Box of banned drugs left in kitchen of flat Salazar shared with Farah
REVEALED More questions for disgraced coach over pre-Olympic training camp in 2012
THE extent to which Mo Farah’s controversial former coach Alberto Salazar left the Briton exposed to potential embarrassment is revealed today as a whistleblower tells The Mail on Sunday that Salazar left testosterone in a common area of an apartment the two were sharing.
A boxful of the banned performanceenhancing drug was seen on a sideboard in the communal kitchen of a two-bedroom flat shared by Farah and Salazar at a training camp in the US in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
An investigation by this newspaper has established that Farah and Salazar shared the two-man apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for an extended period during a high-altitude training camp in February 2012 for athletes who were part of the Nike Oregon Project (NOP) training group, run by Salazar, although Farah was away in England at the time the testosterone was spotted.
Salazar was handed a four-year ban from sport last month for anti-doping violations after an investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). He was convicted on three counts, including ‘trafficking and/or attempted trafficking of testosterone’. He was also found guilty of administering infusions of the supplement L-carnitine ‘in excess of the applicable limit’, and of ‘tampering and/or attempted tampering with the NOP athletes’ doping control process’.
Farah, 36, who runs in the Chicago Marathon today, where he won last year, is now widely regarded as one of the world’s alltime great distance runners. He was part of the NOP under Salazar’s tutelage from 2011 to 2017, transforming into a four-time Olympic champion and six-time world champion in the 5,000m and 10,000m.
Farah, a British national hero, has never tested positive for illegal drugs and split from Salazar by mutual consent in 2017.
But concerns over Salazar’s suitability as a coach for Farah were persistent from 2015 onwards, when Salazar was first accused of doping and operating in grey areas in a joint investigation by the BBC’s Panorama and journalists from ProPublica, an American media group.
A former NOP staff member, Steve Magness, was a key whistleblower as USADA probed Salazar’s activity from 2015 onwards. The arbitration panel that convicted Salazar accepted Magness’s witness account that he saw Salazar ‘with testosterone on the counter in the common area at a condo where some athletes of the NOP were staying in 2012 in Albuquerque, New Mexico’.
Coupled with testimony from former NOP runner Kara Goucher, the panel established that Salazar ‘had actual, physical possession of testosterone at the two training camps where the athletes of the NOP and Respondent were living together’. Salazar told the MoS this week that he was always ‘careful’ with his testosterone and would never leave it in a communal area.
Magness has now provided The MoS with confirmation that the ‘counter’ in question was the kitchen counter in the two-bedroom flat. ‘We [the NOP group] had several different apartments, and Alberto was staying in this one with Farah,’ says Magness.
Magness moved into Farah’s room soon after Farah flew to England for a number of days for a race in Birmingham and says the drugs were clearly visible, and would have been seen by any other athletes visiting. ‘I saw the box of it,’ he says. ‘And I knew that was testosterone. Farah was sharing the flat with Alberto. In fact, some of [Farah’s] stuff was still there when I stayed in his room when he went away for those few days to race. We had another athlete using my room, so I took Farah’s [for those days]. I moved in after Farah left and the testosterone was on the kitchen counter. It was there in plain sight the whole time I was there, and when I moved back to my own apartment, when Mo got back.’
USADA argued Salazar could not establish an ‘acceptable justification’ for his possession of testosterone ‘because there was no legitimate basis to prescribe [Salazar] testosterone [at that time]’.
USADA further argued there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ Salazar was ‘obsessed’ with the testosterone levels of athletes at the NOP.
Magness says Salazar later told him the testosterone was for his personal use, for a heart condition. But even the presence of the drug in a communal area would leave coaches or athletes susceptible to being accused of an anti-doping violation. Under clause 2.6.1 of global anti-doping rules, possession of any prohibited substance, such as testosterone, is forbidden, even out-ofcompetition, for both athletes and coaches, and can be prosecuted.
The disciplinary panel ruled that there was ‘no doubt from the evidence that he [Salazar] was indeed prescribed the testosterone for his personal use, whether or not his doctors followed appropriate medical guidelines’.
Yet between 2016 and 2018, on several occasions, before travelling, Salazar was administered ‘an injection of testosterone’ precisely so that he did not have to travel with the banned substance. Nevertheless, Salazar continued to file prescriptions for testosterone gel over the same period.
Farah declined to answer questions about whether he saw testo
sterone in the flat, and if so whether he asked why it was there. The Mail on Sunday have established that after a race in Boston, USA, on February 4, 2012, Farah went to Albuquerque on February 5 and remained there until at least February 27, aside from taking a trip of a few days back to the UK for a race in Birmingham on February 19. Multiple sources aside from Magness have confirmed Farah and Salazar shared the apartment from the point Farah arrived at the camp until at least three weeks into February, when he returned to the flat after the Birmingham race. Salazar responded to The Mail on Sunday that he did ‘not have a specific memory of when Mo Farah roomed with me at any given time’. But The MoS has obtained an email from Salazar to a colleague during the period he was sharing with Farah, describing his accommodation on February 10, 2012 as ‘the condo I’m sharing with Mo’.
On February 14, 2012, Sports Illustrated conducted an interview with Farah in the apartment he was sharing with Salazar, who is described as being in their kitchen, pouring a glass of wine. Tania Farah is cited as being in Portland, Oregon, on February 14 and Farah is quoted as saying: ‘I won’t see my wife and daughter for five weeks … That’s the hardest part. It’s difficult.’
Farah’s Twitter account on February 24, 2012 said he had been apart from his family for two months. He tweeted: “I’m so happy to be with my wife and daughter again!! After 2 months!!! Shabba!!’
Farah’s own autobiography from late 2012 says his wife Tania was in Albuquerque for one week in late February 2012, and ‘didn’t emerge from the hotel room the whole time she was in New Mexico’ due to morning sickness.
The extent to which Salazar left Farah exposed to possible damage to his reputation also brings into question the judgment of UK Athletics (UKA), who in effect cleared Salazar as a ‘fit and proper person’ to be working with Farah in 2015. The UKA’s performance oversight committee was established to investigate the NOP and found ‘no reason for concern’.
As a result of Salazar’s ban the Nike Oregon Project, which Farah was a part of for six years, has now been closed down by the sporting goods company.
Nike wrote that ‘unsubstantiated assertions’ have become an unfair burden for current NOP athletes.