The heat will be on every athlete at the US championships, which start on Thursday, with temperatures forecast to hit 39C. But no one will be feeling it more than Galen Rupp, the softly spoken 10,000m silver medallist at London 2012, who has not raced – or spoken out in public – since releasing a short statement denying claims made by the BBC’s Panorama that he was given the banned steroid testosterone as a 16-year-old by his coach Alberto Salazar.
Rupp, who is scheduled to race in the 10,000m on Thursday evening and the 5,000m on Sunday morning, is likely to get a warm and welcoming reception when he runs at Hayward Field, where he competed as a college athlete for Oregon, and it would be a major surprise if he did not win the 10,000m and come close in the 5,000m too.
He knows he and Salazar will be pressed in the mixed zone, where athletes and journalists congregate after a race, to address more fully the accusations that started three weeks ago and continued on Wednesday when the Guardian revealed that Allan Kupczak, a massage therapist with the Nike Oregon Project for three years, frequently heard Salazar warn his athletes not to touch his bag because it contained testosterone and had gone to the US anti-doping agency in 2012 with various concerns about the coach.
Salazar has also declared his innocence of all allegations of doping and promised a full rebuttal of the claims in the documentary as well as proof his accusers were “knowingly making false statements”.
Certainly other athletes are hoping for some answers, with the middle-distance runner Nick Symmonds, who also spoke out against Russia’s legislation against “gay propaganda” legislation after winning silver at the 2013 world championships, being the most vocal. “I’m glad that all of this is coming to light and I hope the media attention that comes is enough to finally get a statement from Nike, get a statement from Alberto, get a statement from Galen,” he said.
There is enough quality and depth in the lineups here to ensure most of the focus will be on the track. The biggest names in US athletics are competing to get spots at the world championships in Beijing in August. For most of them the equation is simple: finish in the top three in their event and they will book a seat on a plane. Any lower any they will miss out.
However, not everyone faces such a stark possibility. In the 100m Justin Gatlin is one of 11 athletes – including the decathlon world record holder Ashton Eaton and 200m Olympic champion Allyson Felix – who have a bye by virtue of either being a defending world champion or a reigning Diamond League champion. Instead Gatlin will race in the 200m and will watch on as a number of sub-10 second runners, including Tyson Gay, try to earn a spot in the 100m.
Elsewhere, the 100m hurdles is particularly strong with the three fastest women in the world this year – Jasmin Stowers, Kendra Harrison and Sharika Nelvis – going up against the 2013 world champion Brianna Rollins and Dawn Harper-Nelson, the 2014 Diamond League champion. The women’s 400m looks spicy too, with the world leader Francena McCorory against the Olympic 400m champion Sanya Richards-Ross and Felix.
Several other Nike Oregon Project athletes are due to compete over the four days of competition, including the two-times world medallist Matthew Centrowitz in the 1500m and the 2009 world bronze medallist Shannon Rowbury, who joins stablemates Treniere Moser and Mary Cain in the 1500m as well as competing in the 5,000m. How they perform – and what they say afterwards – will be closely scrutinised.
