Unhappy Muir left feeling cheated in Rio
OLYMPICS: Pages 75-79
THE women’s 1500 metres at London 2012 has been dubbed ‘the dirtiest race in history’ with six of the first nine runners having since been found guilty of doping. Four years on, Laura Muir, Britain’s best over the distance, fears cheats have blighted the final in Rio.
Muir, 23, had been considered a medal prospect but a brave decision to join a breakaway group was her ruin as she slowed to seventh here. Asked if she had confidence in the legitimacy of the result, the Scots athlete (below) replied: ‘I have my doubts.’ She suggested her placing might be upgraded in the coming years.
Suspicions linger, in particular, around silver medalist Genzebe Dibaba and for good reason. In June, her coach, Jama Aden, was arrested by Spanish police after the blood-boosting drug EPO and other banned substances were found in a hotel he was living in outside Barcelona. He is still under arrest and has had his passport confiscated, so even if he was allowed to be here in a coaching capacity it would be impossible.
After a tortuously slow first two laps it was Dibaba who executed the break, running the last two laps close to the speed of the world’s best 800m runners.
She was pipped to gold by Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon who crossed the line in 4min 8.92sec, but the heat was on world record-holder Dibaba afterwards.
Pushed on whether she should be trusted given the dark cloud lingering over her coach, Dibaba shrugged off the accusation. ‘The world knows my coach is purely for my training,’ she said. ‘The rumours roaming the world are deeply affecting my training and my competition and this adversely affected my performance and psychological condition. I had blood and urine tests four, six, eight times this year. I assure you I am crystal clean.’
Asked why she chose to remain with a man under heavy investigation by the IAAF, athletics’ world governing body, Dibaba replied: ‘He is under IAAF custody, the evaluation is undergoing. If he is clean, I will stay with Jama. If things are worse, I will stop.’ The American bronze medal winner Jenny Simpson did little to disguise her contempt. ‘To me it is important to surround myself in my life with the right people,’ she said. ‘Who you are connected to matters.’
After the final of the 1500m at the London Games, Lisa Dobriskey, who finished 10th, immediately made public her misgivings about some of the women who had finished ahead of her and was lambasted as having ‘sour grapes.’
But events since proved her comments to be justified. The winner on the day, Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin, is serving an eightyear ban for biological passport anomalies and her result has been scrubbed from the record books. Britain’s Laura Weightman, who finished 11th on Tuesday night, pointedly did not congratulate Dibaba on her medal.
‘The final today was much better than in 2012 but at the time of London, I was only 21 and I didn’t really know what was going on,’ she said. ‘My eyes have been opened a lot more in the last few years. I’m delighted for the medallists there: Faith Kipyegon winning and Jenny Simpson getting a bronze.’
Despite Team GB flourishing on every other front it is beginning to look unlikely that British Athletics will meet its target of seven to nine medals in Rio.
Alongside Muir, high jumper Robbie Grabarz and 110m hurdler Andy Pozzi had been identified as medal contenders but neither made the podium.
There is a growing reliance on the relay teams, which have been showered with attention and financial investment over the last four years, to come to the rescue.