BOULDER — Kara Goucher places the bronze medal she won at the 2007 track and field world championships on her kitchen counter, the shiny prize fascinating her 6-year-old son, Colt. When he grabs it for a better look, she asks him to put it down because he is munching on popcorn after gymnastics practice.
“I might have to send that back,” cautions Kara, a two-time Olympian and anti-doping whistle-blower who will be inducted into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame on Wednesday at the Denver Athletic Club. “I would hate to send that back and say, ‘I literally opened that box three times since I won it and my son was eating popcorn and got it all greased up.’ ”
She probably will be sending it back soon for an upgrade to silver because last week the Turkish runner who finished second in that 10,000-meter race, Elvan Abeylegesse, was found guilty of doping and her results were expunged. That means Goucher officially finished second that day in Japan 10 years ago, but she won’t get the $40,000 difference in prize money between second and third place, or the $60,000 difference in sponsorship bonus. Abeylegesse stole that from her by using Stanozolol, a banned steroid.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post
Photographs of Kara Goucher winning the bronze medal in the 10,000 meter run at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics in Osaka, Japan sit next to her bronze medal at her home on March 3, 2017 near Boulder, Colorado.
“Do you know how different my career would have been if I had finished second? Winning bronze was huge for me, but had I been second and within two seconds of (gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia), I would have been like, ‘I can win.’ It would have set the rest of my career totally differently.”
Justice usually comes slowly in doping cases, if at all, and no one knows that better than Kara and her husband, Adam. In 2013 the Gouchers reported wrongdoing by their former coach, Alberto Salazar of the Nike Oregon Project, to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in Colorado Springs. Two years later, they spoke out against him in a devastating BBC documentary. The USADA investigation is ongoing.
“We have a lot of hope,” Kara says. “We’ve had other reporters write articles that the investigation is dead. We know for a fact that’s not true.”
Has telling the truth set them free?
“Unburdening myself helped me tremendously,” says Kara, who trained in Oregon under Salazar from 2004-11. “It was dragging me down. I get harassed by a lot by people, but I don’t care. I know the truth, and I know I never lied.”
There has been blowback. Salazar, who won the New York City Marathon three times in the early 1980s and has coached Olympic medalists, denies every allegation of wrongdoing. And he has a lot of fans.
“They can try to ruin my character,” says Kara, 38. “That has been tried — (saying) that I’m old, that I’m bitter, that I’m jealous. But my life is actually really awesome. I have to thank Adam for a lot of it. I am not a person that is confrontational. He was like, ‘You can do this.’ ”
Like Kara, Adam ran for the University of Colorado, where they met. Adam has been outspoken about cheaters since he turned pro and ran at the 2000 Olympics.
“There’s so many people out there that are such die-hard fans, and they just won’t believe the truth,” Adam says of Salazar’s defenders. “Because of that, they look at it as a complete betrayal of someone they worship, and they’re going to go after the people that are hurting him.”
It was hard for Kara to turn in Salazar for his methods, though, and not just because of the risk. When she says he was a “like a father figure,” there is added poignancy because her father was killed by a drunken driver when she was 4.
Kara categorically states she never used performance-enhancing drugs despite what she says went on around her.
“I understand why people question it,” she says. “But the moment USADA asked for my medical records, I signed them over and I let them examine them with a fine-toothed comb. I sleep really well at night.”
Kara acknowledges her first four years with the Salazar group brought about “the rebirth” of her career. In addition to her world championships medal, which marked a turning point for American distance running, she placed third at the New York City Marathon in 2008. Six months later she was third at the Boston Marathon.
But after giving birth to Colt in 2010, Kara says, Salazar gave her a thyroid medication called Cytomel to help her lose weight. She says she never took it, but she told USADA about it.
“I think I justified staying as long as I did because I have those good memories,” Kara says. “It just got to the point where, ‘I really just can’t be surrounded by this anymore.’ ”
Allegations against Salazar continue to mount. In February, the London Sunday Times published information about him from a USADA report leaked by Russian hackers. One of Salazar’s star athletes is Mo Farah, a British runner and four-time Olympic champion.
“USADA can confirm that it has prepared a report in response to a subpoena from a state medical licensing body regarding care given by a physician to athletes associated with the Nike Oregon Project,” USADA spokesman Ryan Madden wrote in a statement. “It appears that a draft of this report was leaked to the Sunday Times by the Russian state-affiliated hacker group known as Fancy Bears. We understand that the licensing body is still deciding its case, and as we continue to investigate whether anti-doping rules were broken, no further comment will be made at this time.”
The Gouchers have not been implicated. In fact, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart — the man who brought down Lance Armstrong — considers them heroes.
“It takes a tremendous amount of courage to take a stand for clean sport, and all those who value fair play should be extremely grateful for the contributions Kara and Adam have made to the fight against doping,” Tygart said last week. “They are an inspiration for clean athletes’ rights everywhere.”
While they await the outcome of Tygart’s investigation, clean athletes thank the Gouchers for their stand.
“There is a fear of speaking out: Will you lose your contract? Will you be labeled a diva athlete?” Kara says. “I do feel a lot of support. I sometimes wish it could be more public, because I feel like the more people speak up, the more chance we have to make real change.”
The Gouchers moved back to Colorado in 2014. Adam retired as a runner in 2011, but Kara continues to compete. She just missed making the Olympic team last year, finishing fourth in the marathon selection trials.
“I love running so much,” Kara says. “It’s the greatest gift I’ve had in my life. This has been a tougher battle than a lot of battles I faced. I don’t want people to think I’m angry and I hate the sport, because I love it. I just want to do my part in helping it be better.”
