Drug raid coach in athletes’ hotel

ATHLETICS officials were left embarrassed at the start of the Diamond League season when Jama Aden, a Somalian coach arrested during a drugs raid in 2016, was spotted in the athletes’ hotel and at the stadium last night. Aden coaches 1500m worldrecord holder Genzebe Dibaba but was arrested at a hotel near Barcelona last June when police found the growth hormone erythropoietin (EPO) in his physio’s room. Aden also has links with Mo Farah and was as an ‘unofficial facilitator’ for the Brit’s high-altitude training camp in Ethiopia in 2015. Local organisers, not the IAAF, are responsible for accrediting personnel for the meeting — in this case Qatari officials. But IAAF officials were still embarrassed when Aden, who is on bail, began mingling with officials at the athletes’ hotel. An IAAF spokesman said: ‘Since the police raid the Spanish authorities have been conducting a criminal investigation. The IAAF reserves full rights to initiate disciplinary proceedings.’