The organizers of the Lehigh Valley Health Network Via Marathon have asked the governing agency for U.S. track and field sports for help as they investigate cheating allegations against a Pennsylvania man who ran in the 2014 race and later became the center of a national debate over parenting.
Mike Rossi of Abington, Montgomery County, qualified for the Boston Marathon by running a 3:11 Lehigh Valley race, placing fifth in his 45-49 age group. Other runners, mainly in online blogs and chat forums, have challenged the result because nothing in Rossi's past performances suggested he could achieve that time.
The accusers say there is also scant photographic evidence of Rossi in the race — only photos of him crossing the finish line have surfaced, while most other runners are found in 10 or more pictures taken along the way by a company hired for that purpose.
Spurred by the chorus of accusations, the Lehigh Valley organizers plan to examine an archive of 18,000 photos and interview Rossi and other runners to determine if he ran the whole race or somehow joined it along the way .
"We're looking to put together a small panel and we're looking for someone with a high level of credibility and a good knowledge of the rules" to lead it, said Gerry Yasso, vice president of resource development for race sponsor Via Lehigh Valley .
The reason Rossi's performance fell under scrutiny to begin with was fallout from his Boston Marathon experience last month. The 47-year-old wedding and radio disc jockey, who began running a little more than two y ears ago, took his twin children out of school for three day s so they could accompany him to the prestigious race.
The school principal sent a standard letter warning that family vacation absences are unexcused under district policy and that the children risked running afoul of truancy policy if they accrued more.
Rossi, irked by what he considered an unreasonable absentee policy , posted an open letter to the principal on his Facebook page say ing the children "learned as much in the five day s we were in Boston as they would in an entire y ear in school…they learned about dedication, commitment, love, perseverance, overcoming adversity , civic pride, patriotism, American history , culinary arts and phy sical education."
The letter went viral and led to appearances and discussions on "Fox and Friends" and "Today " about the rights of parents and the wisdom of zero-tolerance public school policies.
First Published: May 7, 2015, 5:24 p.m.
