Hebron, KY-based Kenyan receives 8 year sanction

Juiced up and still got her a55 kicked by Esther Erb!!

This should count as her first sanction since EPO doesn't work on kenyans.

This group in Hebron, KY is lead by a Russian woman (former middle distance runner) who plays the role of coach & agent. The athletes are mostly 2nd and 3rd tier Africans.

Their standard method of operation is to show up at 2nd and 3rd tier road races in the US which offer some prize money but likely do not have drug testing. They'll number multiple people in the race with the athletes dropping out if they fall out of money contention. They race every couple of weeks.

Even with avoiding drug testing 5 current members have tested positive for PED's (usually EPO) when they do get tested. Their top woman runner just got an 8 yr ban for her second offense.

To make it even worse, multiple runner's (including Camille Herron) have reported the groups athletes cutting the course when they think they can get away with it.

Clearly this group and several similar groups are bad for our sport. Shame on the race directors of these races for allowing them to make a living so dishonestly. I urge all races offering prize money to adopt a policy similar to the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon and take a strong stance against drugs and for fair competition.

Here is Monumental's policy:

http://www.monumentalmarathon.com/press-releases/2015-04-16-IMM-Takes-Stand-Against-Doping.php

I could not agree with you any more "Clean up the Sport" and people thought this group was Clean. Come On' I'd just say throw a Whole Sanction on the Group and kick the Russian Coach out of the Country!

Erb's Twitter feed shows an interesting exchange with Herron. Erb suggests - I think - that both the race and the competitors were surprised when USADA showed up. The race was not USATF-sanctioned. Herron speculates the thre testing may have been targeted. Erb and others also noted the connection to the coach-agent and previous sanctions for other members.

Race Directors - it is not a hard policy to enforce either - there are several free databases you can use to check out an athlete before agreeing to let them in your elite field or comping their entry or giving them a hotel room.

Agents are a little more work but there really isn't that many to keep up with.

http://www.dopingsanctions.com/

She's run in St Louis a couple years now, as well as others from this group. She even ran the 2nd fastest 1/2 marathon in Missouri, too. I passed on this info on her ban to the StL race organizers, hopefully they won't ever invite the group again. Sadly, the agent is probably the only one making any money of the runners, and they are living a dirt-poor existence.

Great Mike, thanks for doing that.

I agree, often in these groups the agent takes a very large cut and the athletes live in 8-10 to an apartment type conditions and race 2-3 times a month. These type groups are not development groups but rather work (dare we say exploitation) groups. Why U.S. race directors enable this is puzzling to me.

Who wants dirty runners who can't give interviews or interact well with media or fans, and who have no social media presence winning their races? Not to even mention half the group dropping out of races when they fall out of contention - what kind of example does that set for young runners and fans.

I recall a couple of similar situations in the NE/Mid-Atlantic several years ago. One particular group was also lead by former Russian or Eastern European agent/coach who followed the 2nd tier prize money circuit. I befriended one of the athletes and had him workout with my club athletes a couple of times. The agent/coach attempted to charge me for this saying that I had her athlete coaching and conducting clinics, which was laughable because this particular athlete could barely speak English. I don't know anything about these athletes taking drugs, but it was sad to see a half dozen athletes living in a tiny apartment and having to race every weekend, sometimes twice in a weekend.

I owned a fairly large road race back then and these Africans collected just about all of the prize money, but they did not contribute anything to the event. Basically collected their prize and split. One year, I brought in a few U.S. sub-elites who won the prize money and the Africans never came back. The agent/coach would call each year asking who's entered and I kelp telling her a bunch a really fast guys. - That was wrong I know.

Btw, I didn't have anything against the African ex-pats per se because I felt they were being exploited because they were not being integrated into American society...they were basically being treated like race horses.

This is such a great thread, lets keep it going. Seems to me, there is,more to this group and this fxxking russian coach. Hope usada keeps,showing up randomly to races they re at. Crap i would,be even honored to let usada and wada know when they are going to race and where. That group is led by a cheat, and most certainly athletes are drugged as well. This groups list of banned runners continues too grow. And I am FucXing loving it!

Larisa V. Mikhaylova ( born 1969 )

800 Metres 1:57.70 Athína 16 JUN 1999

1500 Metres 4:06.08 Moskva 03 AUG 1998

Masters in Science of Physical Education - Russia

I have seen in cycling where USADA will show up at races they typically wouldn't have, where questionable guys were known to show up due to nice payouts. Clearly they has been tipped off. Pretty sure if you have local situations as described on here above you can contact USADA and point them in the right direction.

No doubt, i will be glad to do my partof when i enter my next race and see one of thete athletes on the starting list i will contact wada, usaantidoping immediatley.

No doubt, i will be glad to do my partof when i enter my next race and see one of thete athletes on the starting list i will contact wada, usaantidoping immediatley.

AW Pharmacy wrote:

I have seen in cycling where USADA will show up at races they typically wouldn't have, where questionable guys were known to show up due to nice payouts. Clearly they has been tipped off. Pretty sure if you have local situations as described on here above you can contact USADA and point them in the right direction.

Does USADA not surf this site? They could gauge a pretty good idea of what non-sanctioned races they should turn up at.

Always surprised that BAA doesn't surf LR for BM qualifier cheats.

Anon wrote:

Erb's Twitter feed shows an interesting exchange with Herron. Erb suggests - I think - that both the race and the competitors were surprised when USADA showed up. The race was not USATF-sanctioned. Herron speculates the thre testing may have been targeted. Erb and others also noted the connection to the coach-agent and previous sanctions for other members.

That race gave away 3,000, 2,500, and 2,000 for top 3. That is a huge amount of money for a race that had 780 finishers and 20th place was near 19 minutes.

I was wondering why they would have testing at a race like that.

point is they got Busted, and I am sure more is going to happen. I'll just sit back and watch this Drugged up group finally burn into the ground. I love it, because probably if it wasn't for the Russian Doping Scandals that hit recently this Group would still be fine, but since then they have been heavily targeted and I think this is GREAT for our sport, especially as people above have said, loading into a van 5-8 runners at a time and showing up to a race that only offers a couple hundred of dollars is Crazy. let lone Cheating Coach(Russian) doing all the work behind the scenes..aka all the drugs!

That Russian agent in charge of the whole group needs to be locked in prison. The Russian agent takes advantage of the runners and takes a share of their winnings while encouraging cheating, which also steals from the deserving clean runners who race these dopes.