If Farah cares about his sport there are questions he must answer
THE details were not ancient history. The test dated from November 23, 2015, so less than two years ago. The information was not fake. The IAAF confirmed that, while the material had been hacked, it was theirs and it was genuine. And the wording was plain as day. ‘Likely doping,’ the notation read. ‘Passport suspicious: further data is required.’
So, it wasn’t, as Mo Farah would have us believe, ‘something out of nothing’. ‘Likely doping’ isn’t nothing. ‘Likely doping’ is very much something. And, yes, a follow-up note in April 2016 stated that Farah’s blood passport was ‘now flagged as normal’ by the IAAF. Yet if we believe the good news, what of the rest of it?
The IAAF cannot be lauded when they find nothing wrong, and dismissed when they are suspicious, just as the media cannot be there simply to wave pom-poms and cheer British athletes to their next gong at Buckingham Palace. Farah has questions to answer and, if he cares for his sport as well as for himself, he should be happy to answer them.
Yet, like so many athletes, he seems oblivious to the crisis engulfing track and field. It is a matter of trust. As long as the London Stadium is full for the World Championships this summer, Farah will continue to presume all is right in his world — yet the trials in Birmingham recently attracted a crowd no bigger than is found at Leyton Orient.
BEFORE the next Olympics, many of the most consistent medal winners will bow out, too. Farah from the arena at least, plus Jessica EnnisHill, Greg rutherford and Christine Ohuruogu. The global star name, Usain Bolt, is also departing. These are not high times for the sport.
We now know a lot of what we saw in 2012 was false. The russians corrupted the London Olympics and, in a cynical attempt at diversion, are attempting to poison the discussion that has followed. The Fancy Bears hack that has cast doubt on Farah did the same on Sir Bradley Wiggins and British Cycling.
It is russia’s attempt at equivalency. They organised a state sponsored doping programme, athletes in other countries utilised Therapeutic Use Exemptions. What’s the difference? Quite a lot, actually. One is pure evil, the other within the rules. But that doesn’t mean we can only investigate what suits us.
For every time a phrase such as ‘likely doping’ appears next to a big name like Farah, a little bit of trust is eroded. The next generation of athletes — Laura Muir, Katarina Johnson-Thompson — are coming to the fore in an era where the instinctive reaction is doubt.
We think our scepticism is healthy, but it isn’t really. It means all the good, clean athletes are distrusted, too. And that must be very frustrating.
Yet each time one of the heroes of Britain’s golden Olympic era responds to reasonable questioning with contempt, rather than concern, he betrays that legacy and makes it harder for the next generation to achieve credibility. Why is it an affront that Farah is required to shed light on issues with his blood passport? Why shouldn’t we ask what is meant by ‘likely doping’?
It does not help that Farah is so strongly allied to a coach, Alberto Salazar, who remains under suspicion, or that he trains in regions whose sporting regimes are equally doubted.
‘I will never, ever fail a drugs test,’ he promised at the weekend and that is good to hear. Yet cheats such as Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones have undermined our trust in the strident counter-offensive, too.
That is what Farah fails to understand. Even when there is nothing, we can no longer get something out of our minds.