https://myoutlookonfootball.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/the-biggest-lie-in-world-sport-womens-track-world-records/comment-page-1/
Gread read. I never thought I would see "Jarmila Kratochvilova" and "cover girl" used in the same sentence, at least not sensibly, but that post is a fantastic review of not only the macabre pharmacological distortion of the women's 400m and 800m records, but also the financial implications to today's sprinters of those records being essentially out of reach to natural women.
Enjoyable read as always! Brutally honest, unvarnished with a dash of literary flair turbocharged with radioactive napalm. Just the way I like it. Bravo!
Now onto the topic at hand:
You have gotta be kidding me! The evidence against SH is piled high enough to reach the Sun! I've lost count of the number of strawmen being put up by the doping apologists. This is a grift, plain and simple. Don't be a fool, save your money!
I should have divided Team Shelbo into three groups of people: The purely deluded, the quietly win-at-any-cost (including doping), and those who believe she cheated but want to help her stay out of the poorhouse anyway (maybe an extension of the second group). I'm fine with that. If someone fights a doping case, it is going to cost him or her a ton of money, and now and then there are good reasons for fighting such cases.
I don't think her whole life should be ruined over this.
Now, I'd be pissed if I found out she doesn't really have $300K in legal bills, but that much I can believe.
I would be fine with "I fucked up and would like some help getting back on my feet." We all make mistakes. But SH and her crew have completely abdicated all responsibility and are clearly delusional. This case is as cut and dry as it can be. I am hard pressed to believe that Nike made her foot the legal bill. This is a scam. How about getting a damn job? What happened to personal responsibility?
I would like a complete admission of every banned substance she took other than nandrolone. Seems unlikely that by itself would have gotten her to 14:23, and it also seems unlikely that any distance runner who would take the steroid plunge would stop with that dive into malfeasance.
I am suspicious of that entire program. When the head coach states unequivocally that "I have never heard of nandrolone", you know that there are many more skeletons in that closet. The common refrain among the doping apologists is " Nandrolone is useless for distance runners". A cursory search on pubMed yields hundreds of hits confirming its role in muscle repair and recovery. I hate to say it, but she has the classic anabolic steroid face (a la FloJo/Jarmila Kratochvílova), hairline and musculature. I do sound like a boorish old cynic, but it is increasingly hard to believe any of the recent top results.
Wow why are you so angry? This whole diatribe was BS.
BS how?
The whole thing. It was so easy for him to knock over, in fact, that he doesn't need to explain any of his specific quibbles to us pissed-off peons.
WOW! I thought I was an avid reader who read widely. This article just exposed me to a language, whose grotesqueness I shall struggle to come across possibly for the rest of my days. However strong/valid the message was, the language alone negates it, crushes it, and buries it completely.
"This article just exposed me to a language, whose grotesqueness I shall struggle to come across possibly for the rest of my days."
Come on, English isn't that gross. And you've seen it before ;o)
For what it's worth, I pay attention to comments like these, rather than dismiss them as tone-policing.
My first reaction is that "A valid message is negated by coarse language," which I have seen all over the place for years, is silly on its face. It's not merely demonstrably untrue, it's illogical in some cases. It's like saying the statement "2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect" is true, but the statement "2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect, dumbass!" is false or leaves the matter unresolved.
But that is probably too literal an interpretation of your comment. What you actually seem to saying is that coarse language discourages both the internalization and the sharing of a valid message -- that it makes it unlikely opponents or topic-naive people will agree with it if they read it, and that it gives people an automatic excuse for disregarding anything I say in its entirety.
And you are, in the main, correct. Given how public discourse works nowadays, I would have to change things up if writing for someone else or merely aiming to become widely liked as well as more widely read.
But I'm also confident that despite my own aversion to strategies that would greatly expand the reach of my posts with little effort, the right people are reading them. The number of page views my articles typically get is modest by most standards, but exceeds the number of actively engaged distance runners in North America. Besides, I'm not out to out-shout the rest of the running world or rise to the top of the Substack yammer-heap -- I'm just writing for the sake of anyone who might be more interested in crude reality than even cruder fantasy.
And that brings me to my last, inevitable point, which is that I'm not convinced that calibrating a politeness level on a personal blog, or anywhere, is really necessary or helpful at all when confronting people who are lying outright for gain, writing badly slanted stories, capering hypocritically all over social media, and openly practicing racism and other forms of discrimination in the supposed name of equality -- in the process encouraging and participating in antics and displays that have suddenly become morally acceptable only for a few select people of color, heft, gender identity, et cetera. And critically, very few of these people are economically needy -- the "diversity" stuff is aimed at diversifying a class of already comfortable people. That spits in the face -- albeit unknowingly at times, but still -- of the very aims it purports to achieve. Which is sort of what you're accusing me of, I think.
I don't have any experience responding to mass nonsense from ostensibly sane allies, and even if I did, I doubt I would have a perfectly well-honed strategic response to it. So, for now, "Look at this stupidity again," plus a few thousand words or purple prose expressing the same idea, will have to suffice.
On a final note, I would think the most alarming part of the above post is the "Do away with shoe contracts" part, which is in the title. I mentioned at the bottom that I was kidding, but I hope no one decides to act on it. That would screw over a lot of people. Unless the part about crowdsourcing caught on, but that would just make the sport even more wealth-unequal at the top than it already is (a topic for another day, put pertinent to doping).
ᐧ
I recognize that I find your style unique to what am accustomed to. Very few modern writers can be this hard hitting. Makes it easier for me as a reader to recognise points I agree with you, those that I may have some reservations & those that I disagree altogether.
"But I'm also confident that despite my own aversion to strategies that would greatly expand the reach of my posts with little effort, the right people are reading them." This is indeed commendable. Your confidence is not misplaced.
Like I stated earlier, I found it shocking. But it's for that reason that it will stand memorable. Heck! It just opened my eyes to my prejudices against what would be described as strong language.