Run-Down Forums

[Conway]

Well I would think that in the interest of avoiding liable, that most journalists are going to skate around the issues you raised ... No one wants to go out on those limbs !!!

From what I've gotten over the past few weeks CF never left the sport ... Just went underground ... And has a profound influence on the sport during his "hiatus" !!!!

And the same for the GRaham camp .... Everyone has wondered what he knew about sprinting ... Now maybe we know ...

And as for integrity of Jones and Monty ... THAT is precisely why the past few weeks have been horrible for Jones ... No matter what is known on the inside this was the worst PR move she could have made !!! You can't be associated with an underground / banned / steroid using & advocating coach !!!! Its what I've said from day one !!!! No matter what she does or doesn't do or has done in the past that was PR suicide ...
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Conway
Speed Thrills

[Dan]

I still think most of this could have been smoothed over by being up front about the situation: to be the best, ya gotta be coached by the best. Take away the media's ammo and they have little to hit you with...

[Conway]

There is no doubt that the once media savvy Jones has totally blown this one ... And it is now at the point of not being fixable ...

I am very curious now about the "dark years" of CF ... From his banishment to his being seen publicly with Jones/Montgomery ... Seems as if (in spite of what everyone says about him) that he is the preeminent resource of systematic "doping" in the world ... And that his talents have not gone unnoticed or unused ...

Lets face it ... Post 1988, aside from the Tokyo 100 in 91, sprinting was flat ... As in 10.00 being the mark of excellence ... Then suddenly .... BAM ... Guys were suddenly not just breaking 10 but getting close to 9.90 ... Over night ... And from some very unlikely sources ..... What Lewis and Burrell could run only on their best days was suddenly common place competition ... Suddenly everyone was as good as King Carl putting up 10.0x times at will and going sub 10 when necessary ...
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Conway
Speed Thrills

[Dan]

True. It's as if the world suddenly caught up with where Ben was at 8 years earlier. Maybe it just took Charlie and his ideas a few years to resurface?

Of course, when dealing with the creme of the crop of athletes, it only takes a handful of individuals to really skew generational comparisons... It could just be that a truly superior half dozen or so athletes came along at roughly the same time.

Dan

[Conway]

Dan ... The sub 10 lists suddenly grew to 10 -12 deep !!!!
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Conway
Speed Thrills

[Paul]

I've read over a half dozen articles now, including 4 linked from RunnersWeb.com. They all contain circular arguments, i.e., they all mention the telephoto shot of Jones and Francis, they all reference the same T-Mag article where Francis talks about drugs. Four of the articles refer to Francis as a drug pusher, a label that, to my way of thinking, is slanderous, because Francis neither dispensed the drugs nor made money on their use. He talked the situation over with his top athletes and referred them to a friendly doctor.

Only a couple of the articles even mentioned Francis' coaching ability, instead linking that to his athlete's drug use, an incredibly shallow appraisal, in my opinion.

I am in total agreement with Dan on this thread. I think there's a lot more going on here that we won't be getting from the mainstream press. Linking Graham to Francis is also critical. Francis' last 2 day seminar was in North Carolina.

Paul

[Dan]

Yes, but that could be seen as fairly standard progression from the 2-3 deep of 10 years earlier, with the above mentioned half dozen or so coincidental outliers included in the total. Just a possible explanation...

Dan

[Dan]

Paul, you touched on my major complaint with the quality of coverage surrounding this situation. Nothing enlightening or remotely in-depth, just regurgitated quasi-facts. No one has even confirmed that Jones and Montgomery have performed a workout with Francis!! All we know is that he was seen helping Marion stretch in a presumably public track facility -- through a high powered lens from far away, no less. Whoa nellie, a known drug supporter helping someone stretch! Call the cavalry and the conspiracy theorists!! There's absolutely no journalistic integrity (to tie it into the latest article above ) at play here. We're being fed gossip column quality material and are supposed to believe it's news...

Dan

[Paul]

There's another aspect to this that I never got around to in the early days of this thread, and that is the recent phenomenon in professional sports of athletes and coaches burning out on each other. How many times have you seen athletes rave about their coaches (or teams for that matter) and then a few years later they have just tuned them out. Their productivity falls, they get traded, and all of a sudden they're all stars. One thinks the coach has lost it, he moves on to another team, and that team ends up at the top of the league. This seems to be quite prevalent in basketball, but I see evidence of this in all professional sports.

...And I wouldn't climb on TM's back too hard on this, he's only following the head of the household!!

Paul

[Dan]

That does seem to happen more and more frequently. Of course, even Ben left Charlie briefly before the run-up to Seoul...

Dan

[Paul]

Yes, that's true, and occupied an interesting part of the book. One of the things I disagreed with Francis in Speed Trap was that Ben had great confidence in himself. I didn't come away with that impression. In fact, I think Lewis got to Ben to the point that Ben bought into someone else's snake oil and went outside of Francis's recommendations going into Seoul.

Ben's problem was that as he became a superstar in '87, he wanted exclusive access to Francis, something Francis couldn't do, after all, he had 20+ other athletes under his charge.

Which alludes to a core reason why Jones has moved on. Montgomery has just set the world record, Jones is undefeated and ranked #1 in both sprints, and Graham signs Gatlin, everyone's bet to be the next great sprinter. Jones and TM lose their exclusive access to Graham, and as superstars, are miffed. This is something that hasn't been mentioned anywhere but here, earlier, from what I have read.

Paul

[Dan]

Interesting point. Of course, that assumes Marion and Tim actually made use of their access to Graham up till now.

I would agree that Ben did not seem superbly confident. On the track yes, but off it, no.

Dan

[Paul]

Maybe there's a jealousy factor here that writers are blind to, or simply tip toeing around.

Paul

[Dan]

I was actually told the other day that journalists are doing a huge service to all involved by not digging deeply into the issue. Your observation about Francis' latest clinic being in NC is closely related to that comment...

Dan

[Paul]

So does that mean that investigative journalism is an oxymoron?? Or that sports writers are so bored with the 32 Bowl Games this season that they will drum up anything?? Maybe Graham just sent the 2 away to Charlie for a month or so to flesh out their training, since Jones has stated she would like to get back into the Long Jump. It wouldn't surprise me if the 2 of them end up back in Graham's stable before the indoor season ends, or is that too much of a stretch??

Paul