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The plan is to have the new website/IT Infrastructure in place by fall of 2019.

Please please please, if you ever hear of a situation where a coach or someone in a position of power is under investigation for sexual misconduct, contact the Center for SafeSport at SafeSport.org.

The victim told her mom very shortly after the incident. Her mom contacted police. They were found by police and it appears a rape kit was done.

But it took a YEAR for the DNA evidence to be processed.

HE KEPT COACHING DURING THAT YEAR!!

If the Center had known about this investigation, they most likely would have given him an interim suspension pending the outcome of the investigation, especially given the circumstances under which the investigation started!

I pray there are no other victims in this story. One victim is too many.

https://masterstrack.blog/2018/09/m55-american-hurdler-kerry-sloan-arrested-on-rape-charge-before-malaga-worlds/

George Barber has been banned by the US Center for SafeSport. He is permanently ineligible for USATF membership.

This means that he cannot coach or compete at USATF sanctioned events.

This is still subject to appeal, he can go through arbitration. But since there was already a criminal conviction, the only way he would be able to get out of this is if there was some sort of technicality, the events that occurred are not in dispute.

For those not familiar with his background, George is a registered sex offender. He was convicted in 2007 in the state of New Mexico on two counts of criminal sexual penetration by a school employee.

We can reasonably assume he was banned over the 2005 incident (conviction in 2007) because the ruling from the Center says criminal disposition, and I am not aware of any other criminal issues involving him.

You can read a little about it here, and if you google there are more articles: https://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/apsexcharges01-06-07.htm

George was banned by Athletics Canada in 2015: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/george-barber-ban-1.3336064

I don’t think this should come as a big surprise to anyone (unless you were unaware of his past).

To my knowledge he has not coached with a USATF-affiliated club since he got out of jail. I think we have had background checks since then and obviously he would not have passed.

Jamie went to arbitration and the arbitrator agreed with SafeSport’s findings. He is permanently ineligible for USATF membership.

What does it take to bid on the Olympic Trials anyway?

The new bid packet is posted.

Do LOCs that previously bid and lost have to pay another $20,000 to bid again? I would laugh and say dream on…

https://www.usatf.org/usatf/files/be/bea46c3e-53d2-4692-bc65-0932c53746c9.pdf

The Center for SafeSport has ruled Jamie Steffen permanently ineligible for membership with USA Track & Field.

This means he cannot coach or compete at any USATF sanctioned event, and his club is not a USATF club.

I support the efforts of SafeSport and USA Track & Field to make our sport safer. It is disappointing that the first suspension issued by the Center for SafeSport in our sport came from the pole vaulting community, but some pole vaulting clubs are creating environments similar to those found in gymnastics that leave athletes susceptible to abuse.

It is my hope that all coaches and clubs will take the SafeSport training seriously and use the opportunity to ensure they have policies in place that create a healthy environment for their athletes.

SafeSport.org

Part 1

Last Sunday, the USATF Board of Directors took the unprecedented action of declaring USATF President Vin Lananna “temporarily unable to serve” due to the perceived conflict of interest between his roles as President of TrackTown USA and President of USATF.

Although the press release stated they have no reason to believe Vin did anything wrong, the words ring hollow.

In his relentless campaign to undermine Lananna, USATF Board Chair Steve Miller has also succeeded in undermining USA Track & Field.

Shortly before leading the Board in this action, Miller spoke with the Oregonian’s Jeff Manning and filled him with misleading statements.

I’ve been lectured for years by various people in USATF leadership about being responsible about what I report, about the things I say online. Words have power and painting the sport in too bad of a light makes it harder to sell sponsorships, which hurts everyone.

So imagine my shock when Miller revealed to a reporter that TrackTown owed USATF $2 million.

First, this is a super misleading statement. TrackTown owed USATF $2 million for a time in 2015. At that same time, USATF owed TrackTown around $750,000. I’m saying these things now because they have both been published elsewhere in the press recently.

Part of the delay in payments was probably sorting out if they were going to write each other checks, or if TrackTown would just write a check for $1.25 million. These decisions impact the accounting and cash flow for both organizations. It was paid off by late 2015 or early 2016.

Second, it was SHOCKING to me that Miller would state this to a reporter.

In the fall of 2015, I flew to Last Vegas to attend the USATF Board Meeting. Myself and one other reporter were the only people there that were not Board members/staff/invited guests.

In that meeting, in the CEO report, Max Siegel, in an effort to be more transparent, mentioned that USATF was owed $2 million from one of their vendors. This wasn’t particularly alarming to me, but my ears perked up when one of the Board members mentioned that it was TrackTown that had the late payment.

