Interview With Abdi After Race He Had No Idea Fagan Had Tested Positive

Wow, what a bunch of geniuses on this board! My sister lived with a guy for 5 years and didn't know he had a gambling problem. He was losing 50k a year betting through a bookie. Oh, he has was a habitual pot smoker. She knew he smoked a little but not every day.

I lived with a woman for 6 years and didn't know how much money she owed to creditors. She was broke and I didn't know it.

People can keep almost any aspect of their life hidden. I wouldn't expect Abdi to know about Fagan's drug use just because they lived and trained together. If Abdi knew, what would his reaction be? I would expect him to tell the guy "we can't train together because your cheating and I won't associate with a cheater". Anything short of that would be a stain on Abdi's character, imo.

blaznbison24 wrote:

haha OY wrote:

Good interview, thanks. Hopefully he can get tested and we can find out if anything fishy is going on

Out of competition testing is pretty much the only way. Even though it'd have no benefit the next day, someone could take a small dose before bed and pee clean by the time they wake up.

Or just drink lots water and in few minutes it will be all gone from your system. I think it was Marion Jones that used to throw some little powder in her pee cup as most of the cyclists do. It clears things up really fast.

This sounds a little ridiculous to me. I don' know exactely when this news about the Fagan's positive test came out. But if it was a day before the OT, and this news was all over the Internet, it is hard to believe the Abdi did not hear anything about, or did not know. A friend could just call him and tell him about the positive test of his buddy Fagan. Come on people! In this interview, Abdi did not seem to be shocked with news about Fagan at all. He sounds like he was reading a script.

Lostrules wrote:

Right on man. If there were a press conference that would be an appropriate time to ask the question not right after the man had just finished and was trying to be in the moment of qualifying for the team. Just saying 'Hey, I'm going to ask you about Martin Fagan' is utter bullshit and totally misleading. Poor form guys.

This was AFTER the press conference. There had been a full press conference for the top 3. I got the microphone for one question and asked Meb a question. No one asked any questions to Abdi about this. There wasn't any official time to talk to athletes one on one so I talked to him while walking. I assume he knew about Fagan's positive and notified him, "I'm going to ask you about Fagan" because I was also videoing my interview. Occasionally athletes request stuff not to be on video.

So it was not immediately in the moment and I notified him in advance figuring he knew of the positive.

As for the people figuring Abdi had to know this. I found out after 10pm the night before. Abdi was likely asleep at that point and I can easily see his coach or agent not telling him before the race as he has other priorities. Hell Abdi's coach could possibly not even know about the positive as of race time. Abdi's agent Ray Flynn is Fagan's agent so I figure he almost certainly would know by race time.

I'm surprised they didn't tell him afterwards as to me it would seem to be a question that could come up at a press conference but knowing the sport they probably figured no one would ask it. Or they figured Abdi did not need advance notice. If you know nothing about something and don't have anything to cover up then you don't really need advance notice except for the the initial awkwardness of finding out at a press conference.

Then again I think some people only want positive questions and would say this is total bs no matter when I asked the question. With Merga getting DQd in the 5000m at Worlds, I did ask him about it at the official press conference and some of you said that was bush league. The situation was a little bit different as I figured he likely did not know of it and tried to say as much in my question. But the question needed to be asked.

I don't think it's bush league at all. Asking an innocent guy a question about an acquaintance should cause an innocent guy no grief whatsoever.

As far as the timing goes...those are the breaks. The news came out essentially on the same day as the trials. I'm glad you asked the question.

I really want to believe these guys are clean, but I'm concerned they aren't. I think a lot of people feel the same way. Keep asking!

The question had to be asked and sooner is probably better than later. He seemed genuinely shocked to me.