This kinda scares me actually

I published a post about Gia Alverez, a an avid runner, blogger and running coach, who has been banned from running the Boston Marathon for life.  

The thing about blogging about something like this is you either have to publish while it's hot or wait until as much information is available so you don't look like a fool when the next shoe is dropped.
That means you're going to say something that people don't like or agree with and have to defend your statements even if you put qualifiers.  In this case, I'm agreeing with everyone that she did a bad, bad thing and that she should be punished.  What I'm suggesting is that there might be mitigating circumstances such as post-postpartum depression that has led to her making poor decisions.  I'm not saying PPD exonerates her. 

This story is unfolding and when it first broke, the official reason for her lifetime ban was simply giving her friend her bib. IMO, that is too harsh.

After it was discovered that she was going to use her friends results to qualify for the next marathon, then it becomes more justifiable, but that wasn't the way it unfolded. I think a lifetime ban might still be too harsh. This isn't Shoeless Joe Jackson throwing a World Series.

Now if it turns out her previous qualifying times were falsified then she has earned a lifetime ban.

Anonymous May 24, 2015 at 6:33 PM

Just ran the Ottawa Marathon today and glanced through the women's results to see how quick I could find a suspicious result. Sure enough, bib 11799 is clearly not legit. Negative split of 2:01 1:19, missing 30k split. Past half marathon results are consistently in the low 2 hour range.
Marathon results: http://www.sportstats.ca/display-results.xhtml?raceid=26006&status=results&category=Women
Past results on roadraceresults.com
http://www.marathoninvestigation.com/p/post-questionable-results-here.html

This person decided that after finishing a marathon, they would celebrate that achievement by looking for cheaters.

Don't get me wrong, usually a person who course cuts usually does so on purpose.  However, there are just as many instances were a course wasn't clearly marked and someone legitimately goes the wrong way. [The opposite happens too.  My friend DrDrea ran an extra mile at the Las Vegas marathon in 2007 and while it didn't impact her qualifying for Boston (she wouldn't have done so even without the extra mile) what if it did?  ]


I'm all for a self-policing community, especially one that works together to expose cheaters.  However, some of these comments seem to have already judged and sentenced the alleged cheater before proper vetting of the evidence or the accused having any chance to defend themselves.