National governing body finds “no reason to be concerned” about the engagement of British athletes and coaches with the Alberto Salazar-led Oregon Project

UK Athletics (UKA) has released a statement announcing “summary findings” of an independent audit into the national governing body’s engagement with Alberto Salazar’s Oregon Project.

UKA states that the performance oversight group comprising Jason Gardener, Dr Sarah Rowell and Anne Wafula-Strike has found “no reason to be concerned” about the engagement of British athletes and coaches with the Oregon Project, which is the training group of Mo Farah.

In July, the national governing body released initial findings of the review into the high-performance system around Farah, advising that there was no evidence of impropriety” involving the double Olympic, world and European champion.

The review came after doping allegations were made against Salazar, who has coached Farah since 2011, following an investigation by the BBC and US news organisation ProPublica.

Among the claims were that Salazar was involved in doping US 10,000m record-holder Galen Rupp in 2002 when Rupp was 16 years old.

Both Salazar and Rupp have denied any wrongdoing, while there is no suggestion that Farah has violated any rules.

As well as being head coach of the Oregon Project in Portland, Salazar has worked as a consultant to UKA s endurance programme since 2013.

The UKA statement read in part: “In July we said that there was no evidence of any impropriety on the part of Mo Farah and no reason to lack confidence in his training programme.

“The oversight group have restated that view today. They have also found no reason to be concerned about the engagement of other British athletes and coaches with the Oregon Project.

“The review established that the vast majority of the endurance program s interaction with the Oregon Project is in fact focussed on Mo Farah, with very little other UK Athletics related activity. Coaching and support for Mo Farah will remain the focus of our engagement with the Oregon Project.”

The national governing body added that the oversight group had made “a number of organisational and procedural recommendations” which performance director Neil Black will implement over the coming months, though UKA did not state what those recommendations were.

Since UKA announced plans for what the national governing body’s chair Ed Warner described as a rigorous review” into the high-performance system around Farah in June, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) confirmed that it would be conducting an investigation into allegations made in respect of staff within the Oregon Project.

As a result, UKA states that USADA has asked for no further details of the UKA review to be released until the USADA investigation has concluded.

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