UK Athletics investigating Farah

The pressure intensified on Mo Farah last night with UK Athletics announcing that the Olympic champion is under investigation. Photo by:Don Ryan/AP

The pressure intensified on Mo Farah last night with UK Athletics announcing that the Olympic champion is under investigation. Photo by:Don Ryan/AP

Published Jun 9, 2015

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The pressure intensified on Mo Farah last night with UK Athletics announcing that the double Olympic champion is under investigation.

Another witness has also questioned the methods of Farah’s coach Alberto Salazar amid allegations that the American has breached doping regulations.

UKA chairman Ed Warner not only said Farah’s medical data was now going to be analysed in more detail but urged the British distance runner to suspend his relationship with Salazar.

And Warner’s stance was supported by an interview given by John Cook, a coach who worked under Salazar for two years at the Nike Oregon Project and someone who said he was ‘not surprised’ by doping allegations made by the BBC last week.

Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Warner responded to widespread criticism of UKA by stating Farah’s medical data would be probed after allegations that Salazar had doped athletes including Farah’s training partner, Galen Rupp.

Warner’s stance was weakened somewhat by the fact UKA continue to use the scandal-hit coach as a consultant. But Warner said: ‘What we can look at is all the data surrounding our

own athlete, Mo Farah. His blood data, supplements data — everything surrounding his medical treatment. We’re in charge of that. We run that from the UK, through Neil Black, our performance director, Barry Fudge, who’s our endurance expert.

‘We need to make sure there’s nothing else there we haven’t seen — we’re not aware of — or hasn’t been analysed.’

Not everyone was convinced by Warner’s comments yesterday, not least because Black insisted in Birmingham on Saturday that Salazar was far from alone in running Farah’s training programme and instead implied everything was overseen by UKA.

Ross Tucker, a professor of exercise physiology at the Free State University in Cape Town, said: ‘Unless they’ve really let Farah go free and haven’t been monitoring him, which is at odds with Black’s assertions about him being part of the multi-disciplinary team, there is not a lot they can ask that will have any real, practical value in trying to get to the bottom of this question.

‘So much depends on what they’ve been tracking for the last few years, but the simple reality is that you can track everything.’

On Sunday, Farah, 32, cancelled a planned appearance at the Birmingham Diamond League and flew home to Portland, USA.

He was expected to hold showdown talks with Salazar yesterday, with the coach apparently assuring his athlete he can offer ‘100 per cent proof’ he has not committed any doping violations.

Steve Magness, once a coach under Salazar at the NOP, was among those who spoke to the BBC and yesterday John Cook — another former NOP coach — said he was ‘not surprised’ by the allegations.

Cook told Runners World he left the NOP in 2005 after 18 months because ‘there were some things I just didn’t like’.

‘Some of the coaches disagreed with some things,’ he added.

Asked for his reaction to the reports last week, a coach who has mentored Olympic athletes said: ‘I was, frankly, not surprised.

‘I thought it was very well written and very well done. I was pleased because it brought out some points that needed to be brought out.’ Cook said agreeing to work with the Oregon Project was ‘one of my huge mistakes’.

All Farah’s major successes on the world stage, including his two Olympic gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m at London 2012, has come since he joined Salazar’s NOP in early 2011.

He has remained loyal to his coach since the allegations were made public on a Panorama documentary almost a week ago but Warner says he risks permanently damaging his reputation.

‘I can see why some people might advise Mo to have done that because this is going to be dogging him reputationally for some time, if not the rest of his career,’ said Warner,

‘If I was a personal friend of Mo’s, not the British Athletics chairman, and he was just coming to me for advice, I think I would have said to him: “The best thing to do is suspend the relationship for now, compete on the European circuit this summer, go to the World Championships in Beijing, let the allegations against Alberto be washed through by the United States Anti-Doping Agency and see where it leads.”’

Meanwhile, GB sprinter Adam Gemili will have a scan on his injured hamstring early next week to determine if he will be able to compete in the Beijing World Championships in August.

The 21-year-old became the first Briton to run under 10 seconds in the 100m and under 20 seconds in the 200m, after his blistering 9.97 in the Birmingham Grand Prix on Sunday. But as Gemili crossed the line he took a tumble — travelling more than 10mph per second — and lay on the track clutching the top of his right leg.

He must wait until the swelling and bruising has gone down before UK Athletics doctors can determine how bad it is.

Former sprinter Darren Campbell said that Gemili had told him the pyrotechnics going off at the end of the race had caused the fall, but the 21-year-old clarified yesterday: ‘My injury was unfortunately due to my dip and fall — it had nothing to do with the pyrotechnics. Received a huge amount of support since and cannot thank everyone enough. I really appreciate it.’ – Daily Mail

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