Looking at USADA’s list of 26 USA athletes/coaches suspended over the last 5 years (‘04-‘08) for serious doping offenses (2 or more years), here is what I found.
Note, suspensions of 1 year or less were not included here because they nearly all involve supplement contamination, not having proper approval for a medication, or use of a non-performance enhancing drug like cannabis.
18 TRACK (11 males, 7 females)
• 15 sprinters (Marion Jones ‘07, LaTasha Jenkins ’06, Justin Gatlin ’06, John Capel ’06, Tim Montgomery ’05, Chryste Gaines ’05, Larry Wade ’05, Michelle Collins ‘04, Jerome Young ‘04, Calvin Harrison ’04, Alvin Harrision’04, Kelli White ‘04, Torri Edwards ’04, Mickey Grimes ’04, Antonio Pettigrew ’08 – for doping in ’97-‘01)
• 2 sprint coaches (Trevor Graham ’08, Remi Korchemny ’07)
• 1 mid-distance runner (Regina Jacobs ’04, coach was Tom Craig)
6 FIELD (4 males, 2 females) <--- 5 throws & 1 jumps
• 3 hammer (Scott Boothby ’06, John McEwen ’04, Melissa Price ‘04)
• 1 shot (Kevin Toth ‘04)
• 1 Javelin - Serene Ross ’06)
• 1 LJ/TJ (Erick Walder ’05)
2 ROAD RACES (1 male, 1 female)
• 2 Marathoners (Eddy Hellebuyck ‘04, Deeja Youngquist ’05)
OBSERVATIONS
Sprinters & sprint coaches accounted for 65% of USADA’s 26 2+year suspensions.
Of the 15 sprint dopers, 14 were coached by the “big 3” sprint camps:
• 9 were coaches by Trevor Graham of Sprint Capital USA who got a lifetime ban in ’08.
• 3 (Wade, Edwards, Grimes) were coached by John Smith of HS International.
• 2 (Gaines, White) were coached by Remi Korchemny of ZMA who got a lifetime ban in ’07.
The remaining sprinter (John Capel) received a serious 2-year suspension only because his use of cannabis was his 2nd offense. Capel’s coach was Mike Holiday.
Since 2001, only Graham, Smith & Korchemny have coached more than one athlete receiving a serious 2+ year suspension. These three coaches alone are linked to all of the serious USA sprinter suspensions and 2/3rds of all USADA’s 2+year suspensions over the last 5 years.
Two athletes currently being investigated for doping are:
• Maurice Green coached by John Smith of HS Intl.
• Julien Dunkley (JAM) formerly coached by Trevor Graham of Sprint Capital.
Even if Green is not suspended in the future, why isn’t USADA trying to issue a lifetime suspension to Coach John Smith?
I’m aware of only two “big-name” athletes coached by Trevor Graham after 2004 who have not been charged with a doping offense: Shawn Crawford and Lisa Barber. Anyone know of others? Note, Crawford is now coached by Bobby Kersee (who also coaches Allyson Felix), and Barber is now coached by Gail Devers.
DOPING OUTLOOK
With the demise of two of these big-3 sprint coaches and the 3rd being closely monitored, there is now hope that most US Track athletes are now clean. I'm aware some track fans believe that most US athletes running very good times today are doping. But that appears to be just speculation on their part, as they have not provided any serious evidence to support their claims.
On the international scene the doping outlook is much worse because of Russia. The majority of Russia’s elite T&F stars might be doping. Russia amazingly has 62 women T&F athletes ranked amongst the top-10 in the world this year: sprints 4, mid-D 15, distance 6, marathon 2, jumps 14, throws 8, heptathlon 4, and race walk 9. Russia is the only country in the last few years where a rash of athletes has been caught doping. Because Russia dominates women’s T&F, the impact of widespread doping in that country is huge internationally.