Max was obviously super uncomfortable with the name of the vendor having been revealed in an open portion of the board meeting. He asked myself and the other reporter to use discretion with that information. Steve Miller was sitting right next to Max when he said this!!

I don’t understand why the Chair of the USATF Board of Directors, who has a FIDUCIARY DUTY to the organization (all caps because leadership has thrown that word around to the masses a lot in recent years), would willingly divulge information to a reporter that the CEO had specifically asked not be leaked to the press.

Part 2

In October, the Board issued a resolution that clarified when Vin needed to recuse himself due to either a conflict of interest or appearance of one (bottom of this document: https://www.usatf.org/usatf/files/0b/0b177ad2-7ee3-47f7-bd30-ddadfe85c5c3.pdf )

These were already things Vin was committed to doing, I don’t know that anything in the document is dramatically different than what he pledged to his constituents, it just gets into greater detail.

Miller states in the article that, “he has to recuse himself from the vast majority of what he does as president of USATF” This statement is totally false!

Most Board Meetings spend little to no time discussing anything surrounding events or any other conflicts of interest for Vin.

The Board Meeting last summer was a notable exception, with the Olympic Trials bidders giving their presentations to the Board… and Vin recused himself and was not in the room for the presentations or the discussion.

The awarding of National Championships are not normally a Board issue. Most Board meetings are kind of… boring… most of the time.

Yes, Vin will have to recuse himself from time to time. We all knew that when we elected him as President. The October resolution did not strip him of authority in his role as President.

The article also stated that USATF “most recently” pledged $6 million toward the 2021 World Championships… in the context of the article, implying this was something that has happened since Vin was elected to the Board.

That $6 million commitment is from the original 2019 bid, which goes back to 2014, and was probably negotiated in 2013. It will be paid out over a period of several years. It is not recent, it has not increased, and there was no conflict of interest surrounding it.

It’s clear the article was an attempt to undermine Vin and gain support for the impending coup.

Part 3

The Board declared USATF President Vin “temporarily unable to serve” over this issue, so it MATTERS how plausible it is that there could have been corruption and whether or not he would have known.

When Vin Lananna began working at Oregon, he took the sport to new levels in the US. The Olympic Trials elevated the event, and Vin began to look at hosting international Championships.

The World Junior Championships in 2014 were successful and seemed to position the US nicely as USATF bid to host the 2019 World Championships in the fall of 2014.

BUT it turns out the IAAF was corrupt af during this time. IAAF President Lamine Diack and his son Papa Massata Diack have been accused of accepting bribes to cover up doping, to award Championships, even to secure votes for the Olympics!

Eugene and Doha were the finalists to host the 2019 World Championships. Doha won, with obvious signs of corruption in the bidding process. Eugene was encouraged to bid again for 2021, but could not guarantee they would be able to do so. There was no way of knowing if they would be able to secure the same commitments in two years.

The IAAF does have a history of awarding Championships without going through the normal bidding process, so questions continued to be asked after the vote as to whether or not there might be a chance that the Council would vote on awarding 2021 to Eugene at a Council meeting.

Then IAAF Vice-President Seb Coe, asked Diack for clarity sometime around January 2015. Diack told him no, the Council would not be voting on the issue in April.

Coe, controversially, communicated this to former USATF CEO Craig Masback, who now works for Nike, and Masback communicated this to Lananna.

In February 2015, Lananna flew to Monaco and met with Diack for three hours, and appeared to have changed Diack’s mind.

The issue was put on the IAAF Council agenda at the April meeting and the Council voted to give Eugene the 2021 World Championships.

Is that all sketchy af? Yes.

But let’s dig into this…Something caused Diack to change his mind, and that is what led to Eugene being awarded the meet. Why would Diack change his mind?

Given the plethora of allegations against him, it is easy to assume there was some sort of bribery. Who would bribe Diack though?

It’s highly unlikely that it was USATF. As both a non-profit and an NGB, their finances are subject to a lot of scrutiny. They aren’t sitting on the extra cash to pull that off, and they don’t have a history of playing dirty in that way.

Could TrackTown do it? I really doubt this too. TrackTown didn’t have the money either, and their employees, including Vin, don’t appear to have the international experience that you would need to be able to pull off something like that.

Would Nike do it? I have no idea… but that doesn’t seem like a very good investment on their part?

Nike is not the IAAF shoe/apparel sponsor and their logo has to be covered up at the stadium and anything related to the event.

In fact, subsequent to all of this, the IAAF sponsorship went on the market and Nike didn’t bite, even though picking it up would have given them the ability to advertise at Worlds.

Sure, having Worlds in their backyard is appealing. But is it appealing enough to spend a lot of money and break the law? At the end of the day, this is “just” track and field, and it has been a long time since we were a priority for Nike. Why would they risk giant legal consequences for us?

