Lausanne (AFP)
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has confirmed the four-year suspension of former American athletics trainer Alberto Salazar, accused among other things of trafficking in testosterone, as well as of endocrinologist Jeffrey Brown, he said. announced Thursday.
The former coach of four-time British Olympic champion Mo Farah was sanctioned in October 2019, a huge scandal that led to the closure of the Oregon Project, a very high-level training group created in 2001 in the Northwest USA and funded by Nike.
Salazar, 63, was accused of trafficking testosterone, injecting his athletes with the amino acid L-carnitine in excess of the permitted doses, and attempting to oppose the collection of information by the United States Anti-Doping Agency Usada.
The technician had contested these charges and asked the CAS to cancel his suspension, just like Dr. Brown, while Usada had asked for an even longer shelving.
The Lausanne-based sports court rejected both requests, ruling that given the offenses established by the investigation, the sanctions were in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code.
Nevertheless, the arbitral panel criticized "the way in which the case was conducted by Usada", from the length of the hearings to the charges raised and then dropped, deeming it "disproportionate" in relation to "the seriousness and the consequences" of the sprains. anti-doping legislation.
None of the offenses alleged against the two men "directly affected athletic competition", and "no evidence has been presented to CAS of any effect on athletes competing at high level in the Nike Oregon Project," said jurisdiction in a press release.
© 2021 AFP