"Alberto Salazar, first off, is an American running icon who set a world record in the marathon and won the New York marathon three times. He's probably the most prominent track coach in the world and for a little more than the last decade, he's been leading an effort called the Nike Oregon project that was a Nike-funded high technology track and field team which is meant to bring America back into competition with East African runners and has succeeded." - David Epstein.
In news that throws scrutiny over athletics, Salazar has been accused of facilitating widespread doping among his athletes, standing accused of violating anti-doping rules, including claims he was involved in doping US record holder Galen Rupp in 2002.
A BBC Panorama investigation has accused Salazar of encouraging some of his athletes at the prestigious Nike Oregon project to take banned steroids and to use unethical practices such as micro-dosing. The documentary will also show a reporter doping and then passing a biological passport test.
David's story on Salazar and Nike's Project Oregon is here http://t.co/mvuLsZTlwC There'll be more about Salazar on a BBC1 doc tonight at 9
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) June 3, 2015
None of the Nike Oregon Project (NOP) athletes has ever failed a drug test, while Salazar and Rupp both deny any wrongdoing.
Olympic champion, Mo Farah is also part of the Salazar squad, but there is no suggestion that he has broken any rules.
The BBC's evidence relies on testimony from former assistant coach Steve Magness as well as former athletes Kara and Adam Goucher.
The Sports Gene author David Epstein, who is an investigative reporter at ProPublica and part of the investigation, joined us on Off The Ball tonight to discuss the claims, including the following anecdote:
"Salazar tells Magness to expect a package. He gets the package opens it and it's a paperback novel. [Magness] is confused, opens the novel and the pages are hollowed out and there's two pills taped inside of it and he gives it to Rupp and Rupp takes them and laughs it off. Magness never found out what [the pills] were. So we don't know what they are, but when we posed detailed questions about it to Rupp and to Salazar, they declined to give any response about that," said Epstein.
One of the other allegations saw medication, including testosterone, discovered at an apartment Salazar was staying in with Rupp.
The coach claimed that medication was prescribed to him due to a pre-existing heart condition, even though Epstein has spoken to cardiologists who state that people who have had the heart issues Salazar has had should not be taking testosterone.
"When we talked to several cardiologists in the UK and US, they said it would be pretty unusual to prescribe that for someone with a serious heart condition because they can make them drop dead quite frankly. Then we asked if they would prescribe it to treat a heart condition and the unanimous and quick answer was 'absolutely not.'"
Epstein also added that the "loudest voices, amazingly" have been athletes themselves when it comes to "groundswell around unorthodox medical practices in track and field this year".
"The one important anonymous source we used is a runner who went down to the Nike lab and he was told by someone in the lab to go use some testosterone to get his testosterone up, so it's just this theme effect of taking medicine very casually and really pushing what you can do and exploiting the therapeutic use exemption, even when they were following the rules, used them in ways that the rules clearly aren't intended."
Listen to the full interview via the podcast.
