191–197 of 197 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For non-professional sports I totally agree. It's a hobby.
What is the point of professional sports? The only benefit I can see is learning more about the human physique. But does that alone justify the scale and investment, or could that be had in cheaper ways?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many races do have cash prizes. For a smaller race, it could be just a trophy, or a trophy plus something from a sponsor, but it could also be cash ($50-$100+ range).
I have to believe that most people can make $100 in much easier ways than running most of a marathon
There was a famous example of cheating (using EPO) a few years ago.
"In that time [roughly two years, I think], he won nearly $40,000 in prize money in more than 75 races, including international competitions, United States championships and local road races."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/sports/runner-christian-he...
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That's an interesting perspective. I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with a bunch of guys that are on steroids and it doesn't bother me a bit. In my mind I just handicap myself vs their strength advantage so I'm happy with my relative performance.
What if one of them hurt you seriously, say causes paralysis? Would that be OK, because of course it could have happened anyway?
I did this by accident before, at a 5K. I arrived to the race so late that when I crossed the starting line to BEGIN the race it registered that as my finish time and I'm posted on the result website as finishing in 2nd place.
Regardless of the cheating, this type of post doesn't fully sit right with me. Given the permanence of record on the internet, this does bring up the issue of how we police bad behavior, and how we incorporate forgiveness into that. That said, the poster was pretty fair, and generally refer to her as "the runner". It definitely reads as an obsessive sleuthing, no doubt in part because there were follow-on discoveries…
I commend your call to sympathy. I don't like taking a drive-by, salacious interest in a story that doesn't affect me in the least, but will probably have serious, perhaps devastating consequences for the person involved for a long time professionally. I also think it's worth pointing out that the original article, while using photos of the person involved, never uses their full name, so is to some extent not google-…
I would have more sympathy for your argument if this story was about some form of private cheating. But this was cheating on a public stage, one that she particularly sought out.
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Yes I agree. It went beyond proving the simple facts of the case, into attempts discredit the runner's character in other ways.
You mean by pointing out another race a few months ago where she ran another half-marathon but pictures show that someone else finished the race with her bib?