Salazar cleared to coach Farah
BUT THIS CALL SHOWS REAL WEAKNESS
AN INDePeNDeNT panel appointed by UK Athletics has said it has ‘found no reason to be c oncerned’ about ‘ t he engagement’ of Mo Farah, or any other British athlete, with Alberto Salazar and the Nike Oregon Project.
Farah’s coach and mentor is under fire, with the evidence of 20 witnesses linked to the Oregon Project forming the basis of an ongoing doping investigation being conducted by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
But rather than wait for the outcome of that investigation, the panel cleared UK Athletics to carry on working with Salazar and the Nike Oregon Project.
The statement failed to acknowledge the perception that the threeperson panel was independent and appeared to be undermined by Jason Gardener’s presence on the UK Athletics board. I t was Gardener’s birthday yesterday, and on the UK Athletics website they wished the Olympic sprint relay champion many happy returns directly beneath the posting of their statement.
UK Athletics seems to be lacking strong leadership when it needs it most, when the sport is in crisis on a global scale and two of Britain’s greatest champions — namely Farah and Paula Radcliffe —have been central figures in two entirely separate but similarly troubling controversies. They both deny any wrong-doing, and in Farah’s case no allegations of doping have been made against him.
The UK Athletics statement stressed that it was limited as to what it could do or say by the American investigation, and earlier this week reporters were reminded that the role of their Performance Oversight Group audit was not to investigate the doping allegations first raised by a BBC Panorama documentary.
But it was those same allegations that forced them to appoint the three-person panel in the first place, and as part of their remit they interviewed many of the same witnesses who have testified under oath, and in some cases on camera, to the American authorities. The allegations also formed the basis of those interviews.
Serious allegations have been made, and in his own detailed response to those allegations, Salazar even admitted thathat he tested a gel containingg the banned steroid, testoosterone, on his own n sons in an effort to determine how much woul d trigger a positive test.
Because his sons have also been employed by the Oregon Project as athletee support staff, this could ld yet be viewed by the authorities as a breachh of the World Anti-Doping Agency Code.
Yet the UK Athletics statement read: ‘In July we said that there was no evidence of any impropriety on the part of Mo Farah and no reason to lack confidence in his training programme.
The Oversight Group have restated that view today. They have also found no reason to be concerned about the engagement of other British athletes and coachecoaches with the Oregon ProjeProject.’ GGardener i s , by al l acaccounts, an intelligent inindividual. But he is not a trained investigator and yet he was sent to interview key witnesses both here aand in the USA. Some of those witnenesses have privately toltold this newspaper that beibei nng i nt er v i e wed by Gardener,Garden with what appeared to be scripted questions, was actually rather embarrassing, certainly when compared to the trained investigators working for US AntiDoping, the same men who brought down Lance Armstrong.
Some of the evidence now understood to be in the possession of the American authorities could yet prove problematic for Salazar and UK Athletics officials, even if Salazar denies any wrong-doing and is fairly confident he will be cleared.
Curiously UK Athletics would not confirm if Salazar will continue to act as a consultant for them. There were suggestions from within the national governing body that this part of the relationship would be terminated. Yesterday, however, it seemed the American former marathon champion would remain in his role.
The timing of the statement certainly seems part of a fairly cynical PR strategy. The report was initially promised ‘no later’ than the beginning of August. Then it was promised immediately after the World Championships in Beijing. In the end they waited for the opening day of the Rugby World Cup. Not just a good day to bury bad news but a way of limiting the criticism.