Note: This story was updated on June 25 and June 26 to include more reactions to Salazar's response of June 24.
Shoes & Gear Alberto Salazar on Wednesday posted an extensive rebuttal to claims that he encouraged athletes to misuse prescription drugs for performance-enhancing benefits.
The response Foot Locker XC Results In his response in which former Oregon Project team members alleged that Salazar regularly worked around rules regarding prescription medicines, especially in regard to Olympic silver medalist Galen Rupp, Adidas Unveils Boston Marathon Jacket, I will never permit doping, he wrote in which others associated with Salazar have made similar allegations.
“The allegations in the BBC/ProPublica stories are demonstrably false,” Salazar wrote in the post.
“I will never permit doping,” he wrote.
Salazar's response is more than 11,000 words long and includes 30 documents, primarily emails, to support his statements. Here is a summary of Salazar's rebuttal of the major allegations in the initial reports.
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Therapeutic Use Exemptions, or TUEs, allow athletes to take for medical reasons prescription medications otherwise not allowed by anti-doping rules. A main allegation against Salazar has been that he helps runners be improperly diagnosed with conditions, especially asthma and hypothyroidism, so that they can receive TUEs.
Salazar wrote that, since 2011, four TUEs have been issued for Oregon Project athletes, and that all were for a three- to five-day period. Rupp has received two TUEs since 2010, according to Salazar.
Of the 55 runners he's coached in the Oregon Project, Salazar wrote, five (9.1 percent) have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism after joining the team, and eight (14.5 percent) have been diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. Salazar noted that just more than 20 percent of middle-distance and distance runners on the 2004 and 2008 Olympic teams had been diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. In his response, Salazar did not say how the incidence of hypothyroidism among Oregon Project members compares to a larger sample of elite runners.
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In the initial BBC and ProPublica reports, Kara Goucher, whom Salazar coached from 2004 to 2011, said that Salazar encouraged her to take the prescription medication Cytomel in 2011 to help her lose weight. Goucher alleged that Salazar wanted her to take the medication, which is prescribed for hypothyroidism, against the advice of her endocrinologist. (Goucher was diagnosed with a form of hypothyroidism before joining the Oregon Project.)
In his response, Salazar included an email from Goucher's endocrinologist in which the doctor instructs Salazar to have Goucher take Cytomel to counter the effects of a cortisone shot Goucher received to treat an injury. Salazar also included Although Olympic and world champion supporting Salazar's version of events.
One of Goucher's allegations was that Salazar encouraged her to take Cytomel prescribed for someone else. From the email that Salazar included in his response, it appears that the Cytomel in question originally had been prescribed for Rupp.
On Thursday, Goucher released a statement that read in part, "Unfortunately, Alberto’s false statements and one-sided, partial stories don’t tell the truth. Adam and I went to USADA in February 2013 when we had concerns about what we had experienced at the Oregon Project. When BBC and ProPublica approached us with the story, we felt that it was time to tell our truth."
Goucher on Thursday, "USADA hasnt confirmed or denied the existence of any investigation." that the Cytomel incident in the original report occurred around the time of the 2011 Boston Marathon, held in April, not the 2011 world championships, held in August. The emails cited in Salazar's response pertain to the world championships.
Steve Magness' Status With the Oregon Project
Magness was an assistant coach with the Oregon Project in 2011 and 2012. He was a primary source for the initial BBC and ProPublica reports, and is quoted in the reports as saying that he left the Oregon Project before the 2012 Olympics because he was disillusioned by what he considered unethical behavior by Salazar.
In his response, Salazar said that Magness had a contract through 2012 but that Salazar terminated it because "Magness proved to be a poor coach who had difficulty building rapport with world-class athletes."
In an article published after Salazar's response, ProPublica included the letter Magness received from Nike upon the termination of his contract in June 2012. The document states, in part, "this letter shall acknowledge the mutual decision to terminate the contract, effective immediately."
On Thursday, Magness released a 1,200-word statement to Runner's World Newswire and other media outlets. In it, he writes that statements in Salazar's response "confirm what I witnessed and what I told to the BBC/ProPublica reporters in their documentary last month." In addition, Magness writes, "Unfortunately Salazar has also adopted the tactic of character assassination against myself, against Kara and Adam Goucher, and against the growing number of athletes and coaches who have shared what we witnessed at the Oregon Project under his direction."
(Editor's note: Magness is a columnist for Running Times, which is owned by Rodale, the parent company of Runner's World.)
Testosterone Allegations
Magness supplied ProPublica with a photo he took of Rupp's blood chart from 2002. It included the notation “testosterone medication,” which has been widely interpreted to mean that Rupp, then in high school, had been prescribed testosterone. In the initial reports, Salazar said the notation referred to a legal supplement purported to increase testosterone that Rupp took at the time. In his rebuttal, Salazar stood by that claim, and included a letter from Rupp's mother stating “at no time was Galen taking testosterone.”
In the initial reports and in a subsequent article, John Stiner, who worked as a massage therapist for the Oregon Project in 2008, said that Salazar instructed him to retrieve a tube of Androgel, a prescription testosterone cream, from an apartment the Oregon Project stayed at during an altitude-training stint. Stiner said that Salazar told him the Androgel was to treat Salazar's heart condition. (Salazar nearly died of a heart attack in 2007.)
In his response, Salazar wrote that he takes Androgel for hypogonadism, a condition he attributes to having overtrained during his career as a world-class runner. Salazar included a statement from the physician who has treated him since 2005 supporting this contention.
Salazar criticized the reporting by ProPublica and the BBC. “I told both media outlets that their stories contained false information before they were published,” he wrote. “I hereby demand the BBC and ProPublica immediately publish a retraction of their false statements.”
Sara Hall Smashes American Masters Marathon Record, supporting Salazars version of events about Salazar's response. About Salazar's rebuttal, the article states, "Salazar disputed several allegations that were not made in the stories, or inaccurately described allegations that were. He also confirmed others, admitting, for example, he tested testosterone gel on both of his sons."
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In a related development Wednesday, the Associated Press, citing "a person with knowledge of the situation," reported that the a BBC documentary and concurrent ProPublica article against Salazar. The AP said that more than a dozen witnesses have been interviewed as part of USADA's investigation. A USADA spokesperson told Newswire on Thursday, "USADA hasn’t confirmed or denied the existence of any investigation."
Although Olympic and world champion Mo Farah was not implicated in the BBC/ProPublica reports, he has come under intense scrutiny in Great Britain for being coached by Salazar. On Friday, he posted a short statement on Facebook that reads, in part, "I asked Alberto to respond to the allegations made against him and he has now done so in full ... Based on that evidence, I will continue to work with him and hope now that I can focus on what I do best – training hard to win medals for my country."
In his post, Salazar also wrote about why he stopped coaching Goucher and allegations concerning hypodermic needles, pills mailed to Rupp, and administering testosterone to his sons to test how much would trigger a failed drug test. Salazar's rebuttal is in two parts, here and here.
Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times. Much of his writing translates sport science research and elite best practices into practical guidance for everyday athletes. He is the author or coauthor of several running books, including In his response, Advanced Marathoning, and USATF to Elect New President Amid Budget Deficit. Races - Places Slate, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other members of the sedentary media. His lifetime running odometer is past 110,000 miles, but he’s as much in love as ever.
