Furious Farah: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs

Mo Farah has angrily denied using performance enhancing drugs, after reports he missed two drug tests before the London Olympics. The athlete, who won gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m races at the London games, said the past few weeks had been “the toughest of my life, with rumours about me that are completely false. I have never taken performance enhancing drugs in my life and I never will,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “I’ve fully explained the only two tests in my career that I have ever missed, which the authorities understood and there was never any suggestion that these were anything more than simple mistakes.”

Over the course of my career I have taken hundreds of drugs tests and every single one has been negative.

Mo Farah

The 32-year-old middle-distance runner allegedly missed his first test in 2010 and the second in 2011. He reportedly did not hear his doorbell ring when he was due to undertake the second test - and video evidence was submitted to the UK’s Anti-Doping Agency to this effect. If he was to miss a third appointment for a drugs test, it could have resulted in a four-year ban. Farah was already in the spotlight after an investigation alleged his coach, Alberto Salazar, doped US 10,000m record holder Galen Rupp in 2002.

Alberto Salazar reassured me that the claims are false and that he will soon be providing evidence to make that clear.

Mo Farah