Oregon Project experimented with questionable supplements

Westminster, London, England - April 13 2014:british runner Mo Farah running the marathon in eighth place side by side with runner Emmanuel Kipchirchir Mutai from Kenya
Westminster, London, England – April 13 2014:british runner Mo Farah running the marathon in eighth place side by side with runner Emmanuel Kipchirchir Mutai from Kenya

The Nike Oregon Project coach, Alberto Salazar, has admitted the group experimented with a legal drug which some consider to be performance enhancing in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Sunday Times broke the story on Sunday which has been picked up by other news outlets. The supplement in question, L-carnitine, occurs naturally in the body and helps turn fat into energy. Members of the group took the supplement orally but have since stopped because they saw no benefit.

There doesn’t seem to be any sort of malice involved and everything sounds to have been done by the book. Salazar says he checked with the US Anti-Doping Agency before getting the athletes to use the supplement. L-carnitine is not banned by the world anti-doping agency and there were no injections done on the athletes. Injections of any supplement are controlled much more tightly than supplements taken orally.

Still, the story reports that a former assistant coach with the group, Steve Magness, acted as a test subject for injections. He was given injections and then completed treadmill tests to see if they were more useful than taking the drug orally. He saw a nine percent improvement. Magness left the group not long after the tests, shortly before the London Olympics where Galen Rupp and Mo Farah, who train with the group, finished first and second in the 10,000m.

Canadian Olympian Cam Levins trains with the group in Portland, Ore, close to Nike’s headquarters, though he did not join the team until April of 2013 .

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