Issam Asinga’s High School Coach Gerald Phiri Provisionally Suspended by AIU
The AIU says three athletes coached by Phiri tested positive for the same substance between 2023 and 2024 -- including sprint phenom Issam Asinga
By Jonathan GaultThe Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Tuesday that Gerald Phiri, a two-time Olympic sprinter for Zambia and head coach of high school track powerhouse Montverde Academy in Florida, has been provisionally suspended for multiple anti-doping rules violations. The AIU alleges that Phiri committed three separate violations: possession of the banned metabolic modulator GW1516 as an athlete in 2018 and 2019; possession of another banned metabolic modulator, meldonium, as a coach in 2024; and for “failing to co-operate with the investigation by providing false and inaccurate information.”
Phiri’s suspension was the result of a joint investigation between the AIU and USADA that began after three athletes coached by Phiri tested positive for metabolites of GW1516 (also known as cardarine) between July 2023 and August 2024.
One of those athletes was high school superstar Issam Asinga, whom Phiri coached at Montverde during his senior year in 2022-23. Asinga, who represents Suriname internationally, became the first student at a US high school to break 10 seconds for 100 meters when he ran 9.89 at the South American championships in July 2023, breaking Letsile Tebogo‘s world U20 record of 9.91 in the process. But Asinga’s record was never ratified as he tested positive for GW1516 at that meet and was handed a four-year ban by the AIU in May 2024. Assinga, who blamed the positive test on contaminated gummies he received at the Gatorde National Athlete of the Year ceremony in July 2023, is in the process of appealing his suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The identities of the other athletes coached by Phiri who tested positive have not been publicly announced.
Phiri, who competed collegiately at Texas A&M University and represented Zambia in the 100m at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, has been coaching at Montverde since 2018, during which time the program has experienced enormous success in the sprint events. In 2023, Montverde’s Adaejah Hodge ran 22.33 to break the girls’ high school indoor 200m record by more than half a second and move to #2 on the all-time HS indoor/outdoor list, behind only Allyson Felix‘s 22.11 from 2003 (Felix’s performance was run outdoors at 7,000+ feet of elevation in Mexico City). Last year, as a sophomore, Montverde’s Skyler Franklin ran 51.01 to move to #5 on the all-time US high school girls’ 400m list. Montverde also set national records in the girls’ indoor (3:37.63) and outdoor (3:31.68) 4×400 relays in 2024.
Earlier today, Phiri’s bio on the Montverde Academy website listed him as having served as an assistant coach at PURE Athletics in Clermont, Fla., since November 2019 — though the PURE website does not list Phiri as a coach. That Montverde Academy bio has now been removed from the web, but other older bios of Phiri (archived one here) contain that same language. The PURE group includes a number of top sprinters, most notably Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles.
During his professional career, Phiri trained under PURE head coach Lance Brauman. Brauman did not immediately respond to a text message seeking clarification about Phiri’s role with PURE. In a 2023 Track & Field News article chronicling how Asinga beat Lyles in the 100m at a PURE Athletics meet, Phiri made no claim to being a PURE coach, saying, “So to go to my old stomping ground to show them my work and everything I’ve been working hard for was kind of special to me as well.”
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MB Star HS coach Gerald Phiri — aka Issam Asinga’s coach — provisionally suspended by AIU
MB Montverde Academy (FL) doping
