David Epstein/Pro Publica/BBC Story: Former Team Members Accuse Famed Coach Alberto Salazar of Breaking Drug Rules

Agreed--this makes no sense. Salazar was providing an unfair advantage to some of his athletes but the most prominent female distance runner in America was an exception?

gwalkerruns wrote:

Kara comes out looking fishy at best in this. She wants to come off as the clean whistleblower but for us to believe that we have to believe the following.....

1. She ran with Salazar for years but did not dope herself.

2. She didnt know about the doping until near the end.

3. She won a medal at worlds without doping but beat others who did.

Not buying it. Perhaps she knows her competitive days are over and this will raise her profile....

The program mentioned something about Kara Goucher taking medication for a long term thyroid problem. I did not know about that. Is that common Knowledge?

Of course EPO is going to work faster with more noticeable results. Steroids/Test just takes longer to notice results given the low dose that would be effective for endurance athletes. Steroids are cheaper. The effects compound week after week with the higher volume and intensity of training you can do. Also, endurance training lowers resting test so taking substances to raise test to a "natural" level is still cheating without going over the tested T:E ratio. The ratio they look for is way too high anyway since endurance athletes typically will have below normal test

Alan

Alan

In Galen's twisted mind, he has not doped nor done anything wrong. In his mind he has gotten TUEs for everything necessary or taken doses lower than what would trigger a positive test. I am sure years of Al Sal's mentality has rubbed off on him.

Er... wrote:

I don't know if Stiner is lying or not. I don't know a single thing about him. My point is that the check isn't physical evidence of anything except Salazar reimbursing him for shipping expenses. It doesn't prove anything about what was shipped.

Again, I have no view on guilt or innocence, although I suspect guilt. But if we're trying to gather evidence against Salazar and NOP, claiming this check is evidence of wrong-doing weakens our argument, not strengthens it.

Stiner contacted me in 2009, a year after the 2008 Olympic Trials where he was with NOP at Park City. Stiner told me pretty much everything that was in the BBC story, and more. In addition to the Androgel there were two refrigerated vials (for injection) of an unknown substance, that was hand-labled "Allergy 1" and "Allergy 2".

Now there is good reason NOT to believe Stiner. I found him to be a complete flake, unable to formulate complete sentences and unable to organize his thoughts, However, I believed his story to be truthful and told him he needs to write down what he saw/did and maybe something could be made of it.

Now there is a very good reason to believe Stiner too. Mainly, the fact that Alberto admitted to me that there was Androgel in the refrigerator at Park City in 2008 and it was his! (Aug 2013) So if Stiner is a liar, than Alberto is a liar too, and each told the same lie 4 years apart without either of them knowing what the other would say.

When Alberto told me the Androgel was his I was immediately skeptical, since Androgel is not meant to be used by someone with a heart condition. Alberto countered my objection by saying it was cleared by his cardiologist, and that his specific heart problems weren't affected by Androgel. Given Alberto's willingness to answer any and all questions I had (many more than addressed by the scope of the BBC story) over the course of perhaps a half dozen phone calls and a period of 3-4 days, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed sincere and there were many TMI moments during those conversations. Whether it was deliberate or not within the first 15 minutes of the first conversation (AUG 2013) he softened me up by apologizing to me for lying to me about a previous issue in a phone call back in 2009. (don't hold me to the date). I accepted that as a sign of his willingness to be upfront with me. Perhaps I was duped. Perhaps not.

I'm not going to reveal any more details about my conversations, but I will tell you this, John Stiner, and his wife, were both reluctant to come forward back in 2008/2009 because they feared retribution by the Nike Mafia, believing they could blackball them from PT gigs at USATF events.

European 10,000m champion Jo Pavey says she would ditch Alberto Salazar as her coach if she was Mo Farah. A double Olympic champion, Farah is trained by Salazar, who is at the centre of doping allegations.

Salazar denies wrongdoing but Pavey says she would "run a mile" if she was in Farah's position. "As an athlete, you don't want to associate yourself with people that have got accusations and allegations against them," said the Englishwoman. "I'm not here to accuse anyone, but if there was anybody I was slightly associated with that I suddenly realised had these accusations against them - or any of my training partners - I'd run a mile."

There is no suggestion that Farah, who is part of Salazar's training operation in the United States, has broken any rules. The Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m gold medallist told the BBC: "I have not taken any banned substances and Alberto has never suggested that I take a banned substance. "From my experience, Alberto and the Oregon Project have always strictly followed Wada rules and if there is ever a question seek guidance from Usada to ensure they are correctly interpreting Wada's rules."

Despite Farah's statement, British 800m runner Jenny Meadows said the 32-year-old should still "reassure us all". "He is becoming a legend of the sport and has to think of his reputation now," the 2011 European champion told Radio 5 live.

