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Panarama - Allan Wells - Drugs
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If it turns out to be true, Im going to stand outside the Headquarters of Quorn eating a pulled pork sandwich in protest.
And the other thing Im slightly suspicious of is UK Athletics and 'their investigation'. UK Athletics is sponsored by Nike to the tune of £15million which I believe is their largest sponsorship deal. Is it really approriate for an organisation to investigate any improper conduct by an organisation that is virtually bankrolling them?
Then we have the case of Emma Jackson, an 800m runner who considered taking legal action against an official from UK Athletics for ... prescribing unnecessarily high dosages of ... wait for it ... thyroid hormone. In the end she decided not to as it would potentially hamper her career.
Or perhaps the case of Lisa Dobriskey, who won 1500m bronze at the world championships in 2009, admitted that she was concerned when a UK Athletics doctor suggested she might use thyroid medication to lose weight.
Isn't one of the big problems with Salazar the implication he was a little too liberal in getting his athletes on some kind of thyroid treatment prescription? And yet here we have athletes complaining that UK Athletic officials were a bit too quick to throw some thyroid medication into the mix.
Thats the problem with this whole saga. There are too many cosy relationships. Too many friends investigating friends. Too much, 'Oh everyone does it this way, its just how it is.' How can we be confident about the report we get back?
The drugs shit was originally about athletes who were so desperate to win, that they would risk their lives to do so.
Maybe for them it was about fame and money. They clearly felt they had nothing to lose. Ron Pickering stated the case of Birgit Dressel; a perpetual 4th placer, who literally died from the massive cocktail of drugs she had taken.(mid 80's)
Even after that it was a case of ' look, we know it goes on, don't over do it'. It was like cycling after the Festina affair.
Off the back of the clampdown (relative), a whole industry of experts cropped up, with all sorts of ways to safely beat the system. It was breaking the rules, but if your chemist was good enough, you wouldn't die; well not immediately.
The impression I get is that If Salazar was dabbling with drugs, it was in a way that involved the very minimum required in order to compete with those on the maximum.
At some point, he may have decided to dispense with the drugs stuff altogether, but as in cycling, it's on the record, and the modern scene does 'hindsight' in a totally unforgiving manner.
🙂
If only tax Inspectors were so keen to catch the crooks in their industry.
UK Athletics may well be holding their own investigation, as they should, but surely the investigations we ought to be concerned with are those by the anti-doping agencies? If there's any point at all to them, we need to trust that they are going to investigate and that their findings are going to be worthwhile.
Send in the FBI.
Stupid phone double posting on me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33063187
Ah good - that's all that sorted then.
Oh right. It was all just made up then. That is good.
How is he going to prove that it was Testoboost and not Testosterone? Is he going to show us a 13 year old package of Testoboost and say thats what he gave Rupp when he was 16?
How is he going to prove that he wasn't the coach of Mary Slaney when she was busted as he told Mo Farrah (who then told us in a press conference), when all the papers and interviews at the time confirm he was.
Is he also planning to reveal to us whether he still holds the belief, as he did back in 1999 in a speech to Duke University, that you cannot possibly reach the top in athletics without using drugs.
Is he going to show us a sample of his handwriting to prove he didnt give Kara Goucher tablets only available by prescription and as he is not a medical professional, it is illegal for him to be handing out prescription medicine.
Is he going to be revealing the exact date in which he heard of these allegations so we can correlate them back to Mo's claim of only knowing about them 3 or 4 days before they were aired even though the documentary makers have written evidence that they knew and acknowledged the claims much earlier?
The good thing is, at least mud sticks .....because I know he'll worm his way out of this one, but you cant forcibly change peoples minds and no matter what happens from here on in, there will always be that asterix next to his runners names.
Lets be honest, for Alberto to be right, that must mean at least 6 people and probably more are wrong and not only that but they all colluded to all come out with slightly different tales of what he did wrong. I know how I believe, and it aint the guy who once said ... and I quote 'I believe that it is currently difficult to be among the top 5 in the world in any of the distance events without using EPO or Human Growth Hormone.'
taken from the 1999 duke university speech that Mr I discusses..however he does forget to mention the bit in bold
Is it cheating if you are within accepted levels and micro dosing? Morally yes, but not legally as you are under the limit. It only becomes an issue when the team breaks down, as happened with Armstrong. Salazar is now in the same house of cards.
