Report: USADA Still Investigating Salazar

Report: USADA Still Investigating Salazar

The New York Times reported tonight that American anti-doping officials asked a court to compel Dr. Jeffrey Brown to give a deposition about his dealings wi

Jun 29, 2016 by Dennis Young
Report: USADA Still Investigating Salazar
The New York Times reported tonight that American anti-doping officials  asked a court to compel Dr. Jeffrey Brown to give a deposition about his dealings with athletes and potentially athletically beneficial medications. Most saliently, the Times’ sources said Brown is "being examined as part of a continuing investigation by USADA of the prominent Nike coach Alberto Salazar." In an email to the ​Times​, Salazar said that "I look forward to this unfair and protracted process reaching the conclusion I know to be true." Here’s the timeline of how we got here. Below this story, you can see the court documents from the case for the first time.

-April 10, 2013: The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Clark and Sara Germano run a story in which Houston-based endocrinologist Jeffrey Brown brags about his hypothyroidism treatments for athletes including Carl Lewis, Ryan Hall, and Galen Rupp that led to "15 Olympic gold medals." The story’s kicker is "Nike Inc. said it pays Brown to evaluate Nike athletes' medical tests." Former Nike Oregon Project athletes are believed to be the sources for the story.

-June 3, 2015: ProPublica and the BBC run a story by David Epstein in which former Nike Oregon Project assistant coach Steve Magness and athlete Kara Goucher do not outright accuse NOP head coach Alberto Salazar of doping, but describe an environment of habitual line-stepping encouraged by Salazar, who allegedly encourages athletes to walk right up to the thin line between legal supplements and doping.

-June 24, 2015: Salazar puts out a massive statement denying any doping or illegal wrongdoing, but specifically elides several allegations from the report. He accuses Magness and Goucher of lying and having generally nefarious motivations.

-February 13, 2016: After finishing fourth in the Olympic Trials marathon, fourth-place finisher Kara Goucher credits her impressive comeback* with unburdening herself with what she witnessed while an NOP athlete. "Justice is coming," Goucher said. "People ask, 'How did you come back?' Letting go of that shit is how I came back. I lost 200 pounds of fucking baggage I’ve been carrying around. They can’t touch me anymore. I don’t care. I don’t wish them ill will—the first time I went to USADA, I said, 'All I want them to do is stop doing what they’re doing.' That’s all I want. And some other stuff."
*The linked article is the most-viewed FloTrack article of 2016.

-March 29/April 8/May 31, 2016: Ken Goe of the Portland Oregonian—an excellent journalist who is widely considered the most reliable source of insight into the thinking of the Oregon Project and Salazar--writes three posts criticizing the USADA investigation into the OP for "becoming a vendetta," calling for "resolution," and asking if USADA has dropped the investigation. In the last post, he describes the initial allegations against Salazar as "anecdotal and supported circumstantially if supported at all, or perceived ethical issues but not rules violations."

-Tonight/June 28, 2016: The New York Times reports that USADA asked a court in Houston to depose Dr. Brown—he of 2013 WSJ report fame—"or possibly providing banned substances to track and field athletes." The report continues:

"The activities of the endocrinologist, Jeffrey S. Brown, are being examined as part of a continuing investigation by USADA of the prominent Nike coach Alberto Salazar, a person familiar with the investigation said Tuesday, on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly."

The report also says that "individuals—presumed to be athletes—had traveled long distances to be treated by Dr. Brown in an attempt to enhance athletic performance, which “‘raises questions about whether some of these treatments may have violated sport anti-doping rules.’"

The Times writes that "Mr. Rupp has also emphatically denied taking prohibited substances."

Brown was not interested in opening up to anti-doping authorities, according to the Times: "Despite written permission from athletes for Dr. Brown to discuss his treatment of them, the filing said, he has declined. USADA said it believed it had exhausted ‘all reasonable efforts to obtain voluntary compliance from Dr. Brown,’ and is now seeking legal redress to force him to give a videotaped deposition."

-July 1, 2016: The Olympic Trials begin.

-July 10, 2016: The Olympic Trials end.

-July 11, 2016: The next hearing in the USADA pursuit of Brown, per the Times.

​Correction: this article earlier said that Dr. Brown bragged about his treatment of Bob Kennedy. While the 2013 Wall Street Journal article lists Kennedy among a group of athletes who was "treated for thyroid problems by Brown or other unnamed physicians," Kennedy was not treated by Brown. Additionally, he says in the WSJ article that "he never received performance benefits from hypothyroid medication.

USADA-Brown