But let’s assume for a second that some unknown entity wanted this meet to come to Eugene badly enough to spend money and break the law… not badly enough to spend money and break the law during the bidding process like Doha is alleged to have done… but badly enough to do it after the fact. OK.

Vin’s not the guy you send to do that job. Vin would be the guy you send in after the fact to make it look like he persuaded Diack with his charm.

Would Vin know? Why would anyone tell him? The more people you include in your criminal activities, the greater the risk of getting caught.

Of course it is still absolutely plausible that Diack changed his mind without bribes. Maybe he was fishing around for one, didn’t get it, but was persuaded that he should do it for power reasons. This was one of the last things he was able to do before his term ended. I’m not sure that Diack ever did anything out of the goodness of his heart, but power probably motivated him at times, even if there was no money involved.

Part 4

Shortly after finishing his term as IAAF President, Lamine Diack was arrested and placed under investigation by the French police (they have jurisdiction in Monaco). Interpol is also investigating, and several other officials were arrested as well.

Initially the investigation surrounded anti-doping corruption, but quickly expanded to cover corruption surrounding IAAF bids, and ultimately Olympic bidding.

The irregularities with awarding 2021 to Eugene came under question almost immediately.

November 2014: Doha beats Eugene in the bidding process for the 2019 World Championships.
April 2015: In a surprise move, the IAAF Council votes to give Eugene the 2021 World Championships.
November 2015: Seb Coe’s role in the process was questioned.
December 2015: The BBC reveals that the decision is being investigated by the French authorities. “French investigators want to know more about how Diack arrived at the decision to give Eugene the event.”
March 2016: Investigation expanded to include Olympics.
March 2017: Report indicates the investigation has expanded to include the awarding of the 2019, 2017, 2015 and 2013 World Championships.
June 2017: BBC reports that the FBI and the criminal division of the IRS are now investigating Eugene being awarded the World Championships. The IAAF stated at this time they had not been contacted by the FBI or IRS.
January 2018: NY Times reports that the Justice Department has issued subpoenas seeking information about FIFA, the IOC, the USOC, and people that have “successfully lobbied to host top global competitions.” The article states that the IAAF is of particular interest to the DOJ, it also mentions Helios Partners, a sports marketing company. The USOC declined to comment. The IOC and IAAF denied having been contacted by the DOJ.
January 2018: USATF, UO Foundation, and UO deny having been contacted by the DOJ.
February 2018: The Board suspends Vin and reveals that Vin was contacted by law enforcement months ago and did not notify USATF.

So WTF does this any of this mean about subpoenas, anyway?

Turns out, the FBI has a web page explaining that: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/victim-services/a-brief-description-of-the-federal-criminal-justice-process

“agents often will need to obtain documents from suspects and innocent parties as part of the investigation”

“A grand jury is an impartial body of citizens drawn from the community that has the responsibility to investigate whether a crime has been committed and by whom. In order to make that determination, a grand jury may issue subpoenas to whoever may have evidence relevant to the grand jury’s investigation.”

So it is standard in investigations to issue subpoenas to parties that may have evidence related to a crime… it does not mean that those parties are suspected of committing that crime. It is not surprising at all that Vin was contacted. I expect USATF will be at some point as well.

Remember that the FBI can be super duper slow. They took over a year to even begin interviewing people in the Larry Nassar case, a delay that led to dozens more girls and women being abused.

So, why wouldn’t Vin tell USATF he was contacted? Is he trying to hide something?

Uhhhh… gosh maybe the FBI specifically told him NOT to contact USATF or anyone else? https://www.polsinelli.com/intelligence/receiving-a-subpoena-from-doj

“According to one panel member, a cover letter asking you to keep this matter confidential is some indication that the Government currently views your company as a witness rather than as a target.”

Oh hey, it turns out that prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York have a history of issuing gag orders related to their subpoenas: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/nyregion/prosecutorssecrecy-orders-on-subpoenas-stir-constitutional-questions.html

Here is an example of what a cover letter on a subpoena looks like: https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/db/14347461916685.pdf

We don’t know what Vin’s cover letter looked like, but there is a good chance it requested that he keep the matter confidential and not disclose the existence of the subpoena. Perhaps his lawyer advised him not to tell USATF. Or perhaps he even called the prosecutor and they asked him not to. I don’t know.

What we do know is that USATF was told that TrackTown is not a target of the investigation.

Part 5

In parts 1 and 2 I covered some of USATF Board Chair Steve Miller’s actions leading in to the February board meeting that were undermining to Vin Lananna.

Part 3 we looked at the possibility of corruption with how the 2021 World Championships were awarded to Eugene.

Part 4 we looked at who was investigating what and when we knew what.

