They Did it Again: USATF Board Appoints Dennis Mitchell to Coach Team USA #Justdope

Jakob Larsen the Head of the Danish Athletics Federation says on twitter, "I don’t get it - should be possible to find another skilled relay coach in the US"

Well said.

https://twitter.com/Jakla

Agreed.

Who in their right mind/s at USATF would make or endorse the decision to have a doper (all expenses paid for by membership/sponsors I presume) to be associated in any which way with team USA?

Other countries are politely scratching their heads...

We are not bolstering our status in the world arena of clean sport nations by entrusting a drug cheat to coach our athletes.

Where has logic gone?

Shows how our stock has slipped on so many levels.

...and people are planning to vote for Hillary. God help us.

wejo wrote:

"I don’t get it - should be possible to find another skilled relay coach in the US"

It's beyond bizarre to me as well. The only thing I might disagree with about his comment is the implication that Mitchell is a skilled relay coach.

I don't follow the sprints as closely as distance, so anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Mitchell been the head relay coach many times before? Any how many of those teams have had dropped baton, illegal exchange, etc, fiascoes?

But the past doping should be enough to keep the guy from being a national coach of any kind.

Gonzo wrote:

...and people are planning to vote for Hillary. God help us.

LR will never miss a chance to derail a thread with political drivel.

Instead of whining you can do something. Others have:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02638/paula-rad_2638318b.jpg

Don't see what the problem is - it's just Stephanie giving her friend Dennis a free trip to the Bahamas. I hope and pray that she isn't elected to the IAAF council - what a poor reflection on the USA. ...

Travelocity wrote:

Don't see what the problem is - it's just Stephanie giving her friend Dennis a free trip to the Bahamas. I hope and pray that she isn't elected to the IAAF council - what a poor reflection on the USA. ...

And yet, you'd probably have your post deleted if you asked if there was some sort of black nepotism going on at USATF...

DontDropTheBaton wrote:

But the past doping should be enough to keep the guy from being a national coach of any kind.

USATF's position was the "beers and Birthday sex" excuse was legit for the testo spike and it seems they are holding that view in-spite of the IAAF position that it was PED fueled spike not a horny goat reaction. .

Falk O, Palonek E, Bjorkhem I. Effect of ethanol on the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone in urine. Clin Chem 1988;34(7):1462-4.

http://www.clinchem.org/content/34/7/1462.full.pdf

The testosterone/epitestosterone weight ratio in urine is used to detect cases of doping when an athlete has treated himself with exogenous testosterone. When this ratio exceeds 6, it is considered evidence of testosterone doping. We show here that intake of ethanol can affect this ratio. Ingestion of 110-160 g of ethanol, about 2 g per kilogram body weight, increased the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone in urine from 1.14 +/- 0.07 to 1.52 +/- 0.09 in four healthy male volunteers. The increase ranged from 30% to 90% in the different subjects studied (mean 41%). In cases where doping with testosterone is suspected, the possibility should be considered that at least part of an observed increased testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in urine is ascribable to previous ingestion of ethanol.

coach d wrote:

Falk O, Palonek E, Bjorkhem I. Effect of ethanol on the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone in urine. Clin Chem 1988;34(7):1462-4.

http://www.clinchem.org/content/34/7/1462.full.pdf

The testosterone/epitestosterone weight ratio in urine is used to detect cases of doping when an athlete has treated himself with exogenous testosterone. When this ratio exceeds 6, it is considered evidence of testosterone doping. We show here that intake of ethanol can affect this ratio. Ingestion of 110-160 g of ethanol, about 2 g per kilogram body weight, increased the ratio between testosterone and epitestosterone in urine from 1.14 +/- 0.07 to 1.52 +/- 0.09 in four healthy male volunteers. The increase ranged from 30% to 90% in the different subjects studied (mean 41%). In cases where doping with testosterone is suspected, the possibility should be considered that at least part of an observed increased testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in urine is ascribable to previous ingestion of ethanol.

thanks for the link

the call on the field (USATF) was bunch of beer

but

when it was reviewed by officials in the replay booth (IAAF) the call was reversed

and PED use is what is now in the official governing body of the sport's record book.

