It’s no longer who is the fastest, but who has the best doctors

Athlete who exposed Salazar dismayed by MoS revelations

KARA GOUCHER is an icon of American distance running, a world silver medallist over 10,000m who competed at Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012. She also helped to bring down Mo Farah’s former coach, Alberto Salazar, who is banned for four years for breaking anti-doping rules at the now defunct Nike Oregon Project, where Goucher trained between 2004 and 2011. As such, Goucher is one of the most prominent voices in world sport to speak out, not just against doping, but also against the surreal marginal and medical gains some teams engage in for athletic improvement.

Last weekend she read The Mail on Sunday’s investigation into ketone use by UK Sport and British Olympic teams with incredulity. Ketones were not new to her, she was offered them in 2016 and refused because she was not sure they were legal. And she had heard rumours of US runners using them.

But she had not imagined the scale and cost of the usage in Britain, where UK Sport spent hundreds of thousands of public money on 91 athletes, who used it in competition under the auspices of a research project. Nor was she prepared for the fact that a quasi-government agency, with the authority of UK Sport, would have been so deeply involved.

GOUCHER said: ‘It was a really disheartening read but I’m glad you guys dug into it. I heard [US athletes] were drinking some drinks that were to do with ketones and they had got it from British athletics. Then right before the 2016 Olympics I got an email from a manufacturer who makes ketones products saying: “This is why the British athletes performed so well in 2012. Do you know anyone on Team USA who would want this?”

‘I was like: “I’m not touching that with a 10-foot pole because I have no idea if it’s legal or not”. I didn’t realise how big it was: the money behind it, the amount of athletes, all the different sports that were using it. I had assumed it was just your track and field team. I didn’t realise that it was funded by taxpayer dollars and that it was

across so many sports. I’m not saying the US has this great culture, but it was shocking to see what you’ll do and spend and the risks you’re willing to take when you need to perform as a nation.’

Goucher left Salazar’s Nike Oregon Project because she believed he had crossed an ethical line and was engaging in doping, a stance vindicated last year when he received a four-year ban from the sport, which he is appealing.

As a mother with a concern for athlete welfare, Goucher was alarmed by the fact that UK Sport could not guarantee the product, which was an innovation and so not on general sale to the public, was compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency rules, as did the fact that athletes were made to sign non-disclosure agreements to keep everything secret.

‘I was totally shocked by athletes having to sign non-disclosure [agreements], not being able to talk about it,’ she said. ‘It just really made me uncomfortable. I just can’t imagine signing something that says this might not be WADA compliant and I just have to take the hit. I can’t imagine being offered something like that first of all, then feeling like I needed to do it and then doing it and signing something basically saying I have no rights.

‘You are basically becoming an experiment. I was reading through [the documents] and they were saying: “Oh, it shouldn’t be detectable on the system”. We shouldn’t be asking athletes [to take] something if we don’t know for sure that this is safe.

‘I was reading that some athletes were getting physically ill and the fact that they didn’t know for sure that it was WADA compliant, that is so scary to me, that we’re asking athletes at the highest level to risk something that might not be WADA compliant. If they test positive or get questioned their career is over. I just can’t imagine a situation where you could justify that sort of risk.’

Goucher saw the comments of her former rival and fellow campaigner Jo Pavey, who finished third behind Goucher at the world championships in 2007, who last week said it was ‘depressing’ that it now almost feels as though athletes ‘can’t compete on the world stage unless they are doing all this rubbish’.

Goucher said: ‘I totally agree with Jo. The last few years have been really sad to see the way athletics has gone. Just the scale of this [project]: now ketones are available to other people and it’s on the market but the scale of it and the hush-hushness of it. For me to see it all laid out, I was like: “Wow! That was a lot bigger than I thought it was in every aspect”.’

Like Pavey, she spoke out about use of thyroid medication for athletes who don’t show symptoms of hypothyroidism and over use of asthma drugs. Goucher said: ‘All of these short cuts, these advantages. We no longer see who is the hardest trained, most talented on that day. We’re seeing who has the most money, the best doctors, who’s willing to take the most risks and that is just so disappointing.’

HAVING been part of Salazar’s elite group, where athletes were encouraged to take thyroid and asthma drugs and where Salazar was conducting experiments on athletes with the banned drug testosterone, Goucher is concerned for young athletes.

‘There is so much pressure. I joined a team [Nike Oregon Project] which was great at first, then became unethical. I was in my 30s and even I felt conflicted about telling the authorities. But I had a husband [fellow runner Adam Goucher] who was very adamant. There is so much pressure and nowhere to go in the group when everyone is doing it and that’s the expectation and you’re constantly being reminded how lucky you are to be there.

‘There’s no one saying you don’t have to do this. Everyone is on the same page — win at all costs, which is really scary. And I worry about the younger athletes getting into the sport now because it has changed so much, pushing the boundaries all the time. You have your governing body saying: “This is going to give you an advantage and you need to do it”. What are you supposed to do? Of course, you can always say no but you could lose everything you worked so hard for.

‘I fear for the way the sport is going. We’re so obsessed with fast times and records, and ethics have been thrown out of the window. Maybe it [using ketones in 2012] doesn’t cross the line but we’re maybe willing to gamble that.

‘We’ve seen it a lot, whether it’s people using thyroid medication or inhalers or now this, having something you know will enhance your performance that might not be illegal but you know it’s not available to all. I feel sad about where athletics is going.’

UK Sport said: ‘UK Sport does not fund research projects aimed at giving our national teams a performance advantage at the expense of athlete welfare. The Ketone Ester project received independent ethical approval from the research advisory groups in January 2012.

‘Additionally, UK Anti-Doping confirmed in writing, after seeking clarification from the World AntiDoping Agency, that WADA had ‘no reason to consider such substances as banned under the 2011 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods’.

I fear for the way the sport is going. There is so much pressure now...