I'm forwarding the following from James Templeton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Some of the points in the first paragraph refer to comments made on the Letsrun website, where I believe this statement is also being posted.
John Manners ======================== I am the manager of Bernard Lagat. I want to say a few things on this forum. Some of the people on these message boards seem fair and reasonable, however it is a pity when supposed track fans and participants hide behind anonymous comments to write ill-informed and vindictive nonsense with a large number of factual inaccuracies. Yes, it is nonsense, most of which has been written about Bernard Lagat, Kenyans, modern track, etc. It is sad when track people warn me off following these forums because of the ridiculous posts and attitudes, like the responses to such expert and well-meaning people as Renato Canova. Despite this, I will make a few comments; I'm happy if just a few people are interested. If there is a reasonable amount of fair-minded comment in response, I will try to respond to further queries. Let me say briefly that I am manager of a small group of athletes. In addition to Bernard, there are Japheth Kimutai & Patrick Nduwimana (800), Benjamin Kipkurui, Isaac Songok & Wolfram Muller (1500) and Kipkirui Misoi & Paul Koech (steeple). Until he retired a few weeks ago, I also represented Dieter Baumann (since Munich 2002). It is a small but very tight group; there is a great bond between us. We are all proud of Bernard Lagat as an athlete and a man; we all stood by him 100%. I am Australian and have been the manager of Kimutai and Misoi since WJ in 1996. Our group has grown gradually since then, although I've always sought to keep it small and focused. We are based for the European summer in the southern German university town of Tübingen, some 45km south of Stuttgart and two hours' drive from Frankfurt, Munich & Zurich. We have been based there since 1998. We are happy to be part of the local running community and have received incredible support from the local people. I also have a very good and close relationship with James Li, now coach at University of Arizona -- a wonderful man and a brilliant coach. Moving to this doping saga, it was an incredible shock to be told of this positive A sample on the eve of the 1500 heats. Bernard Lagat has never and would never be involved with any banned substance. To imagine him injecting EPO was impossible to anyone who knows him. He and I were just devastated; our first thought was that this cannot be his urine. We sought to have a DNA test, but plans changed as the weeks unfolded and we spoke to leading scientists and discovered that, in the opinions of various of them, this test can be flawed and open to inaccuracies. You will understand I cannot say too much at this point, however I note that some experts seem to have changed their tune a bit since comments to this list appeared some weeks ago. I am not a scientist, but together with our scientific experts, we hope and expect in the weeks ahead to be able to make comments. Neither Bernard nor Coach Li nor I knew much about EPO testing when all this happened. Of course over the past few weeks we have sadly had to become far more aware of the hows and whys, etc. We went looking for scientific advice and we were fortunate to find some very good people. We waited the full 28 days before requesting the B sample because it was important to be ready -- important for the scientific expert who would be present at the test. We had just one shot at rectifying this travesty of justice. So we knew we had until 19 September to request the B sample. We did this and were told then what date was suitable to the IAAF & Cologne laboratory. On Monday morning we attended the opening of the B sample at 11am. Our scientific expert spent the rest of that day, 12 hours the following day and the morning of 1 October closely following the procedures to ensure the sample was analysed absolutely 100% correctly according to scientific procedures. That was done, and the B sample showed not one trace of artificial EPO in the body of Bernard Lagat. No surprise there, because there never has and never will be anything like that. I have no idea what went on at the A sample testing; I think the next few weeks might hopefully provide some answers. We received the news at 4pm on Wednesday that the B sample was negative. We had lived a nightmare for 37 days, and thankfully it was over. The relief was enormous and many tears were shed. I would like to say thank you to those who kept an open mind and believed in Bernard Lagat. Thanks to so many in the sport of track who believed in Bernard; your thoughts and words won't be forgotten.
