Galen Rupp is the greatest American long-distance runner of the 21st century.
Galen Rupp is a mystery. A representative runner of the team, who was shy to the media and whose former leader, the marathon champion, turned to shameful coach Alberto Salazar, violated the sport in various ways.
Galen Rupp is a hero, especially in his hometown of Oregon, the venue for the World Athletics Championships starting this week, saying something in the unofficial capital of the United States, I’ve seen so far He was the fastest teenager in the world.
Galen Rupp is a lesson that athletes sacrifice their loyalty in sports where they have to prove their innocence every day. And even if they do, a relationship with someone convicted of having an affair can cause their eyebrows to rise forever.
Galen Rupp, now a 36-year-old former teenage phenom, is ready to stand on the starting line of Sunday’s World Championship Men’s Marathon.
He is all of them, and more.
He is a ferocious and fearless competitor, preparing to keep the field out of the way on railroads and roads as needed. He is the most important distance champion in long-distance running and has been so dominant in US marathons since 2016 that the national competition has been raced in 2nd and 3rd place.
He knows how to find a podium, whether the race is fast or slow, speed or tactical testing.
He is durable and his career has reached the second half of 20 years and is filled with a share of injuries, but nothing has prevented him from challenging in the biggest races and often in the final lap.
Yet, fairly or unfairly, he is the embodiment of an elite running in a state of associative sin that has existed for decades.
Travis Tigert, Chief Executive Officer of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, said: “It’s unfair to convict an athlete in any other way, but in reality, in today’s world, it’s the same lesson I tell my kids. Your choices have consequences. Everyone has that. You don’t accept the principle, and the choice of who you hang out with will also be seen by the company you maintain. “
Weldon Johnson, once one of the top long-distance runners in the country and co-founder of Letsrun.com, an influential website that acts like the super-ego of American running, said the association. Said that it would create distrust.
“I think we need to evaluate his career more than anyone else, but I’m skeptical because one athlete is more closely associated with Alberto than anyone else,” Johnson said last week. rice field. “Based on performance, he’s probably the greatest American male long-distance runner of his generation since Steve Prefontaine.”
Rap, whose agent Ricky Sims refused to make him available for this article, has never failed a drug test. Many of them are both regularly scheduled for the race and random out-of-competition tests that all international athletes must submit at random.
Former world record holder for the men’s marathon, three-time New York champion and 1982 Boston winner Salazar discovered rap while watching high school soccer in Portland, Oregon. .. Durability is fully converted into elite long-distance running.
In 2001, Salazar founded the Nike Oregon Project. This is a long-distance running team with a special focus on training athletes. In particular, the rap after a career at the University of Oregon and, for a short time, the British morphler was able to defeat the largest East Africans. meet.
done. On a magical Saturday night in London at the 2012 Olympics, Farrer and Lap overtook the mighty Kenyans and Ethiopians to finish 1-2 in a 10,000-meter race. A week later, Fara also won the gold medal at 5,000 and the lap finished in 7th place. Rap won the US Olympic Trial Marathon in 2016 and 2020, filling the field in both races. He won the bronze medal at the 2016 marathon. He also won the world’s fastest Chicago Marathon in 2017.
In 2019, after years of investigation and proceedings, Salazar was banned by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for four years of doping-related crimes, including trafficking in testosterone and tampering with doping management processes. I did.
That same year, when two female athletes he coached, Mary Cain and Amy Yoder Begley, ran for the Oregon Project, Salazar was scrutinized after publicly ridiculing them and saying they were ashamed of their bodies. I did. Last year, an arbitrator at the US Safe Sports Center determined that Salazar was “highly” likely to have digitally invaded one of the runners during a massage. The center responsible for investigating and arbitrating such cases has kept him out of sports for the rest of his life.
Nike has decided to close the Oregon project in 2019. Rap is currently training with Mike Smith, a coach at Northern Arizona University.
No one suggests that the treatment of female athletes in Salazar should somehow defile what Rap has accomplished. However, running has a very long and terrible history of doping violations, and its participants, fans, officials and historians must navigate the rugged terrain. Almost all great champions are associated with coaches, friends, teammates, or physiotherapists who have violated global anti-doping rules, even those who have never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
“Rupp is the greatest American long-distance runner of all time,” said Ambie Barfoot, 1968 Boston Marathon Champion and former editor of Runners World. “He’s not awkward and media-friendly. Yes, he has a relationship with Alberto, but he’s been at the top for almost 20 years incredibly long, and of all kinds I know. I’ve never failed a test, and in most cases I’ll perform best in big time competitions. “
Can he do it again?
Rap skips the payday he might have received to run one of the major spring marathons to focus on a one-time shot in his career to win the World Championship Marathon in his home state. did.
The dents in his armor are now chronic. He told Runners World last month that he had been fighting back pain for a year, and in the spring doctors diagnosed herniated discs and nerve compression. He had Covid-19 last month.
Like almost every other elite runner, Rap knows the peculiar truth that is an inevitable part of the pursuit he chooses — Elite Race is not as simple as he wants. And when the gun fires in yet another big race on Sunday morning, he turns off again.
