Goucher lashes out at Salazar

Kara Goucher, one of the athletes who has leveled explosive doping allegations against Alberto Salazar, lashed out at her former coach on Sunday for branding her a liar.

Goucher was angered by Salazar's lengthy open letter refuting the accusations leveled three weeks ago in a BBC/ProPublica documentary, in which Salazar portrayed her husband, Adam Goucher, as "belligerent" and said he dismissed them from his Nike Oregon Project training group.

"You know the expression: they took my quotes out of context," Goucher said at the US athletics trials. "And when you put partial emails or emails from a 10 email-long chain and just put one in you don't get both sides," she said of Salazar's formal response to the claims.

"I understand that if you read it through it looks like I'm a liar.

"I don't like being labelled a liar, just like anyone else. I want people to like me but my love for the sport is much stronger than my passion to have people like me."
Goucher confirmed she had first spoken to the US Anti-Doping Agency about her concerns in February of 2013 and had spoken to them again "very recently".

"I thank them for staying on it," she said of the anti-doping body, which has not officially confirmed an investigation.

"I thank them for staying on it, for taking my truth and not passing judgment on it, for fighting to clean up our sport," she said.

Goucher, who left the Oregon Project in 2011 after seven years, said she would "welcome" the opportunity to testify under oath on the matter.

"I would welcome that opportunity for myself, for every former Oregon Project member, for every doctor that's been involved. To go under oath -- I would welcome that opportunity."
The accusations against the coach of Britain's double Olympic champion Mo Farah have rocked international athletics.

Farah, who has not been implicated in any wrong-doing, said Friday he would continue to train with Salazar.

Salazar himself said he would "never permit" doping in his training programme.

But the documentary alleges that the 56-year-old Cuban-born American violated anti-doping rules, administering testosterone to American distance runner Galen Rupp in 2002 when Rupp was only 16, and encouraging misuse of prescription drugs.
Source: AFP