World 100m champion Justin Gatlin is at the center of a "new doping scandal after members of his team offered to illicitly supply performance-enhancing drugs," according to Newell, Dixon, Foggo, Adams & Heighton of the London TELEGRAPH. Gatlin and his entourage are "now being investigated by sports and doping authorities" after an investigation uncovered how members of his team "offered to provide prescriptions in a false name and smuggle the substances" to the U.S. Undercover reporters visited Gatlin’s Florida training camp where his coach and an athletics agent "offered to supply and administer testosterone and human growth hormone for an actor training for a film." The products were to be provided via a doctor in Austria. The total fee for the project was to be $250,000. The coach, former Olympic Gold Medalist Dennis Mitchell, and the agent, Robert Wagner, were also "secretly recorded claiming that the use of banned substances in athletics was still widespread as they described how positive doping tests could be avoided." On Tuesday, Gatlin denied using performance enhancing drugs. In a statement on social media, the sprinter said that he was "not using" and has not used banned substances and that he was "shocked and surprised to learn that my coach would have anything to do with even the appearance of these current accusations." He said, "I fired him as soon as I found out about this." On Monday night, Gatlin’s legal representatives announced he sacked Mitchell and revealed more than five years’ worth of official drugs tests to show "he has never tested positive for any banned substance." Gatlin’s agent for the last 14 years, Renaldo Nehemiah, said that Wagner had worked for Gatlin on no more than two or three occasions and that the sprinter "was not present when banned substances were discussed with either the agent or coach" (TELEGRAPH, 12/19).
