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Prominent track coach Jama Aden was detained and arrested by the Catalan Police as part of an ongoing doping investigation codenamed Operación Rial. The Operación Rial arrests were the result of a three-year investigation that including round-the-clock surveillance over the past four weeks.
Aden is the coach to several world record holders and Olympic and world champions. The scandal may be the biggest doping scandal in the history of distance running.
The most accomplished and successful of Aden's current athletes is 25-year old Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia. Dibaba is the current world record holder for the indoor and outdoor 1500-meter with times of 3:55.17 and 3:50.07, respectively. She also holds the world records in the indoor 3000-meter, the indoor 5000-meter, the indoor mile and the indoor two mile run. In short, Dibaba is one of the most dominant female middle- and long-distance athletes in athletics.
Dibaba is by no means Aden's only star athlete. The Somali coach is known for coaching other top runners including Ayanleh Soulieman, Abubaker Kaki, Abdalelah Haroun and Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla. At the 2016 IAAF Globengalen meet in Stockholm, Aden watched three of his athletes set new world records - Dibaba (4:13.31 indoor mile), Souleiman (2:14.20 in 1000-meters) and Haroun (59.83 in 500-meter).
All of the aforementioned athletes (and dozens of other athletes) were staying in the same hotel as Aden in Sabadell (Spain) for training at the time of a raid by the Catalan Police in Spain. The police raided 4 to 6 hotel rooms and seized anabolic steroids along with erythropoietin (EPO) in prefilled ready-to-inject syringes.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) anti-doping department closely cooperated with Spanish authorities during the course of the investigation. The IAAF also sent anti-doping drug testing officers to Sabadell to accompany police during the raid. Over 20 athletes were drug tested as part of the raid. The results may be available as early as the end of the week.
If convicted of a doping offense, Aden could go to prison for two years under new Spanish laws that criminalize the administration of doping products to athletes. The target of the criminal investigation appears restricted to Aden and an unnamed trainer or physiotherapist.
“We’re very confident of bringing anti-doping violation charges,” according to an unnamed IAAF anti-doping offiicial. “Jama can be questioned for the next 72 hours by Spanish police. Whether we can charge him will depend on what exactly we have found but if he is charged we will interview him to see if he wishes to divulge any information which can implicate anyone else.”
The most recent rule changes in the 2016 WADA Code prohibits coaches and other support personnel from being in the possession of a prohibited substance. Aden faces up to a four-year doping suspension if anabolic steroids, EPO or any other prohibited substance was proven to be in his hotel room. If the drugs were directly linked to any of Aden's athletes, they too would also face suspensions for violating the WADA Code even in the absence of a positive drug test result.
Dibaba is a favorite to win the gold medal in the 1500-meter race at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro later this summer. Aden's arrests cast her doubt on her Olympic participation.