Chris Derrick, Ryan Vail And Other Elites React To Mo Trafeh EPO Bust

2014 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships

View LetsRun.com Event Coverage

by LetsRun.com
June 27, 2014

Below is an excerpt from our men’s 10,000m recap from the 2014 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships where runner-up Chris Derrick and 3rd placer Ryan Vail talk about our article on Mo Trafeh getting caught with EPO. We also include embedded tweets from Ben True, Nick Arciniaga, Steve Magness, Kevin Hanson, Fernando Cabada, Scotty Bauhs and more.

From our 10,000 recap:

We took this opportunity to ask Derrick and Vail about our Mo Trafeh EPO article as both had tweeted about it today and wanted to hear their thoughts.

Derrick said, “That’s an unfortunate situation where everyone involved in the sport didn’t know, like have proof to turn him in, but we all knew. I mean I’ve heard people call him ‘MoPO’”. He said he feels like Trafeh getting banned is a good thing because he is someone he felt shouldn’t have been in the sport and now he’s not.

Trafeh’s lawyer had told us that redemption in the running community was something very dear to him, so we asked Derrick what he would like to hear come from Trafeh when he does publicly speak about his EPO bust. Derrick said:

“You know honestly, I don’t really care. One thing I hope he doesn’t say, is I hope he doesn’t come out with that, pardon my language, but frankly bullshit, ‘Oh everybody’s doing it, I had to do it’ because that’s not true. I think that overall … I mean there’s a couple people that people have suspicions about … but the culture of American distance running is very clean and very solid. … And I hope he doesn’t try to put this on someone else [or the culture]. … I think there’s very few coaches in this country pushing drugs. If you’re going to go out and do that it’s on you.”

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Vail lost out on thousands of dollars to Trafeh (he was sixth and fifth in the Gate River Run 15k in Jacksonville in 2010 and 2011; Trafeh won the race both years) and said that it hurt to know Trafeh had been busted with EPO possession.

“I ran with him a lot at Gate River,” Vail said. “He was a really nice guy. Obviously all of us had our suspicions. You’re being stolen from the last three or four years most likely and that’s hard to take. Hopefully there’s some kind of ramification other than him retiring.”

Vail said that he knows it’s unlikely athletes such as himself will recoup money from races Trafeh won, but that he didn’t want to see Trafeh keep the money. He raised a good point: “What’s the incentive to not do it if you get to keep the money and then just retire?”

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Vail hinted earlier that some athletes had their suspicions about Trafeh and we asked him to expand on that.

“There was definitely talk among the athletes. He made such a huge jump, crushing his 10k PR in the middle of a 15k. It’s going to draw anyone’s suspicions…When you see unusual jumps like that, it makes you question things.”

Other Elites Tweet #MoTrafeh:

Ben St. Lawrence And Ben True

Nick Arciniaga

Steve Magness

Kevin Hanson

Scotty Bauhs

Fernando Cabada

Sage Canaday

Mike Morgan

Craig Leon

 

Tyler McCandless

Joseph Gray

Alvina Begay

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