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A new report from the BBC and ProPublica says Oregon running legend Alberto Salazar, head coach at the Nike Oregon Project, oversaw the use of a banned steroid to advance the career of Portland-based Olympic medalist Galen Rupp.
According to the BBC report out today, Salazar has been monitoring Rupp's usage of performance enhancing drugs since Rupp was 16 years old.
Salazar and Rupp both deny any misconduct.
Rupp, who was a U.S. silver medalist in the 10,000 meter race at the London Olympics, graduated from the University of Oregon in 2009. He has been working with Salazar for 14 years.
The allegations include a claim that Rupp was given the banned anabolic steroid testosterone in 2002, when he attended Central Catholic High School in Portland.
Salazar graduated from UO in 1978. He is a long-distance running legend himself, and was inducted into the National Distance Runner's Hall of Fame in 2000.
According to the story, no Nike Oregon Project athlete has ever failed a drug test. The allegations reported by the BBC and ProPublica come from former staff and athletes, including Steve Magness, who worked as a right-hand man to Salazar at the Nike Oregon Project in 2011.
In an interview with BBC, Magness says he read a document listing the blood levels of Salazar's athletes, including Rupp. He was startled to see that Rupp was taking "testosterone medication."
"My stomach dropped," Magness is quoted as saying of the incident. "Looking back on it, it essentially took me from almost this innocent kind of wide-eyed person to just shattering all that, to making me jaded, skeptical."
WWeek 2015