devashish_paul wrote:
You guys can sit around on the internet nailing the guys to the cross. I'm not letting him off the hook either. I just see this as something that occurs in all aspects of life...in sport, in academia, in business. People who can't live up to external expectations and do the absolutely wrong thing rather than doing the right thing out of the gate. My expectations for people like many of you guys is higher. I hate when it happens I'm separating my expectations for people from understanding the background as to why they choose to make poor decisions. As I have people who work for me, and I coach kids, I just seek the understand how and why people make poor decisions so that I can make sure the people around me don't put themselves in ethically questionable situations that they have to explain their way out of.
I brought up the example of coaching kids of overbearing parents for that reason. Often times, parents don't know what values they are inadvertantly ingraining into kids. The kids grow up in an environment where success at all costs is required, while the parents may be oblivious to the fact that sucess is coming not the way they intended.
dev, you are treating all bad decisions the same way when there are very different types of bad decisions. bad decisions, such as flying into kona the day before the race, doing a century ride the day before the race or racing on a fixed-gear bike are all bad decisions but they don't involve an unethical component to them. taking PEDs, cutting a course or using fins are all bad decisions that necessarily involve an unethical component to them. they are very different and should be treated differently. nobody will suffer the severe opprobrium doled out in this thread for making the former types of bad decisions but he/she sure as hell should if he/she commits the latter types. society has become way too forgiving of the latter and that's not a good thing.
the other issue here is that our resident cheater clearly has dug himself a deeper hole by making up a completely ridiculous explanation that i am surprised you believe. there's no chance that someone who has pulled out of a race and is walking back to the transition area would decide to take his chip off and drop it in the closest garbage can. what would be the point of that other than to cover up a premeditated cut? give me a break. moreover, nobody who has pulled out of a race, but then who decides to jump back in after hearing the roar of the crowd, tracks down the officials at the finish line, so he can lie to them to make sure his phony time is added back to the results, unless he clearly wants his cheating to look legitimate. lastly, nobody who has done this then would be so loud the next day that everyone at the pool could hear his braggadocio unless he was so shameless that he intended to get away with it. i really am shocked that people on here have been giving him mad props for his subsequent mendacity.