Salazar Responds to USADA

Do you have a link of some sort or did you write that yourself?

Great. Alberto said he fully cooperased with USADA. USADA says he didnt. Someone is a liar and I'll bet it's not USADA.

Unless the medical records themselves are in error, I do not see how the USADA mischaracterized the dosage and nature of the L-carnitine infusions. The medical data seemed incomplete—possibly on purpose—but if you do the math, the time elapsed for the infusions indicates a far larger dose than allowed. How can it be otherwise?

I once had a high school athlete who was accused of cursing out an opposing athlete to the point of bullying type of behavior. I could not get a straight answer of what happened and did not see it happen but the evidence pointed that yes, he behaved badly. In private I confronted that, but the public, official, story had to be something like:

"he has always been an upstanding young man and an honor-roll student as well as star athlete. In all practices he is highly polite to his team-mates and myself. School board policy prevents me from speaking further however on any specific incident."

Now, all the above is true, yet it fails to address the incident in question at all. Salazar applies the same tactics to protect himself and his athletes, aside from a few nebulous claims like about the L-carnitine. Any of us who coach can read a disturbing lack of clear rebuttal details in all of Salazar's missives in response to allegations. He keeps saying he believes in clean sport, but does very little to really refute he doesn't practice what he preaches. That bothers me.

Fiduciary Suicide wrote:

Great. Alberto said he fully cooperased with USADA. USADA says he didnt. Someone is a liar and I'll bet it's not USADA.

Well, Salazar did not request Dr Brown cooperate with the USADA, and would not release any medical records that he has. Records are private to the USADA but Salazar gets to have them.

The best defense is an offense. Look no further than Lance's rants and threats during his heyday.

One thing I know is true....Alberto didn't write that statement.

This fact is true wrote:

One thing I know is true....Alberto didn't write that statement.

Same for 'his' manifesto. He did not write that one either.

SalazarResponds! wrote:

http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2017/05/nike_oregon_project_coach_albe.html

"Lastly, the Oregon Project and its athletes .. "

Hmmm, the Nike part of the name is missing. Interesting.

This fact is true wrote:

One thing I know is true....Alberto didn't write that statement.

I don't think it matters who wrote it if it's true. Hopefully we get another open letter to put this to bed. I tend to agree with the OP, he wouldn't say this if he couldn't prove it.

A Florida Coach wrote:

Unless the medical records themselves are in error, I do not see how the USADA mischaracterized the dosage and nature of the L-carnitine infusions. The medical data seemed incomplete—possibly on purpose—but if you do the math, the time elapsed for the infusions indicates a far larger dose than allowed. How can it be otherwise?

.

There seemed to be some questions over the document Rupp's lawyer gave to USADA. Maybe this is what Salazar is referring to. USADA said it implicated Rupp, obviously Rupp's lawyers don't think so. So one side is wrong about this document. We need to see it.

SalazarResponds! wrote:

A Florida Coach wrote:

Unless the medical records themselves are in error, I do not see how the USADA mischaracterized the dosage and nature of the L-carnitine infusions. The medical data seemed incomplete—possibly on purpose—but if you do the math, the time elapsed for the infusions indicates a far larger dose than allowed. How can it be otherwise?

.

There seemed to be some questions over the document Rupp's lawyer gave to USADA. Maybe this is what Salazar is referring to. USADA said it implicated Rupp, obviously Rupp's lawyers don't think so. So one side is wrong about this document. We need to see it.

Lawyers always have contradictory opinions. That is how they milk people for fees.

Yes, it is possible the record is either in error or something was left out of the leaked report. I agree that it's dicey dealing with a leaked report, with many aspects left unclear or unverified. It leaves things very open for lawyers to say "oh, they had a draft of this or that" but these are the same lawyers it seems who are urging people to not be forthcoming with the investigations. It is possible if every record was kept and now laid on the table, things would be clear—though probably not very pretty for NOP.

As a thought experiment, how might an actually clean elite coach/program approach things? Obviously, there are a range of possible answers to this, but here's mine ....

"Our athletes take only what is both a) fully legal under all relevant anti-doping codes AND b) a medical necessity. By 'medical necessity,' we mean a situation where denying the treatment would be a clear violation of the accepted standard of care in the relevant field of medicine.

In simple terms, the default is that our athletes take no supplements or medicine at all. The exceptions are when such denial would represent medical malpractice. To put this into practice, we have contracted with the Mayo Clinic to assemble an independent panel of physicians to review any treatment proposed for any of our athletes. The review focuses only on the health of the athlete, not their performance, and we have zero input. The objective is that any treatment ordered for any our athletes is such that any physician with relevant expertise would immediately recognize it as standard and appropriate practice.

Furthermore, any and all such treatments, along with their medical justifications, will be publicly disclosed at [website] within 1 week of being administered, even for over-the-counter medications. This represents a significant invasion of our athletes' privacy. Sadly, it now seems to be a necessary step as a result of how badly some previous athletes, coaches, and administrators have damaged the sport via doping. We hope that you recognize the sacrifice that our athletes are making in an effort to clean up the sport, and treat the posted information in a respectful way.

In simple terms: we seek no advantage through chemistry, whether legal or not."

Ahem, you failed to explain why shopping for doctors who give the answer you want to hear is not taking advantage. There is no reason for an athlete from Oregon to see a doctor in Texas when doctors with the same abilities exist close to home. The only reason to go so far afield is that those local doctors won't sign up for your games.

It sounds like lots of elite runners see Dr Brown. The report notes that Goucher was sent by Wetmore and Solinsky saw him as well. Perhaps there are more. He may just be known to deal with endurance athletes.

Doctor Shopping wrote:

Ahem, you failed to explain why shopping for doctors who give the answer you want to hear is not taking advantage. There is no reason for an athlete from Oregon to see a doctor in Texas when doctors with the same abilities exist close to home. The only reason to go so far afield is that those local doctors won't sign up for your games.

Doctor Shopping wrote:

Ahem, you failed to explain why shopping for doctors who give the answer you want to hear is not taking advantage. There is no reason for an athlete from Oregon to see a doctor in Texas when doctors with the same abilities exist close to home. The only reason to go so far afield is that those local doctors won't sign up for your games.

1. I (mostly) agree with you. On the main thread about this, I posted that multiple pro athletes all traveling to see the same endocrinologist is a big red flag. I say "mostly agree" because traveling to see an orthopedic surgeon would not really be suspicious.

2. In my hypothetical mission statement, I wrote that: "The objective is that any treatment ordered for any our athletes is such that any physician with relevant expertise would immediately recognize it as standard and appropriate practice." Which would be the opposite of doctor shopping.

Lawyers wrote:

This fact is true wrote:

One thing I know is true....Alberto didn't write that statement.

I don't think it matters who wrote it if it's true. Hopefully we get another open letter to put this to bed. I tend to agree with the OP, he wouldn't say this if he couldn't prove it.

You must really be stupid. Alberto is not unaccustomed to lying.

If he's lying then we will know when the evidence is released. I'm just tired of this endless speculation. And for USADA to do that seems very unprofessional.