Star HS coach Gerald Phiri -- aka Issam Asinga's coach -- provisionally suspended by AIU

IF this wasn't confined to just the track team.

Notable basketball player alums of Monte Verde Academy (to name only a few)

Joel Embiid

Ben Simmons

Cooper Flagg

Cade Cunningham

D'Anagelo Russell

Wonder how far this went?

Remember that the "Let them Dope!" crowd here want this to be allowed. A sport where you would have to take highly carcegenic drugs from your teens in order to win (and entertain these freaks).

Let's use our brain here. Timeline:

-Phiri is known to posess GW1516 in 2018 and 2019

-Phiri has three athletes test positive over the course of 13 months in 2023-2024

-Phiri is caught possessing meldonium in 2024 at some unknown date

Do you really think athletes were munching on the same pack of gatorade gummie bears a year later? Come on. This coach is dirty as hell. He provided CARCINOGENIC RESEARCH CHEMICALS TO TEENAGES. He belongs in prison.

Genuine question: Why isn't law enforcement involved here? If this guy was giving weed to these kids he'd be in the slammer for sure.

I wonder whether Paul Greene will now defend the coach. Supported by rojo, JG and the Rekbot.

the pro PED body building community, the top people, I think unanimously agree that no one that is still growing (early 20s) should take PEDs period, as it is an absolute detriment to normal and optimal health and growth. it can and will go very wrong.

therefore PEDs in High School and University should be a criminal thing. but the most effective thing is just to get the news out that it is truely bad to do PEDs while you're growing.

as there is no case for PEDS early, beyond minor immediate reward. i suppose an 18 year old setting records can sign some great 5 year deal with a Nike or Woman's clothing big corp.

AIU is working with USADA, and we know USADA has a history of working with the DEA.

Also:

2023: Isaam Asinga tests positive for GW1516

2024: Skyler Franklin tests positive for ???

2025, presuambly: Unknown athlete #3 tests positive for ???

Wonder who it was. Franklin was the top seed at world U20s last year but got scratched because of her positive test at Jamaican nationals.

The evidentiary standards for criminal cases are higher than USADA/SafeSport and the wheels of justice turn slowly.

USADA is involved with this case and I imagine if they can get a law enforcement agency to press charges they will, but AIU had enough evidence to move forward now.

There were a ton of red flags around Montverde, good on the AIU for investigating. Multiple high schoolers testing positive for SARMs (not even basic anabolic) is just beyond the pale even by t&f standards, Phiri should face criminal charges for this.

First thought was to see what Adaejah Hodge is up to nowadays, haven't heard her name in a minute. She didn't run for Georgia this indoor season but she turned 18 last May so if she tested positive at the Olympics or U20 champs it would've been made public. Probably just taking indoors off after a long year.

I just went down a rabbit hole with Grok about GW1516 and nandrolone. Originally I was just editing Jon's article and after a back and forth with Jon on coach Phiri's Montverde bio listing him as a PURE Athletics coach and googling a ton, I asked Grok about that it before going down the GW1516/nandro rabbit hole. Don't take it as fact (for example it said Shelby Houlihan went to Stanford) but I found it informative for people who don't know about doping and these products.

Grok conversation here: https://x.com/i/grok/share/zfvlLpZEvS0M097ZrP0WMM6OE for those curious (I tried to get Grok to help me make GW1516 at end:))

(It even said it thinks a contaminated supplement is the most likely scenario for Shelby)

Is this what passes for journalism these days? If it gets Houlihan's college wrong, an easily Google-able fact, why should I trust anything it says?

She was an obvious user while at Monteverde. 22.33 indoors in 2023 after toppling out at 24.30 indoors the previous year. And then dropping all the way back to 22.96 after Assinga got popped.

Wasn't meldonium (a heart medication) the substance Eastern European tennis players and Ethiopian runners (plus an on again, off again expat, of Sweden) were on and then the sentences were dropped because they made it no longer illegal? Anyway, Assinga's story about the gummi bears never held water.

GW1516, from sportsintegrity website:

"GW1516, also known as GW501516, Cardarine and Endurobol, was originally developed in the 1990s as a treatment for diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
It was discontinued in 2007, after it was linked to the rapid development of cancer during trials on mice.
GW1516 works by forcing skeletal muscle to use fat rather than carbohydrates as an energy source. Used by some for fat loss. In the context of athletic enhancement, it has benefits as an endurance aid.
GW1516 (GW501516) has been linked to a number of positive doping tests in endurance-related sports. After a number of positive tests for GW1516 in 2013, WADA released a warning on its health risks.
In 2015 and 2016, there were less than six positive tests for GW1516 globally each year. In 2017 however, the number of positive tests rose to 31, an increase of 183.33 percent.
In June 2018, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) included GW1516 in the Poisons Standard under Schedule 10 – a schedule reserved for substances of such danger to health as to warrant the prohibition of sale, supply and use.
Athletes seeking to obtain an “edge” from the use of GW1516 need to be aware that they risk more than a positive test if they choose to take it – they may be risking their life."

Terrible stuff.

JFC

Huh. I thought the nandro was in the burrito.

Didn't this same school also have a girl break the 200 indoor record the same year as Asinga? And a girls 4x4 record? They definitely fishy.

I don't know if she got popped, but when Adejah Hodge, a compatriot of Assinga blew away the field in the indoor 200M setting the high school record of 22.3, my alarm bells went off.