this is quite the shit storm. myself, i was a walk on at oregon in 78. could not beat out borleau to make the team but collected a few scalps in workouts.
i can say that alsal was a bit of a bully, though how big a bully can a long distance runner be?
one day, by my lonesome i was doing 100m repeats and was getting pissed off with the times, so i ran harder, then al sal comes up and has a shit eating look on his face and challenges me to a sprint race. it was clear it was the top dog pissing on the other dogs that might challenge.
i decided not to attack top dog (boxing was the first thing that came to mind), boxing and sprinting ain't his sport, and al-sal should never ever try either.
another jacass was torensen brock, a 149 800 runner who challenged one time for god knows what reason. now this dude you don't want to mess with. alsal sure, brock, no no no. not unless you have skills.
those are my only 2 negative encounters. cruz, billy, chappa, martin, borleau all fantastic guys. david mac too, a kind guy but he seemed to "have his own ideas". good thing alsal never pissed off gangsta mack, that would be the end.
at the end of the day, it is insecurity that drives the bully. but alsal's insecurity drove him to wins. fear.
at the end of the day, i admire alsal in his perseverance.
he's done a good job. i am sure back in the day there was fringe sports medicine going on, the rules were grey or non existent for a lot of stuff.
i have no scoop on alsal. dmso. that is it.
in any case, what are you suppose to do, with guys like viren injecting "reindeer milk" and the europeans following suit grabbing tricks from the tour de france, with aouita and the rest of the iberian and atlas mountain boys doing coe protocols with the finest "vitamins"
aouita never thought anything of it, thought it was normal, which is was, unless you were in the hinterlands of australia, alabama and such. aouita was shocked to find out that everyone who was anyone was not in the know.,
but if you are talking big bully,consider that nike is going get legal, in a civilized way of course. anyone pssing on nike has to partner with some major law entity or get steam rolled.