The investigation begins
For years there had been rumours. But they were just that – rumours.
In 2013 I began working on a story about doping in athletics.
Initially, we’d been focusing on historical claims of doping by famous British athletes in the 1980s. But in the course of that reporting, athletes and coaches began to share with me rumours of much more recent misconduct. They urged me to delve deeper into an ongoing problem,
rather than only historical ones. They pointed to one of the most prominent figures in the history of the sport: Alberto Salazar, coach of Britain’s Mo Farah.
At that time, Farah was riding high – having just secured a historic Olympic and world ‘double-double’ in the distance track events. Salazar, his mentor, had been credited for transforming Farah from an athlete struggling to win medals on the big stage into the world’s number one – and
Britain’s most successful ever track athlete.
But the rumours about the American, while not public, were persistent in elite circles; whispers of unorthodox methods, athletes being giving unnecessary prescriptions and even the use of banned substances and methods at the prestigious Nike Oregon Project (NOP) over which
Salazar presided.
Salazar was legendary in US athletics circles, and the most prominent running coach in the world. Winner of the New York Marathon three years in a row from 1980-82, he had once pushed so hard in a race he ran himself unconscious and had the last rites administered.
Salazar remains more famous in the US than any athletes currently competing. If he was cheating, this was going to be a tough story to break.
The background – Salazar’s rise
Salazar founded NOP in 2001.
A long-time friend of Nike founder Phil Knight, Salazar persuaded Nike that if it bankrolled his dream project, he could end the track dominance of the east Africans. If anyone could deliver this plan for Nike, it was Salazar. He was completely embedded into the company’s DNA; he’d
been a Nike athlete throughout his career and even had the famous Swoosh tattooed on his arm.
In the grand scheme of Nike finances, athletics is small business, but an enormous part of its corporate identity. Within Nike’s sprawling 286-acre Beaverton campus in Oregon, built around the man-made Lake Nike, shrines to the company’s athletics pioneers are easily found. One can
enter the Alberto Salazar Building, or even the six-storey Seb Coe Building.
Salazar was one of the most powerful and revered coaches in the sport. He embraced the latest innovations – altitude tents fitted around the beds of his top athletes, long sessions on underwater and zero-gravity treadmills. He sought to influence every aspect of his athlete’s life and left
nothing to chance. His attention to detail was known to be exquisite.
But by the time Farah arrived in 2011, NOP had enjoyed limited success. It had been built around Salazar’s protege Galen Rupp. Salazar discovered Rupp aged 15, but so far the American had failed to deliver on the world stage. It would be Farah – 18 months later, in the 10,000m on
London’s Super Saturday – who would win the first Olympic title for the Oregon Project.
To cap it all, Salazar’s favoured athlete – Rupp – took the silver, just a few strides behind. It was Salazar’s crowning moment. It was also the tipping point for the man who would ultimately help bring him down.
The whistleblower
Steve Magness had been a promising athlete, posting one of the fastest US high school times for the mile (four minutes one second). He turned to coaching in his early 20s and was spotted by Salazar, who brought him to NOP. He spent 18 months as Salazar’s assistant coach, leaving
just before London 2012.
He would later tell me that watching the Farah-Rupp Olympic one-two was “one of the most disheartening moments of my life”. Some months later, he emailed the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), saying: “Look into the Nike Oregon Project athletes… I’m strongly
suspicious.”
Magness had several conversations with Usada over the next two years. But he became frustrated, wondering whether his concerns were being taken seriously enough. It was during this time we were introduced to him. I travelled to meet him in Texas, where he was enjoying success as
a track and field coach at the University of Houston.
The walls of his house in Houston were adorned with athletics memorabilia, in tribute to a lifetime dedicated to running; a huge pile of well-worn running shoes occupied a whole corner of the living room. Magness is quietly spoken, thoughtful and reserved – a self-described introvert.
He chooses his words very carefully, which is why his allegations seemed so explosive – Salazar was cheating; of that he was certain. He told me about a document suggesting Rupp had been given testosterone; he recounted the dodgy experiments with the banned steroid to find out how
much it would take to trigger a positive drugs test. He told me he thought this was “them trying to figure out how to cheat the tests, right? So it’s how much can we take without triggering a positive?”
He knew the risks of speaking out were huge and worried his career could be cut short. He would later tell me: “I’m essentially the David taking on the Goliath of the biggest company and some of the biggest, one of the biggest, names in the sport, which is absolutely terrifying because
they [Nike] control the sport.”
Magness wasn’t alone. Working alongside the US investigative website ProPublica, I had gathered testimony from many more athletes and support personnel with experience of NOP.
Kara Goucher was one. Under Salazar she had won a silver medal at the 2007 World Championships, and she told me he had been like a father figure to her. Goucher was US running royalty, and her testimony that her coach had crossed the line into cheating was excoriating. She
recalled that Salazar told her to take a thyroid drug she had not been prescribed to help with weight loss before a race.
We were told Salazar had an obsession with boosting testosterone levels, and would act like a doctor at times, issuing thyroid and asthma drugs, painkillers, sleeping pills and massive doses of vitamins for dubious medical needs.
We learned he retained a trusted endocrinologist – Dr Jeffrey Brown – on a paid Nike consultancy to treat many of his athletes. In collusion with Salazar, Dr Brown would identify thyroid and other apparent abnormalities; he’d frequently prescribe thyroid hormone to athletes whose
values would be considered normal according to standard reference ranges. Rather than treating medical necessity, his goal was to optimise athletic performance.
Athletes sent to Dr Brown’s office were encouraged not to ask too many questions. They would later tell Usada they felt “intimidated” and under pressure to comply with Salazar’s directions.
One former NOP runner – Tara Erdmann – said she was told to travel to Houston to see Dr Brown but had no idea why. She said: “What is going on? Why do I have to do this?” Still, she went along with it, even though “it was kind of scary”.
Another athlete – former American 5,000m record holder Dathan Ritzenhein – said Salazar would make comments like: “I can’t coach you if you don’t do this.” Ritzenhein had been put on thyroid medication even though his levels were in normal range.
There was now a culture in which it was nearly impossible to say no to Salazar if an athlete or assistant coach wanted to maintain their standing with him. And that is how Magness himself crossed the line.
In 2010, Salazar became aware of a legal supplement that could boost levels of L-carnitine – which occurs naturally in the body and helps convert fat to energy – and produce a significant performance boost. The problem was it took about six months of drinking the supplement to notice
any difference. Salazar didn’t want to wait that long.
UK researchers had devised a method to produce the same result by infusing intravenously the supplement using a drip, over four hours. Salazar wanted to test this, and Magness was to be the guinea pig. Reluctantly, he agreed and the results were instant. “Almost unbelievable,” said
Magness.
