Thursday, February 26, 2009

Biggest Loser is RIGHT.

I'm pretty damn sure this is the same guy doing "Ironman" or what he calls an Ironman (per the Feb. 10 airing):
The contestant said it's "Over a 1.5 mile swim *wrong*, and 80 mile bike *wrong*, and a half marathon *right*"

Correct distances of a HALF ironman are 1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run.
Ironman distances are 2.4, 112, 26.2.

JEBUS. I'm pissed at that guy and at NBC now.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2009/02/the-biggest-los.html

"The Biggest Loser" -- or is that "Biggest Liar"? -- fabricates account of contestant finishing marathon
One of my long-longtime readers, David Kleeman, writes: "I'm a huge fan of 'The Biggest Loser.' Love the show and all that it stands for. I'm also big into the marathoning community and knew back in January that one of the members of the Black team (either Blaine or Dane) had attempted a marathon in Arizona, but did not complete it. Instead, he had been picked up by a van along the course and dropped back down somewhere prior to the finish and then he crossed the finish line and collected a medal a la Rosie Ruiz. He is not listed in the finishers results (it was the Arizone Desert Classic on 1/31).
"What I didn't know was how the producers at NBC would report it. I was so disgusted to see that at the end of the Biggest Loser last night they did the whole segment on Dane and his wife doing a marathon and then reported that Dane completed the 26 mile race in 3 hours and 53 minutes. What else is completely falsified???"
David -- whose integrity is beyond question, as far as I'm concerned -- also passed along this blog posting from someone else who ran the same marathon and wrote:
"Oh, and those cameras behind me? Those are for Dane Patterson, a contestant on The Biggest Loser. He was there with his wife, running the marathon, though J started calling him The Biggest Liar. He and his wife were several miles behind me throughout the entire race, but around mile 17 they got picked up by a van and driven to the end of the course, where they filmed the grand 'crossing the finish line' finale with all the family cheering. I'm hoping that they televise it as a half marathon, since I know he ran at least that far, which is truly a great accomplishment. It'd be a shame if he got coerced into being less than honest, poor guy, especially since he's LDS like us."
And then this appeared in the comments the night before the broadcast:
"Hi! I'm Carli Patterson wife to the biggest loser contestant Dane Patterson. I had herd about your post and wanted to give you an explanation of what happened. I am so proud of my husband and his accomplishments. This has been an amazing experience for our family and unfortunatly this marathon has been a little exaggerated. In this industry you are always on a time frame and sometimes it is out of your control. We had stopped along the way to film at a water station and to make up for lost time our producers drove us ONLY 3 miles up the road. I am sorry if this has offended you in any way, but we are still incredibly happy about the 23 miles we ran. We were not listed as completing the marathon. Dane is an honest LDS Dad and I hope that they do say he completed this marathon because had time allowed he would have!"
Unfortunately Carli is contradicted by her own husband, who says in the above video clip, "It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life to run side by side with my wife for an entire marathon."
Anyway, I have put in an inquiry with the NBC publicist on the show and hopefully we will have a response up here shortly.
(thanks to Melissa Vetricek for the original tip!)
UPDATE: In the comments, Jerry Nairn, another racer, says the Pattersons did not volunteer the information that they had van-aided times. "They were reported to the race director and disqualified," he writes, "not that they were honest about it."

3 comments:

Julie said...

This is his cousin. So, they are both huge liars.

TELL3131 said...

I always have a van pick me up and drive me to the finish line. . . are you telling me this is not normal?

tri2fnsh said...

funny, 'cause my bro and I were texting while watching that - I was mortified that they completed that marathon an hour faster than my fastest time!
Just another indication that you really can't/shouldn't trust what you see on tv. And, while the biggest loser has changed many lives - it's not practical to expect those "tv" results in your "real" lives.