“No. No. No. I didn’t think there was any mistake because that’s a very, very, very, delicate situation and I don’t trust much in mistakes on finding substance.
“When there’s a mistake, the “A” sample is slightly different from the “B” sample and it cannot be said it’s positive. I don’t remember there being a mistake, especially when they told me it was EPO,” the Italian Athletes’ Representative who has been in business for two decades told Competitor.com.
His remarks contradict his client who on Tuesday exercised the right to have her B-sample tested pertaining to an out of competition urine test conducted in September before she went on to retain her Chicago crown last month to clinch the USD500,000 World Marathon Majors jackpot.
Federico, son of Rosa Associati founder Dr. Danielle Rosa, the famed marathon coach claims the marathon star whose positive test has stunned the athletics fraternity locally and abroad alleged she was injected to treat tropical disease Malaria, a charge he vehemently disproves.
“She started to say, ‘I don’t know. I had malaria. I went to see a doctor. He gave me an injection.’ And that’s not what’s happened,” he added disclosing he spoke to Jeptoo on Wednesday, 24 hours before RunBlogRun.com exclusively broke the news.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he answered on whether Jeptoo stated she had gone to see the doctor adding it was not the one they recommend stating “But normally we have an Italian doctor in Nairobi. If there’s any problem of this kind with my athletes, we tell them to fly to meet this doctor, which is 100 percent safe. He’s knows us. He’s an old guy—20 years we’ve known him.
“No, she didn’t go to see him. When one of my athletes tells me, ‘I have stomach problems or this or that’ they get a flight tomorrow, go to meet the doctor. We book you, go there, test it and then the doctor in the afternoon comes back and says, ‘There’s this problem. You need antibiotics or you need this as well.”
Federico declined to disclose the name of the medic on doctor-patient confidentiality grounds insisting his athletes compete clean despite the cloud of controversy hanging over his head after established runners under his management got entangled in the doping web.
‘Fired him’
Besides Jeptoo, Botswana’s former 400m world champion, Amantle Montsho is still waiting for a verdict after her B-Sample from the Commonwealth Games tested positive for banned stimulant methylhexaneamine in August.
“They’re deciding what they’re going to do, three months or a warning but she’s lives in Botswana, training. They haven’t come to any decision,” the agent said on the former IAAF Diamond League winner.
Another, Kenya captain to the 2011 World Cross Country Championships, Matthew Kisorio, who has since returned to competition, served a two year ban for steroid use but Rosa Associati were quick to severe their links when he tested positive in 2012.
“I simply fired him. I sued him. Thank God he declared to all the media that we had nothing to do with this, that he went to a doctor he had been recommended to go, he explained that he give him some injection and told him not to race next week or something like that so it was clear it was something not legal and I just walked out on him.
“I didn’t do anything to support him. I tried to push him to say the truth. He started with the same s***, ‘I went to a doctor, I had malaria, he gave me tablets.’ I said, ‘No Mathew, there’s no tablet.’ So I tried to push him to cooperate with the information but he didn’t give me any information so the day I knew I just stopped any relation with him,” Federico said.
He conceded Jeptoo’s doping claims had overshadowed the exploits of her training partner, Jemima Sumgong, who finished second in New York last Sunday having also been cleared for banned substance abuse in 2012 when she tested positive after finishing at the same position in Boston.
“I don’t know. I think you read that they say she has been banned for two years and though the issue was not true. That was really bad. And of course she’s in the same group [as Rita] and people have tried to use this, probably yes, probably it takes away a bit from what she has done, what she has been training, what she has been fight for.
“But I think it’s another situation that needs to be cleared very, very properly. I have right here the documentation I had in the press conference I was ready to give to anybody who doubted her being clean,” Federico asserted.
Following the Jeptoo saga, the clamour to have Rosa Associati who according to the agent handles between 65 to 70 athletes in the country and his head coach and fellow Italian international, Claudio Berardelli, banned from operating in Kenya have grown.
Speaking on Tuesday after Jeptoo appeared before Athletics Kenya (AK) Medical and Anti Doping Commission to press her case, federation vice-president David Okeyo, said any action against the management would be taken once investigations into the degree of culpability is established when results of the B-sample are made public.
-By SuperSport.com