Golden double

If they want to test me they can test me every single day. Every single day.

SIFAN Hassan silences her critics with another gold medal in the 1,500-meter event. AFP

DOHA, Qatar (AFP) — Sifan Hassan said she is willing to undergo daily drug testing to prove she is a clean athlete after completing a stunning World Championship double here Saturday.

Just days after her coach Alberto Salazar was handed a four-year ban for doping offences, the Ethiopian-born Dutch runner surged to her second gold medal of the championships in the 1,500 meters.

Hassan’s blistering winning time of three minutes and 51.95 seconds was the sixth fastest in history, and sliced around seven seconds off the 16-year-old championship record.

It came at the end of a tumultuous week for the 26-year-old Hassan, whose joy at a brilliant 10,000-meter victory last Saturday lasted only a few days before Salazar, her coach at the controversial Nike Oregon Project, was banned.

Salazar’s downfall has cast a shadow over the entire Oregon Project training group, whose athletes have won three gold medals in Doha.

Hassan however hit back at the suggestion her performances should now be viewed with suspicion.

“If they want to test me they can test me every single day. Every single day,” Hassan declared to reporters at the end of an impassioned press conference.

“I believe in clean sport, I’m always clean, I will always be clean. I believe in the Oregon Project. I’ve seen Alberto. He’s worked really hard and that is what I know.”

Hassan, who joined the Oregon Project at the end of 2016, pointed out she had been delivering consistent times throughout her career, which includes a World Indoor Championship gold medal in 2016.

“I’ve been a top athlete since 2014,” Hassan said. “I’ve won gold medals indoors, Diamond Leagues, I’m always a constant athlete.”

Hassan, whose 2019 season has included a world record for the mile set in Monaco in July and four Diamond League victories, said she had been regularly tested throughout the year.

“Do people think if I cheat that I don’t get tested? For five or six months when I’m running personal bests, that I don’t get tested? For five years I’ve been a constant athlete.”

Under international doping rules, Hassan was required to sever all contact with Salazar this week after the 61-year-old was banned.