Goucher hits back at Salazar

EUGENE, United States: 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 said she first took her concerns about Salazar to the US Anti-Doping Agency in February of 2013 and would be eager to testify under oath about her experiences.
She was angered by Salazar’s lengthy open letter published Wednesday, refuting the accusations leveled three weeks ago in a BBC/ProPublica documentary.
Salazar portrayed her husband, former athlete Adam Goucher, as “belligerent” and said he dismissed the couple from his Nike Oregon Project training group.
“You know the expression: they took my quotes out of context,” Goucher said after finishing 18th in the 5,000m at the US athletics championships.
“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 said she had spoken again to USADA “very recently”.
“I thank them for staying on it,” she said of the anti-doping body, which has not officially confirmed an investigation, “for taking my truth and not passing judgment on it, for fighting to clean up our sport.”
Goucher, who left the Oregon Project in 2011 after seven years, said she would welcome the opportunity to testify under oath “for myself, for every former Oregon Project member, for every doctor that’s been involved.
“To go under oath — I would welcome that opportunity,” she said.
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.
Rupp, the 2012 Olympic 10,000m silver medallist, voiced full support for Salazar after his 10,000m win on Thursday.
He was racing again on Sunday as Goucher spoke, finishing third in the 5,000m.