Mo Farah could be ‘dogged’ by Alberto Salazar doping claims

The doping allegations aimed at athletics coach Alberto Salazar could “dog” Mo Farah’s career, according to UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner.

Salazar denies allegations made in a BBC investigation he has used illegal doping practices.

And there is no suggestion that Farah himself has been involved in doping.

“This is going to be dogging him reputationally for some time, if not for the rest of his career,” Warner told BBC Radio 5 live.

“He’s found himself in a no-win situation.”

Warner added that his personal advice to double British Olympic champion Farah, 32, would be to “suspend” his relationship with Alberto Salazar, but said that would not be the official stance of UK Athletics.

“From a personal perspective I can see why some people might have advised Mo to have done that,” he said.

A BBC Panorama investigation alleged that Salazar, who became Farah’s coach in 2011, violated anti-doping rules and doped United States 10,000m record holder Galen Rupp in 2002 when the athlete was 16 years old.

Farah withdrew from Sunday’s Diamond League meeting in Birmingham, saying he was “emotionally and physically drained” by the events and has now flown to the US to “seek answers” from Salazar.

On Friday he said he would continue to work with Salazar, but added: “I need to know what is going on. Are they true or not? If they turn out to be true I will be the first person to leave him.” UKA has started a review of the “performance management system” around Farah, which Warner says will take “weeks rather than months” to complete.

Warner added: “There are two things here to distinguish – we can do nothing about the Salazar and Rupp allegations. That’s about the US Anti-Doping Agency.

“What we can look at is data around our own athletes. We have all the data and we need to make sure there is nothing we haven’t seen or are unaware of.

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