All too often when an athlete, from any sport, is found to be guilty of doping they come up with the excuse that ‘it must have been in a supplement given by my coach’ or something equally lame.
And then what do they do? Stick to their story and protest their innocence. The hope is to get as short a ban as possible. The tell-tale sign is the reaction of the athlete. Their reaction is just not right.
Mo Farah, who has never been implicated in doping, finds out his close and trusted coach, an American marathon legend, Alberto Salazar, has been accused of being involved with doping. Mo wants answers from his coach. Are the allegations true? Farah is implicated by association. There are several other runners under Salazar’s tutelage, but Farah is double Olympic gold medalist, currently the top middle distance runner on the planet, the big name, and potentially the big scalp.
Mo Farah wants answers, and if he doesn’t get the right answers then he is going to split. This is the right reaction: indignation, bordering on downright anger, culminating in a confrontation with the coach.
How many dopers subsequently confront and split from their coach? Hardly any it would seem. The coach has spiked your supplement with a PED and you don’t want answers? It can only be assumed that the athlete is party to the doping.
The Alberto Salazar saga is far from over, but Farah got his answers and they were good enough for him to continue in Salazar’s stable, Heaven help athletics if Farah knowingly or unknowingly succumbed to PEDs but his reaction was right, and the signs are good.
thiNK TWice 