Alberto Salazar, the man who helped coach Mo Farah to four Olympic gold medals, has had his four-year ban upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after being found guilty of doping offenses.
Salazar, 63, ran the Nike Oregon Project which was designed to help bolster American long-distance running until its closure in 2019 after he was linked to doping violations.
He had appealed the penalty imposed on him by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) but will now serve the remainder of his ban along with physician and endocrinologist Dr Jeffrey Brown, a partner of Salazar’s whose appeal was also dismissed.
In a statement released Thursday, CAS said that both Salazar and Brown had “committed a number of anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) and has confirmed the four-year bans imposed on them“.
Salazar was the longtime coach of British distance runner Mo Farah, whom he helped towards his Olympic medal tally as well as six world championship titles.
Farah, however, was not implicated in the rulings against Salazar, with the CAS nothing that “none of the ADRVs directly affected athletic competition, and that there was no evidence put before the CAS as to any effect on athletes competing at the elite level within the Oregon Project.
“However, the panel was satisfied that the rules have been properly applied, and that, on the basis of the ADRVs found by the CAS Panel, the sanctions have been determined in accordance with the relevant version of the WADA Anti-Doping Code.”
The CAS determination found Cuban-born Salazar culpable on three offences – possession of testosterone, “complicity” related to Brown’s use of a prohibited method and tampering with the doping control process.
In addition to athletes in the United States, the Nike Oregon Project began taking on international runners including Farah and Dutch star Sifan Hassan, but a 2015 investigation by the BBC led to serious questions about the group’s training methods and led to the launch of an independent investigation by USADA – and in 2019 was found to have illegally trafficked testosterone as well as using an outlawed method of IV infusion among other complaints.
Salazar has not been found guilty of doping any of the athletes under his control. Farah left the Oregon Project in 2017.
Travis Tygart, chief executive of USADA said in 2019 that whistleblowers revealing Salazar’s actions “found the courage to speak out and ultimately exposed the truth. While acting in connection with the Nike Oregon Project, Salazar and Dr Brown demonstrated that winning was more important than the health and wellbeing of the athletes.“
Salazar, however, offered up a stern defense to the allegations: “My athletes and I have endured unjust, unethical and highly damaging treatment from USADA,” he said, also adding that he was “shocked” at the outcome of the investigation.
The daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, who also tops all opinion polls on preferred candidates to replace him as president, has said she will seek to be reelected as mayor of Davao City, with her younger brother to run as vice-mayor.
“According to Mayor Sara, she will run for reelection as Davao City Mayor,” Sara Duterte-Carpio’s spokesperson, Christina Frasco, said in a text message sent to local media on Thursday.
Duterte-Carpio has been widely tipped as the next leader of her country, topping all public opinion polls, with her father’s presidency ending in 2022. Last week the mayor, who is also the first lady in the Philippines due to her father’s annulled marriage, said she would not run for president.
Despite claiming zero interest in the presidency, the 43-year-old, who replaced her father as mayor of Davao City, has also provided some quotes to the contrary, suggesting that multiple leading political figures have offered themselves as her running mate.
Frasco said that Vice-Mayor Sebastian Duterte would also be running for reelection in Davao City.
Last week, Duterte, 76, accepted a nomination to run as vice-president at the 2022 election from his party, as Philippines law limits that office to one-six-year-term. He had previously dismissed calls to remain in politics.
Thursday’s announcement comes one day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) backed a probe into the deadly ‘war on drugs’ which commenced when Duterte took office at the Malacañan Palace in 2016.
On Thursday, Duterte dismissed the ICC’s probe, once again stating that the international body has no jurisdiction in the Philippines after the country formally left the agreement in 2019.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Sequoia National Park in the US state of California, known for its giant sequoias, has been closed to visitors due to a major wildfire outbreak that prompted the evacuation of its employees, the park administration said on 16 September.
Source: http://sputniknews.com
Moscow has repeatedly voiced concerns regarding what it sees as interference by western nations in its upcoming parliamentary elections.
Source: http://sputniknews.com
Kohli has been the skipper of the Indian cricket team in all three formats since 2017, when ex-captain M.S. Dhoni quit as the leader of the South Asian side in the T20Is and ODIs. Kohli’s first brush with captaincy, however, came in 2014, when he took charge of the Test squad after Dhoni retired from the longest format in Australia.
Source: http://sputniknews.com
Despite the elbow bump becoming the greeting of choice for world leaders lately, Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton hasn’t mastered the move, trying and failing to greet his Korean counterpart in a cringeworthy video.
Dutton traveled to Seoul earlier this week to talk military cooperation, joint infantry exercises, and naval and air force training with his South Korean counterpart, Suh Wook.
The content of their talks wasn’t what most people will remember from the trip, however. Instead, the internet cringed as a masked Dutton clearly struggled to comprehend Suh’s attempts to elbow-bump him. In the video, Dutton first raises a fist, then offers Suh the wrong arm, and finally allows Suh to manhandle his arm into place for an awkward frozen bump.
Luckily for the Australian defense chief, Dutton’s black face mask covered any potential reddening of the cheeks.
Footage of the gaffe was posted online by News Fighters, an Australian podcast, on Thursday, and Dutton’s bumbling body language was ridiculed. “What did he think it was?” one commenter wondered. “Half a black panther salute?”
Potato-head really is that dodgy uncle at the family reunion no-one wants to sit near. https://t.co/oXkzhUzeB8
The elbow bump has become a ubiquitous greeting on the world stage since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, used by political leaders to demonstrate their commitment to minimizing physical contact. However, in Dutton’s home country, even an elbow bump is considered too close for comfort under some of Australia’s most draconian lockdown policies. In Sydney, for example, a socially distanced outdoor conversation with mates is still frowned upon.
