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Jessica Judd savages Ukad over reluctance to release Mo Farah samples

<span>Photograph: Andy Lyons/Getty Images for IAAF</span>
Photograph: Andy Lyons/Getty Images for IAAF

The British athlete Jessica Judd has warned athletics “is dying a drug‑fuelled death” as the row over whether UK Anti-Doping should hand over Mo Farah’s blood and urine samples to the World Anti-Doping Agency for retesting rumbles on.

Judd, who represented Britain over 5,000m at the 2019 world championships in Doha, tweeted that she was embarrassed by the Ukad chief executive, Nicole Sapstead, saying she would not hand over Farah’s samples to a Wada investigation into the Nike Oregon Project without “credible evidence” they contained banned substances.

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“The amount of samples that athletes give and they won’t retest and use stupid excuses as to why [is] embarrassing,” said Judd. “Why would people want to keep their data secret? And you wonder why athletics is dying a drug-fuelled death.”

Farah’s former coach Alberto Salazar was banned for four years for doping offences in October, but none of his athletes were banned. Farah has always denied any wrongdoing. He has also not publicly commented on this dispute.

Sapstead says handing over the blood and urine of Britain’s four‑times Olympic champion would risk degrading samples that are stored for up to 10 years so they can be retested using new detection methods. Judd said she had nothing to hide and would be willing for Wada to retest any of her samples. “I disagree with Ukad as their actions are tainting everyone with the same tarred brush,” she later added.

Russia has accused Ukad of creating a “wall of mistrust” over UK Anti‑Doping and its athletes because of its reluctance to release Farah’s samples. Margarita Pakhnotskaya, the Russian Anti‑Doping Agency deputy general director, told Tass: “The World Anti-Doping Code and Wada standards are the same for everyone. Be it the British Anti-Doping Agency, Rusada or some other. Otherwise the system will not work. Therefore, I believe that Ukad should not obstruct any transfer of samples.

“According to paragraph 6.5 of the Wada Code, the subsequent additional analysis of doping samples can be carried out at any time solely on the instructions of the anti-doping organisation or on the instructions of Wada. Any opacity on either side, and this is not just about Ukad, creates a wall of mistrust in the country’s anti-doping system and, accordingly, its athletes as part of the system.”