The head of USA Track and Field delivered a pointed speech to leaders in the supplement industry on Thursday, accusing them of helping to ruin a sport wracked with scandals involving performance-enhancing drugs.
"Performance-enhancing drugs are threatening to choke the life out of the sport that I serve and love," CEO Doug Logan said in his speech to the Focus on the Future executive conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. "And in many ways, the supplement industry has been assisting in braiding the noose."
Branding himself as an outsider who has made his share of enemies since he took his post at USATF last year, Logan spared few feelings in his nine-page speech, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press. He laid blame on leaders in both the track world and the supplement industry for the problems that have overtaken the sport over the past several years.
He said there had been progress: Only four doping positives over the last two years in the United States. But even that wasn't enough in his opinion.
"Despite the results in testing I just mentioned, we cannot yet assure our fans that we are running a clean sport and therein lies the tragedy," he said.
Crediting its lobbying efforts with winning friends in Washington, Logan said the supplement industry has effectively stayed clear of federal regulations _ a strategy that has played a major role in some of athletics' problems.
In the CEO's opinion, the lack of regulation has had a twofold effect: Athletes who get charged with doping violations have a convenient excuse _ they can say they took supplements they didn't know had been tainted. Meanwhile, athletes who want to compete clean often have to curtail what they can take, or spend thousands of dollars on tests, to make sure their vitamins and supplements are free of banned substances.
"A gold medal hurdler takes only a multivitamin, and it is the same multi he has taken for more than a decade," Logan said. "Terrified of the consequences of a tainted supplement, he is terrified to change."
He said the supplement industry has contributed to a society that has, in many ways, blocked out the messages about the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.
The CEO also pointed out some of the more recent anti-doping successes in the sport. There's a nonprofit company started by U.S. sprinter Dee Dee Trotter called "Test Me I'm Clean." Also, last year, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency implemented a voluntary testing program that uses state-of-the-art procedures. Allyson Felix and Olympic gold medal decathlete Bryan Clay are in that program.
Still, the CEO acknowledged athletics has a long way to go.
Logan noted with irony that Trevor Graham, one of the key players in scandals involving Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and others, was named USATF coach of the year in 2002.
"As a federation, we were either ignorant, stupid or were avoiding the issue," Logan said. "Even today, coaches who had drug cases when they were athletes are earning a living. Athletes employ these coaches despite _ or maybe because of _ their drug-riddled past."
In his speech, Logan repeated a message he sent very soon after he was hired last year, asked to clean up both the drug problems and the overall dysfunctional structure of his agency.
"I have two words for any person who uses, promotes or tacitly endorses the use of drugs by any athlete: GET OUT!" Logan said. "Get out of our sport and out of our competitions."