Meanwhile, UK Athletics said it welcomed the investigations and "would encourage the BBC to share all of the findings with the relevant anti-doping authorities". "UK Athletics operates an absolute zero tolerance policy towards the use of performance enhancing drugs and toward any and all doping practices within sport," the organisation added in a statement.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33002464

Faulty logic wrote:

wejo wrote:

Renato- If doping doesn't help then why would Rita do it?

Just so she can get a ban? Clearly she thought it would help right?

People do lots of things they think might "help", it doesn't mean that the thing they do actually does "help".

FWIW, I take Mr Canova's point; EPO doping isn't a "more is better" situation, and it may well be that an altitude born and trained athlete who takes EPO might push their blood past the "sweet spot" long before performence improvement is achieved. I'd like to see evidence of this before I agree, but I'm willing to listen to someone with experience in the matter.

all of the very top east africans were on EPO in the 90s

EPO usage became widespread in the peleton by 1992 and the east-africans followed not long after encouraged by greedy european agents and managers

now they didn't get a 7% performance boost like the non-elites but nevertheless there was no test and all the north-africans and italians and spanish were on the stuff and the africans wiped the floor with them

anyone who believes clean east-africans were beating doped europeans and north-africans needs a reality check-remember there was no test for years

unrestricted EPO usage fizzled out around 2008

they are still microdosing for the marathon

the BBC story is now on YouTube - starts around 33:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH8KYkKzqA4

Interesting. Thanks for responding, Malmo. It sounds like you remain unconvinced of wrongdoin -- but skeptical -- as many of us have been for years.

Delusional paranoid fantasies don't make a very good case.

Nice to see you again, malmo.

One question: is Alberto's acknowledgement of the presence of androgel and his claim that it's his public somewhere? Or do we just have someone claiming that Alberto said it?

This is the sort of thing that drives me crazy. Someone reports a rumor, it gets repeated, and a few pages along in a blog post it's repeated as fact.

I'm not disputing ANY claim anywhere. I just would like to know HOW do we know there was androgel there?

Maybe the most credible person (as we actually know who they are and it is first hand) is Malmo. So, given this info, NOP is most likely screwed. I agree with Wejo/Rojo about simply opening up about what things are you doing (in the register guard article Lauren F brings this up as well). Everything looks shady when you are doing things in the cloud of night. There should be more open discussion about it by known entities.

Even if AlSal doesn't get in trouble because he had contacted WADA/USADA about things with respect to 'supplements', someone brought up the fact that you can't prescribe medicine without a license. That is illegal (not just shady in Track and Field) and in that case the FEDs might have a stake in this. This is what NFL docs were going to get into trouble for when traveling to different states with their respective teams. Practicing medicine (distributing prescription drugs) without a license in that state. This is not a minor issue in the eyes of the law. Ironic if this turns out to be what does them in, as they may have done far more egregious things.

Er... wrote:

Nice to see you again, malmo.

One question: is Alberto's acknowledgement of the presence of androgel and his claim that it's his public somewhere? Or do we just have someone claiming that Alberto said it?

I just told you a couple of posts above, that's why. I would tend to believe that my conversations with Alberto were being recorded. Perhaps you could ask Nike for a transcript?

It will be interesting to see how long this holds up.

People have been calling this for years.

Nothing particularly new is here.

But sometimes persistence is what brings something down.

Of course it was great persistence that brought Lance down.

Even the Bill Cosby thing came out years ago but it became big when it was re-hashed in the social media age.

What we know from the past is that it will take an insider to really turn it out.

Assuming they are really doing something wrong, will they push it like Icarus?

(or like Gatlin who won Gold in 2004 even though he was coached by Trevor Graham and they came out originally unscathed in the 2003 BALCO scandal before it fell apart in 2006)

Or back off like Mahkloufi seemed to.

Faulty logic wrote:

Delusional paranoid fantasies don't make a very good case.

sure buddy

they said the same thing here about the NOP conspiracy theorists for years

next they need to start looking at hermens and his network

it's a much bigger story than this

Here's my question: what will it take for USADA or WADA to get involved seriously? (If they aren't already.) Will "malmo says Alberto told him there was androgel in the room?" cut it? Is this really all we have on the androgel?

malmo wrote:

I just told you a couple of posts above, that's why. I would tend to believe that my conversations with Alberto were being recorded. Perhaps you could ask Nike for a transcript?

Maybe we'll learn something. Like a refinement in how to get around drug testing and PED laws.

1 Hell Ya

2 Hell Ya

3 Hell Ya

4 ? Test replacement therapy can be prescribed, wonder how this one pans out.

5 Nike = Corporate bulllshitt.

6 Nobody clean on the tour really

webby wrote:

Interesting. Thanks for responding, Malmo. It sounds like you remain unconvinced of wrongdoin -- but skeptical -- as many of us have been for years.

You're wrong. I was willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Doubt has been thrust to the forefront by a thorough investigation by respected journalists. If NOP has a defense it will all come forward in time.

I can tell you one thing for sure, if they continue to regurgitate boilerplate lawyer statements instead honest words from the heart, no one will believe a word that they say.

