UK Athletics has been warned it must become more transparent after it was revealed senior figures privately expressed concerns before Mo Farah was given injections of a controversial supplement in 2014.
Emails obtained by Panorama show Neil Black, then the performance director of UK Athletics, debated whether injecting Farah with L-carnitine to boost his performance at the 2014 London marathon violated “the spirit of sport”.
Dr Rob Chakraverty, who was heavily criticised in parliament for not recording the amount of L-Carnitine administered to Farah, also mentioned “possible side-effects” in an email.
Meanwhile Monday evening’s Panorama also revealed the UKA’s head of endurance, Barry Fudge, had gone to Switzerland to buy the legal amino acid from a contact of Alberto Salazar.
When Fudge and Chakraverty appeared before a parliamentary select committee inquiry into “Combatting Doping in Sport” in 2017 there was no mention of the concerns they had expressed about the L-carnitine procedure, nor about the trip to Switzerland.
Toni Minichiello, the coach of the Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, said he was “shocked” Fudge had gone all the way to Switzerland for the supplement before suggesting the UK Athletics new chief executive, Joanna Adams, must ensure the high-performance system became more open.
“The board have ushered in a new era and culture of transparency and accountability,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for UKA to put those words into practice, regain the trust of the sport and live up to its own values of communication, respect, integrity, quality, accountability.”
The MP Damian Collins, the former chair of the DCMS select committee which in 2017 examined Farah’s L-carnitine injection, said the episode needed revisiting. “This very specific medicine was required, sourced at great difficulty, given against the initial advice of the doctor,” he said. “But yet no one keeps any records of it and everyone decides to keep quiet about it. I think this is something that should be looked at in some seriousness.”