Scots runner Laura Muir doubts her 1,500metres final in Rio was a completely clean race. Muir came home seventh in the race at Rio’s Olympic Stadium as Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon took gold ahead of Ethiopian world record holder Genzebe Dibaba, 25.
Dibaba’s coach is Jama Aden, arrested in June as part of an anti-doping investigation, and the 25-year-old was quizzed on her association with him at the medallists’ press conference.
The women’s 1,500m final at London 2012 has been dubbed the “dirtiest race in history”, with Turkish winner Asli Cakir Alptekin among a host of athletes in the race to fail drugs tests.
Great Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey, who raced that day, was accused of bitterness for saying in the immediate aftermath she did not feel she was “competing on a level playing field”. Instead she was proved right.
And Muir made her feelings clear in the aftermath of the Rio race.
Asked if she had confidence it was completely clean, she said: “I have my doubts, let me say that.”
Her team-mate Laura Weightman, who ran in the 2012 final and finished 11th in Rio, said: “This final was much better than in London. I’m delighted for the medallists – Faith Kipyegon and (American) Jenny Simpson getting a bronze.”
Put to her that she did not mention Dibaba, she did not reply.
Dibaba, the world champion, has never failed a drug test, but her relationship with Somalian coach Aden has led to awkward questions.
Aden, with who Mo Farah and British Athletics have also been forced to deny links, was arrested Barcelona, as part of a joint anti-doping operation by Catalan police, world athletics’ governing body the IAAF and the Spanish anti-doping agency and taken into custody.