Weldon, because something SUPPOSES EPO can help them. About Rita, I explained the reasons because for me was absolutely normal she could run about 2:19 with proper training and a good Group around, after becoming free from the influence of her husband, so I was not surprised about her results, if already she could run 2:21 in 2006 (read again what I explained).

The fact is that the brain of Rita is not at the same level of her motivation and her determination in training.

You need to understand that Rita lives in Kapsabet, where some Kenyan doctor without any respect, looking at his economical benefit only, continues to cheat athletes without any education, and mentally very fragile.

Among all the Kenyan athletes caught for doping (almost 90% for nandrolone, only 3 for EPO), more than 90% are in the area of Kapsabet, where clearly there is something wrong. AK and Kenyan Government had a ridiculous investigation, and the final result was, officially, that "foreigner managers and coaches are the responsible of this trend", when for example I gave in 2011 precise informations about one pharmacy in Iten where the responsible used to offer EPO in change of the percentage of 15% on the prizes of the athletes (but AK didn't do anything, telling me was not a my task to look for this).

Finally, Wesley Korir, who is a Parliament Member, went for a personal investigation, and arriving to the same conslusions I had : responsible are Kenyan doctors and pharmacists, who can cheat athletes of medium and low level, and without education, while don't have any link with the top runners, who have more organization with their European or American managements.

More I know what the top athletes did, not only in training, but in their life, more I know they were clean, when reached their best. This is the case of Haile and Kenenisa. I was with Kenenisa long time in December, January and February, and I saw his behavior, I knew his fright about any pharmac, and I had the opportunity to know his training. I Always thought he was clean, but after knowing many particulars about his character and his lifestyle, now I don't think, I AM SURE he was (and is) clean.

About Mr. Magoo and Chet Manly, who are only able to insult but not to produce any scientific info, I don't want to waste my time to reply to... nothing, because they are not able to give any reason for what they think, apart "if doesn't work, why some can use", or "this is the most stupid thing I read in my lufe", or something like this.

I clearly speaked about three main points :

1) Top runners in long distance can increase with proper training their total volume of blood of about 25% (that means about 1 and half liter of blood more in their circulatory system)

2) This fact doesn't produce any increase in the blood viscosity, on the contrary of EPO assumption.

3) All these situation can be provoked by correct and hard training only (for example, using a lot of lactic training REDUCES the total quantity of blood in the body).

These are precise methodological points, but I NEVER READ ANY SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THESE VARIATIONS ON THE PERFORMANCES.

About the fact one of them put in doubt the WR of Shaheen, this is pure stupid speculation from somebody who doesn't know anything but has the arrogance to speak and to accuse without any knowledge.

If the stagnation of the records on track during the last 10 years is due to more effective antidoping controls, how is that HM and Marathon had during the same period a real explosion of top performances ?

How is it possible to stay out of every logic, chosing as truth only what can support your ideas ?

Bad Wigins, the reason because African were not so strong, as results, before 1990, is very simple : there were not yet European or American managements giving to so many athletes the opportunity to compete at high level (at that period, for example, only Kim McDonald and John Bicourt in Kenya, and nobody in Ethiopia). And in the middle there was also some war on the side of Ethiopia : is not a reason enough important for stopping any interest in athletics for long periods (Ethiopians had 7 years without international competitions, from 1972 to 1977 with the World Cup in Düsseldorf when Miruts Yifter won 5000 and 10000m, and again other 8 years without international competitions between 1980 and 1988, for the boycott of Olympics 1984, with very poor participation in the first two editions of WCh ; Kenyans had a period of 7 years without competitions from 1976 till 1983, because the boycott of Olympics in Moscow).

I can tell you that, under the point of view of pure talent, Kenyans of 40 years ago were stronger than the Kenyans of today, but there was no organization and no continuity in training, because there were not important appointments and money in athletics.

A Keino in the current athletic world could have the possibility to run under all the WR from 1500m to 5000m, and a Yifter of today probably could be better than Haile and Kenenisa.

Last thing, about the argument of this thread :

1) I respect Alberto for what he was able to produce. I don't want to give any opinion about all the fact, because nothing is clear at the moment.

We have the same final goal, to help the athletes to reach their best, but with different mentality : he believes in everything can help the athletes for training better (advanced physiotherapy, pharmacological supports, specific machines, etc..., also because he can have all these benefits from Nike), I believe in the athletes themselves and their training, and I don't want to use any external support (also legal), because I think can reduce the self confidence creating a form of "dependence".

In any case, I don't consider this one a "doping scandal", because there are not elements for thinking of doping, till when there is not something acclarated. However, it's clear that, for every athlete using some legal support, Always there is the risk to overtake (somet times unconsciously) the border between what is legal and what is illegal (this is probably the case of Tyson Gay).

2) I know very well Steve Magness, and I have full confidence in his integrity, competence, knowledge and passion. I really don't think he can do something in athletics for his personal convenience only, so I believe in what he said. However, what he said doesn't exclude the fact that everything Alberto is doing is inside the limits of legality.