I do wonder if Mo's questions for Salazar would go like this:
So am I not really asthmatic?
Am I not really low on testosterone and hgh?
Am I not really low on iron and do t need transfusions to top it up?
Would Andy Vernon beat me if I wasn't souped up ?
Am I really as dense as this makes me look ?
++1
All other debate is onion skin to get to this nucleus of truth.
Ahhh, in a speech about drugs and cheating, Alberto adds that one little caveat about not condoning doping and that makes everything alright. Kind of reminds me when people say 'Im not a racist but ...'
ah come on Mr I...thats weak. you are happy cutting the bit of the conversation you like then ignore the bit that adds context to this issue.
if you take time read the whole speech he gave its quite interesting and honest.
Pretty interesting interview with former NOP coach John Cook here.
That's pretty depressing stuff.
Hard to pick the positives out of it.
You mean like the bit where he says " so many athletes are running so fast that their performances are suspect. This is compounded for me by the fact that the times these athletes are running just happen to coincide exactly with what top exercise physiologists have calculated taking EPO would produce."
This speech was in 1999. In that year Haile Gebrselassie won the World Championships in the 10,000m with a time of 27.57.
Mo won his last 10,000m with a time of 26.50.
Draw your own conclusions then if you find his speech so insightful
Haile ran 26.22 over 10000m... Mo hasnt run that fast.
Mo isnt known as being a fast runner...as in world records...he is a championship runner...who knows how to race the last 400m of his event. his season bests going into a championship is often behind many of his opponents.
Mo's PB is from 2011, before he joined the oregon project.
so much for the "so many athletes are running so fast they are suspect" what time has Mo run that you deem so fast it was suspect?
He relocated to Oregon to join NOP on Feb 2011...and in reality had started under Salazar the year before. He definitely improved under Salazar. He changed from being maybe in the top 10 of distance runner to arguably the world's best.
I didn't see the programme but this really disappoints me.
First WADA need to investigate this and I think UKA and Mo are right to be a bit cautious until the details are our. He will get tarnished by association, mainly because a lot of previous scandals have been led by the coach e.g. Balco. having said that the athlete still needs to be involved. It is interesting again that this is in the US. Our athletes so often seem to get caught up when out there. Chambers (Balco) and Myerscough (Stanford University). Also the US have taken a light line. Gatlin is a disgrace and shouldn't be competing. Having said all of that I think the US is finally starting to get its act together.
The other really sad thing about all of this is that any athlete who improves is then seen as suspect. Athletes can suddenly improve for all sort of reasons. Often because they start really taking their athletics and training seriously. Sometimes it takes them a while to realize how dedicated they need to be and Mo really focused on his training a few years back.
I do trust our athletes in general more than most and Alan Wells being named was very bad news. Drugs are a scourge of sport and really got depressed last week about drugs in all sport. We need to keep fighting the battle but one thing is clear. Athletes can get away with drug-taking so when they are caught the penalty MUST be severe. Oh dear they made a mistake give them a 2 year detention doesn't cut it. If they get caught they need to be out.
15 west - my mistake i thought he joined NOP after the worlds in 2011.
Mo's PB is only the 28th fastest 10000m time in history. the best part of 30 secs behind the best.
and he hasnt PB'd in that distance since 2011.
Maybe the other 27 had access to better drugs?
Brooks - nice sentiment...but why do you trust our athletes more? I also really want Mo to be innocent...I like him, but unfortunately I am very suspicious now. Been more and more stories coming out over the last few years...the US and Jamaican sprinters plus various Kenyans getting caught, reports about the Russian athletes etc etc.
This from that reputable rag The Mail...
15W - if you look at those times simply as a list of anyone's PBs though you can see that his 5000m time pre Salazar was out of line with his rather pedestrian
10000m time so most of that improvement is just realignment.
So we're really saying that in 4 years under Salazar he has improved by 1 second per km over 5000m which may or may not be due to some dodgy stuff but does not alone explain his placing improvements either.
Yeah, but he did improve. Look at all the golds and records he's achieved since. I'm not saying it's drugs either, Salazar has a very strict training regime that obviously works....it's just these new allegations and testimonies etc raise suspicions. Anyway, I'll be surprised if we ever find out fully one way or another, but I expect Mo's reputation has been tarnished quite a bit by all this. Very sad if he's innocent.