First I'd like to start by saying I really like Fábio de’Rose for the funny, helpful and smart person he is. He stood at my parents for a competition, I left him alone at my place during another (while I was busy) and we always kept a friendly relationship. Hopefully, this shows how much I used trust him. I’m a little disappointed at him because of what I think he did during these incidents and it’s quite painful to think of this again, since I was ready to let this go, but I think he’s misleading a few people here. There is a lot of information on this thread, I’ll just point those I know or I think that are lies.
The ban was
posted on nov/20th. On the same day, he said to me he was looking for a new job. The day before, he had plenty of time to do a lot of posts/reply on reddit, 13 posts, if you count from midnight to 11:59 p.m.
The latest one
This includes a description of a MBLD attempt.
You can check for yourself
here.
Also, on the same day the announcement was made, he posted/replied 21 times during all the day long. So, I'm finding hard to agree that he was in such a hurry working and studying that he did not have 15 min to record the video then for WDC. It was not a weekend.
I’m posting about Reddit here because he blocked me on Facebook and WhatsApp days after the ban.
About what you said regarding the top cubers, I believe Sebastiano answered in a decent way, therefore I'm leaving it.
About the chair blocking the way in. It was there, I saw it (and at least 3 other competitors). As you can see,
I was there too during his first attempt. I left the room since I was organizing stuff and I spent over 40 min on a total DNF. About 15 or 20 min later, I decided to check on him. The chair was clearly blocking the way in and it was not there when I left. I could move it out, but I thought this would make some noise, so I let it be. This chair also kept the guy who was recording stuff during Brasileiro2018 from going in. The chair was clearly put there by someone who did not wanted to let people in.
I was also at Mineirim, where he got his 28+ (later DNFed) solve. I remember him coughing but it was really occasional. A healthy person could cough like that, I don’t think I'd be affected by it if it were with me. There’s another thing I remember. We were all ready for MBLD, he stood and said “I need to go to the toilet”. The delegate said “can’t it wait? We’re about to start here”. Fabio replied “I can’t” and he left the area. The delegate wanted to wait for him to start, since the cubes were already scrambled. We waited him for about 8 min when I said to the delegate “Diego Meneghetti and me are using the full hour, if we don’t start without him, this will disturb the schedule”. We started, so I’m not sure when he returned. That's the only thing I remember regarding possible illness there.
About the reconstruction of his 28+, it was made just after the solve, not a couple of days after. Diego asked the delegate for the scramble and presented Fabio with it and asked how he did it. He reconstructed it, perfectly, I was there. He was calm and steady during it. His description included just regular comms with simple setups, not an R2 setup for 3 comms as claimed here (isn't it strange how could he reconstruct a R2 if it were a misscramble?). He posted another reconstruction on Facebook and then, after the video, he started claiming misscramble.
About Diego’s behavior. He was always a loyal competitor and I don’t think he would try to attack Fábio just because Fábio was a threat to him. Before that, Israel Fraga got a 28 and Diego did not make a thing. Israel even
beat him on a competition. I believe Israel is more a threat to Diego then Fábio is, so it would make no sense to attack Fábio and let Israel be. Diego has a past of fighting against cheaters, like a guy who just inverted an FMC scramble and added a few redundant moves to cover it up. At the time, they both got a 29 single SAR. Diego asked to see it and warned the delegate about the inverse scramble thing. This was before the RUF addition.
About the judge, I trust the guy. He might be a little inattentive, and he definitely can’t tell the difference between a 3style solve on a 5x5 a yau5 solve, but I don’t think he can take part on any cheating. I believe he is just another victim here, since people are questioning whether he helped a competitor to cheat or not.
I was also at the South American championship. I did not see him entering, but I did not talk to him there. Since he blocked me everywhere he could, I decided to respect his decision, perhaps he got upset by how I was gathering information about the incidents so I could choose a side here, instead of trusting a friend just because of the friendship. What I know is that a few people really made he feel home there.
And finally, I was the first person to suspect Fábio’s acts. On Feb/2017, we competed together for the first time and I was a little afraid of him, that’s why I remember him. I was there trying to get podium on 3BLD (after driving 750 km) and he used to post solves in around 1 min on Facebook. He DNFed there with 7 and 8 minutes,
he did not even try the third one. I thought “how can someone around 1 min get a 7 min DNF?”. He continued to get DNFs in competitions (
11 in a row) and he was posting sub1 videos on Facebook. His first official success was a sub3 after a lot of sub1 videos. This is the only thing I have no proof. He deleted all messages of the Facebook group in which he posted such times (I really would like to see again some videos from early 2017). At the time, by July/2017, I spoke both to Diego Meneghetti and Israel Fraga I thought Fábio faked videos for Facebook and possibly for YouTube. They both defended Fábio saying they believed him, despite neither of them had competed with him back then. Diego and Israel used to believe Fábio mostly because of his questions about BLD and how helpful he was for the new BLDers. After he got his first success, I decided to trust on Diego's and Israel's analysis. If these 2 top BLDers believed, why shouldn’t I? I even said this to Fabio: “I thought you were fake, but now I believe you” during
Silent Swap 2017. Looking back now, I wish I kept suspecting, at least I’d have stayed with him and the judge at the room when he got the 9 min success.
I do have 1 thing that show we can suspect his posts on internet. On Jan/30th/2017,
he posted a 15,63 3x3 avg. 12 days later,
he got a 36,92 official avg. Even Feliks used to fake some solves on the internet (like starting with a cross already done) to impress fellows, but he was like 12 years old or so. I know other competitors who used to fake solves and became good at it anyway (like
Antônio), but Fábio was already over 30 years old when he started competing, no need to impress people to try to look good, I think.
About his videos on YouTube, I just have one thing to say. When we had the Jake Klassen incident, Fábio said on our WhatsApp group that Jake should record “long sessions of solves as proof”, Fabio even said he spoke that to Jake himself. Fábio should do as he said and record long sessions of solves, but his channel just have 1 solve each video.
There are some other strange things here that I did not include (like he asking around for a cube before getting the 9 min success. Why did he need a 5x5? Doesn’t he already had one or how did he practice?), but I included mostly things I have proof of.
I think the original poster (and others) has 2 ways here: believe there’s some sort of conspiracy against Fábio de’Rose including delegates, (former?) friends, fellow competitors, WDC or believe the he might be mislead by a competitor accused of something and that is telling lies to convince people about a conspiracy.
It looks like he told you a few lies to convince you (lack of time, position of the chair, time of reconstruction for a start). So, shall we agree that he could be misleading you?
I think the best closure here would be he saying "OK guys, I did something wrong and I feel deeply sorry". He could inform WCA about how he did it so we could improve competitions all over the world, the ban would be suspended, we'd all accept him back with open arms and he could get good results with his own efforts only right away. Of course some things would change, like we would look him closer, but that's a small price to pay, I'm sure he enjoy cubing.