Caught up yet? Now here’s the thing. The really important thing.

If _anyone_ from the US did anything illegal to persuade Diack to award us the 2021 World Championships… WE ARE ALL REALLY FUCKING SCREWED.

You guys. It doesn’t matter if Vin knew. It doesn’t matter if Max knew. If law enforcement can prove that there was corruption from the Americans, its all over.

We lose the meet. Max loses his job. Vin loses his many jobs. USATF loses most of its sponsors. Maybe USATF gets decertified by the USOC or maybe they don’t, it doesn’t really matter at that point. It won’t be the USOC calling for heads, it will be Congress.

Does it matter who knew what and when? Of course, from a criminal justice standpoint. But as far as the health of the sport in the US goes? It doesn’t really matter.

In addition to being illegal, bribery is not socially acceptable here, it is seen as highly immoral.

So far there is NO evidence, that we know of, that corruption occurred. And if it did, it seems unlikely that Vin would know.

As I laid out in Part 3, there is no way Vin could have bribed Diack on his own, and if another party was dirty enough to do such a thing, it is unlikely they would tell Vin about it.

Should the Board attempt to cover up a crime? No, absolutely not.

The Board and USATF should do everything possible to not only cooperate with an investigation, but I would even suggest being proactive and calling the FBI and the IRS and the DOJ and the French Police every few months and asking if there is anything they can do to help.

But outwardly, with no evidence of impropriety on Vin’s part, the Board should have stayed silent on the issue and let law enforcement do their job.

By declaring Vin “temporarily unable to serve” the Board sent a message to law enforcement, to USATF’s sponsors, and to all of the organization’s stakeholders: We think Vin did something wrong. We think he is hiding something.

Vin will never be “cleared” by anyone, this will be similar to USADA’s case with Alberto Salazar if, they won’t announce an end if there are no charges. Even Vin cannot prove he did not know anything.

If Vin ever gets charged with anything, the Board taking this action DOES NOT HELP. It is TOO LATE for USATF to distance themselves from this. They submitted the bid.

While USATF staff clearly had little to do with the actions between Doha being awarded 2019 and Eugene being awarded 2021, they did not turn down the meet after Diack gave it to them.

It was SUPER OBVIOUS at the time that there were irregularities with the process. USATF accepted the meet, knowing that the process was sketchy. There is a good chance that no Americans will ever be charged with anything.

Maybe Diack changed his mind because he is Lamine fucking Diack and he knew he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

The Board sent the world a message that they think the process was corrupt. The words in the press release, that they have no reason to believe Vin did anything wrong, are hollow and meaningless, both because of the actions the Board took and because of the statements that Steve Miller made coming in to the meeting that were undermining to both Vin and USATF.

Why would any sponsor want to get involved with USATF now? Does this organization seem like a good investment?

We are moving backwards in our track and field coverage in the US.

In 2016, at the Olympics, we had a dedicated stream for each field event. Including both pits for the qualifying rounds of the vertical jumps.

In 2017, at Worlds, the $79.99 NBC Sports Gold package gave us field event streams, but only one pit for the qualifying rounds.

In 2018, at Worlds, for the same $79.99, we have no dedicated field event streams at all. Currently getting a mish mash of men’s and women’s HJ, but I shudder to think what this means for pole vault coverage when there are more events going on.

The streams exist!! Literally all NBC has to do is create a link! I am not asking them to add more cameras to the event. I am not asking for better commentary or anything weird.

The thing I want exists, and we have had it in the past. I do not understand how we keep moving backwards.

Isn’t USATF supposed to be advocating for better coverage of the sport? How have we gone backwards?!?!

In other records news, Keturah Orji’s American Indoor Record in the triple jump was rejected for no drug testing. It sounds like they had trouble getting a drug tester to her location quickly enough, but I’m not sure

In the Women’s 800, you may recall that Ajee Wilson broke the indoor record, only to fail a drug test and have it taken away. Charlene Lipsey was second in the race and also surpassed the record.

Unfortunately, she was not drug tested at the event (or within 24 hours) so her record was not ratified.

If a US athlete on US soil surpasses the currently ratified American record in one of the events that requires drug testing, it is imperative that someone from USATF be contacted ASAP so that USADA can test the athlete within 24 hours.

Outside the US, if an athlete has to pay someone for their test (drug tests cost money and meet directors often don’t want to bear the cost of an extra test), USATF will reimburse them.

The 2018 USATF Junior and Senior Outdoor Championships have not officially been announced yet because contracts are not finalized, but the plan is for Juniors to be at Indiana University in Bloomington June 15-17, and the seniors to be at Drake University in Des Moines June 23 weekend.

The juniors are so early because of the deadlines for the U20 Championships.