I'm not making excuses for the guy, just trying to get the facts straight. These days they'd go to CIR and there would be no excuses either way.

And there's a bunch more above that's wrong. We (USA) have a long history of baton dropping. We can thank our old friend Brooks Johnson for a bunch of that. Jon Drummond jumped in and turned the thing around, but he's banned for 8 years for being Tyson Gay's drug pusher. Dennis Mitchell coached at World Relays last year and did a good job.

Now, if you don't want Dennis, who do you want? You could have Lance Brauman, who's an ex-con that has had only about 5 athletes test positive. How about Caryl Smith-Gilbert at USC, quite possibly the best sprint coach in the world now? She has the USC-UCLA dual meet this weekend and her teams are ranked #1 and #4, so she's fighting for possibly 2 NCAA championships. Pat Henry, Vince Anderson, Mike Holloway, Dennis Shaver? They're fighting for national championships, too. Bob Kersey, John Smith? They both had people drop batons in April and they've never done this kind of thing for the USA team as far as I know. Bev Kearney? Better keep her away from the girls.

And that's the deal. They've got Clyde Hart, but the 4X1 is a lot more technical than the 4X4. And anybody any good is already committed.

Coach your opinion is always respected, but this time you have missed the point. Mitchell was one of the most prolific drug users in his time as an athlete.

He was an arrogant mouthy jerk that had little or no respect off the track .

These so called coaching positions should be given out to qualified but respected coaches. The Bev comment is way off base, you loose credibility all around.

Glass houses people. This was years ago. Why can't you let it go and focus maybe on the good he and is athletes are doing. PEACE

coach d wrote:

I'm not making excuses for the guy, just trying to get the facts straight. These days they'd go to CIR and there would be no excuses either way.

You are trying to make excuses but fortunately Mitchell can no longer claim to the beers and sex excuse. I wrote in last year's article:

"Mitchell then had to testify at the Trevor Graham perjury trial in 2008 and was forced to admit that Graham injected him with HGH and advised him to take EPO, HGH, and steroids. "

Michele wrote:

Glass houses people. This was years ago. Why can't you let it go and focus maybe on the good he and is athletes are doing. PEACE

No where am I trying to claim that I am perfect or that Dennis is the only one who has made mistakes in his life. I unlike some am open to at least the possibility of letting Mitchell be a USA coach but only if there is some sort of Truth and Reconciliation and he talks about his doping honestly.

However, if someone embezzled a bunch of money I wouldn't want them to be my accountant.

wejo wrote:

Convicted doper Dennis Mitchell is coaching Team USA this weekend at World Relays. I don't think Dennis should be near a national team until he comes clean about his past. There are a ton of high school coaches who could teach team USA how to get the stick around without dropping it. Coaching Team USA is a privilege not a right.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/05/convicted-doper-dennis-mitchell-coaching-team-usa-again/

Dennis is a well respected sprint coach and there is nothing in the USATF by-laws that says a convicted doper cannot coach a national team. - That's basically your answer.

re: "There are a ton of high school coaches who could teach team USA how to get the stick around without dropping it". - This simply is not true, handing off and blindly accepting a baton at 25 miles per hour is not as simple as LD types might think.

re: "Coaching Team USA is a privilege not a right." - I agree with that statement; however USATF does have a process, albeit somewhat informal for selecting national team coaches and Dennis is likely at the top of the rotation.

For the record the 2 US sprint men's relay teams did NOT perform well at World Relays in 2014. The 4x1 was a DQ in the trials and the 4x2 was a DQ in the final. That alone should have made him the obvious choice not to the be coach disregarding all the drug issues.

Dennis has admitted drug use under oath plus the positive test plus his wife was banned in the Balco scandal plus his main athlete has tested positive.

So that is why he is the perfect coach for this team.

As for who could coach relay successfully well there are a few others that are not named and may not be as high profile and not collegiate coaches but could get the job done understanding the demands of high speed relay passes. But to actually consider this would mean USATF pooh bahs actually stop their cronyism behavior.

the hired Mitchell *again*????

oh for shiite's sake

usatf, you suck

The board does this after they removed hersch for amongst other reasons how he has handled doping or whatever the hell it was they suggested about him not taking a firm stance on doping.