QUIZZED BY A DRUG BUSTER FOR 5 HOURS
Twelve hours after being feted by fans at the Olympic Stadium, Mo Farah is...
MO FARAH spent five hours being i nterviewed by the lawyer who brought down Lance Armstrong as the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into Alberto Salazar was extended to the UK.
The double London 2012 gold medallist met USADA lead attorney Bill Bock at a London hotel on Saturday morning, just 12 hours after he had been celebrating again at the Olympic Stadium following victory in the 3,000metres at the Anniversary Games.
A warm reception from the fans at Stratford prompted Farah to proclaim his happiness on Twitter, saying: ‘Good win tonight….!!! Amazing support from the home crowd….!!! Thanks everyone….!!!’ — but the following morning it was back to dealing with the suspicion surrounding his coach.
Sportsmail understands around 20 witnesses with links to the Salazar-run Nike Oregon Project have already been interviewed by US drugs chiefs.
And Bock is now in London to interview Farah and a number of other figures in British athletics, with performance director Neil Black and head of endurance Barry Fudge also understood to be on his list of appointments.
Salazar is being investigated after former athletes, coaches and other Oregon Project employees made a series of doping allegations against the American, who has masterminded Farah’s success as Britain’s greatest distance runner.
Salazar, who denied any wrongdoing with the publication of a 12,000- word report, has been accused of a series of doping violations, among them providing the banned steroid testosterone to a 16-year-old Galen Rupp and testing testosterone gel on his own sons in what might yet prove a breach of the World Anti-Doping Agency Code.
Sportsmail revealed earlier this month that Farah would face questioning as part of the USADA investigation sparked initially by the revelations made in a BBC Panorama documentary.
And on Saturday, Farah, who joined the Oregon project in the autumn of 2010 before moving his family to the US in early 2011, met with Bock i n a London hotel flanked by his own lawyers.
Farah has promised to split with Salazar if any of the allegations are proven, and after the meeting he told a reporter seemingly aware that the interview would be taking place that it ‘went all right’.
‘It’s all good,’ the double Olympic champion added. ‘And I’m good.’
There is no suggestion that Farah is under suspicion and sources close to the 32-year- old athlete said he would indeed be one of a number of people Bock interview over the space of a few days.
The same source also insisted it was an ‘entirely routine’ meeting, even though Bock’s involvement underlines the seriousness of the investigation being conducted by the US drugs body in conjunction with UK Anti-Doping officials.
It has been an uncomfortable period for British Athletics, not least in the storm over whether Salazar had previously coached convicted doper Mary Slaney.
During a press conference in Birmingham, Farah said he had asked Salazar and the former marathon world-record holder had denied it.
Black then insisted in the same press conference that UK Athletics had done their ‘due diligence’ prior to allowing Farah to move to Oregon, even though in Salazar’s autobiography he stated he had coached Slaney. Black and Fudge have made no secret of working closely with Salazar.
And UK Athletics are promising to deliver their own review into the organisation’s relationship with Salazar early next month. Rather worryingly, though, panel members are understood to be conducting interviews alone.
A partner in the Indianapolis law firm Kroger Gardis & Regas, Bock is obviously qualified to conduct such interviews.
He worked long hours to make sure Armstrong was stripped of those seven Tour de France titles.
Farah, meanwhile, has returned to his mountain training camp in France ahead of next month’s World Championships in Beijing.