Dutton is not the only Australian politician to suffer global embarrassment this week. Announcing a new security pact between the US, UK, and Australia on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden apparently forgot Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s name, referring to the Aussie leader as “that fella down under.” Morrison should not feel too bad about Biden’s memory lapse, however – the Democrat president regularly forgets the names of his own officials, too.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Royal Dutch Shell announced plans on Thursday to build what it hopes will be one of Europe’s largest factories making low-carbon diesel and aviation fuel from waste.
Source: http://sputniknews.com
The past decade saw women in Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative Muslim nation, enjoy more and more freedoms. Authorities allowed women to vote in elections, lifted the ban on driving cars, which had been in place since the 1970s and eased some provisions of the male guardianship law.
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China’s mammoth inoculation campaign has seen more than one billion of its citizens – just over 70% of its population – fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to figures from Beijing’s National Health Commission.
In a press conference on Thursday, senior health official Lei Zhenglong revealed that as of September 15, over one billion people in China are now double jabbed against the coronavirus, with over 2.16 billion shots having been administered state-wide.
Giving a breakdown of the vaccine distribution by age group, more than 390 million doses had been given to elderly members of the population, protecting some 200 million seniors in China. Meanwhile, 170 million doses have been given to adolescents between the ages of 12 to 17, covering almost 95.3 million people, with state media claiming on Wednesday that 91% of this demographic is fully jabbed.
Lei praised Beijing’s robust vaccine rollout, which has seen China’s own jabs used to inoculate the masses. “The total number of doses and the number of people covered in the country rank first in the world, and the population coverage rate is among the highest,” the health official proclaimed.
At the end of August, the European Union revealed that it had reached its target of fully inoculating over 70% of its adult population, although the vaccine distribution varies greatly by region. Meanwhile, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 382 million vaccines have been administered nationwide.
China, home to nearly 1.4 billion people, hoped to fully vaccinate 40% of its population by the end of June. By June 20, Beijing had administered more than a billion Covid-19 shots since it began its vaccination campaign, meaning that Beijing was responsible for more than a third of all doses administered worldwide.
“That fella Down Under” is trending on social media after US President Joe Biden resorted to using the nickname when he appeared to forget the name of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a key address.
The blunder came as Biden announced a trilateral security alliance with Britain and Australia, known as AUKUS. The partnership will involve the sharing of technology that is expected to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
During the virtual three-way press conference on Wednesday, Biden first thanked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson by name before pointing towards the TV screen on which Morrison was appearing via video link and apparently fumbling for his name.
“And I want to thank that, uh, fella Down Under. Thank you very much, pal,” Biden said after a moment’s hesitation before adding, “Appreciate it, Mr. Prime Minister.”
Morrison, who later described the alliance as a “forever partnership for a new time between the oldest and most trusted of friends,” could only smile and give Biden a thumbs up.
#ThatFellaDownUnder becomes the top trending hashtag on Australian Twitter after U.S President Joe Biden used the words during a virtual press conference with Australian & UK PM to unveil a new security partnership that will include nuclear-powered submarines. pic.twitter.com/EFVeS60J2G
However, Biden got it right moments later, apparently with the help of a teleprompter, when he thanked “Prime Minister Morrison and Prime Minister Johnson” for helping “launch a new phase of the trilateral security cooperation among our countries.”
Although the 78-year-old president’s penchant for public gaffes and apparent senior moments are well known to American audiences, this latest reported misstep led to Australian social media users furiously debating whether it was a memory slip or possibly a term of endearment.
Either Joe can’t remember his name, or he just has zero time for him.
The hashtag #ThatFellaDownUnder began trending as people ridiculed both Morrison and Biden, with one person likening the episode to “running into someone in the pub whose name you can’t remember” and calling them “Maate.”
Several commenters said Morrison’s new moniker was more likely to stick than previous nicknames like “Scotty from Marketing,” referring to his time as a marketing executive. Meanwhile, others riffed on the lyrics of the 1980 song ‘Down Under’ by Australian rock group Men at Work to reference the gaffe.
A number of people referred to previous instances of US officials failing to recollect Australian leaders’ names. In 2017, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer twice called Morrison’s predecessor Malcolm Turnbull “Malcolm Trumble” during a press conference, while President Jimmy Carter had incorrectly addressed former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser as “John” in 1977.
Biden thanking "the … uh … fella from Down Under"
Is up there with Trump's Press Secretary calling Malcom T "Trumbull" And Jimmy Carter calling the other PM Malcolm 'My friend, John Fraser'…#SuchACloseRelationship https://t.co/9oSQ2fTESm
Others noted that Biden was not the first world leader who needed help remembering Morrison’s name, pointing to a 2018 episode when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was photographed flipping through crib notes on the prime minister during a meeting at a G20 summit.
Angela Merkel innocently reading Morrison’s profile while he’s sitting right beside her screams ‘insignificant’. Not to mention him guzzling on a beer bottle, bogan style, with the polished World leaders at Cornwall summit. pic.twitter.com/QwrYMh3l8W
While most Australian commenters were quick to forgive Biden on account of Morrison being “very forgettable” and of “international irrelevance,” American social media users expressed embarrassment about the mistake and pointed to the president’s previous gaffes.
Anything beyond remembering the deal was with the UK AND Australia was a bonus.
During a visit to Hurricane Ida-battered New Jersey earlier this month, Biden drew ridicule after telling reporters that tornados aren’t called that anymore and suggested that extreme climate change was responsible for the weather phenomena in Nevada and Iowa.
