The ARD doping editorial office has received serious accusations against the Frenchman Morhad Amdouni. In the course of the research, an informant received death threats. Amdouni is already the second French runner in the twilight.
The star leads an inconspicuous life. He lives with his wife and a small child in one of these typical small towns, with whose help Paris continues to spread inconspicuously. Where farmers used to cultivate fields. But because the sparse space in the French metropolis is no longer sufficient for the masses, who succumb to attraction, commuter cities have long since sprung up instead of crops.
Because many apartments in Paris are only used for sleeping after long working days or are even rented to tourists, it is possible to live here unrecognized. And apparently Morhad Amdouni enjoys this anonymity. Hardly any of the neighbours take notice of the man who ran more than 10,000 metres faster than all his competitors at the European Championships in Berlin last year. He lives with his family on the ground floor, and because the white shutters in front of his windows are almost closed more often than they are open, one can sometimes get the impression that the world-class athlete is hiding.
Gold and bronze in Berlin
Maybe he has every reason to. Morhad Amdouni, born in Corsica with Tunisian roots and 31 years old, was long regarded as one of the upcoming stars of French athletics. But Achilles' tendon, knees, sciatica, pretty much everything that can cause a runner suffering, hurt one after the other. It was only at the age of 30, in the dip of his career as an athlete, that Amdouni last year achieved his great success: at the European Championships in Berlin he won gold over 10,000 metres and bronze over 5,000 metres.
But now there is much to suggest that the spectacular late development is far less miraculous than it may have been. The ARD doping editors have concrete indications that arouse the suspicion that the Frenchman Amdouni could have doped at least in 2017. Insiders of his national athletics federation are already suspicious of his achievements because of some conspicuous features. The most recent behaviour of the nimble Frenchman fitted into the picture: After weeks of training in Qatar, Amdouni suddenly left the desert in a hurry exactly when all his colleagues gradually arrived for the World Championships.
Due to an alleged lack of training due to an injury, he decided not to start the World Championships. The time was striking: Shortly before, ARD had officially asked Amdouni for an interview with the French federation to confront him with the suspicion. Before that, he had already learned that the ARD doping editors had researched him and his - as it turned out later - dangerous environment.
13 different reporting locations within 15 days
For the French Athletics Federation, the process is tantamount to a catastrophe. It was only in spring that his most prominent athlete in the marathon category came into twilight: Clemence Calvin fled from doping controllers in Morocco. The circumstances are somewhat controversial, the evidence possibly complicated, but the doping hunters emphatically convey the impression that Calvin wanted to prevent doping control by all means. She had changed her registration address 13 times in 15 days. The sports law procedure is under way. With regard to the Amdouni case, the French federation stated that it had "no knowledge of misconduct in connection with the use of doping substances by the French athlete Morhad Amdouni".
 
Remarkable: Only a few competitions, hardly any preparation and yet Amdouni celebrated his greatest successes in the past years.
The first question marks about Amdouni already arose from his competition calendar in the past years. While he started relatively often in 2016 - the World Athletics Association IAAF lists 12 starts in ten events - activity declined rapidly as a result. Never more than three events per year - while Amdouni achieved its greatest successes at the same time. Most recently this year a time of 2:09 hours at the Paris Marathon, in a discipline which he tackled anew and in a competition for which he was supposedly hardly prepared. Doping experts consider a conspicuously low number of starts combined with great successes to be one of many suspicious parameters in a profile typical of a doper.
One pack of EPO, one pack of growth hormone
Amdouni also likes to train individually in remote places. Sometimes the Frenchman trains in Doha, sometimes in the Moroccan plateau of Ifrane or in South Africa, sometimes in Corsica. For doping control officers such athletes are extremely difficult to find for testing. "It is well known that it is more complicated for an agency like ours to set up doping controls abroad than on our own national territory," says Mathieu Teoran, Secretary General of the French Anti-Doping Agency AFLD, "it is more expensive and requires more information.  
The ARD doping editorial office also has a Whatsapp communication from a person who claims to have procured doping medication for Amdouni and has demanded payment of the balance. "If I don't get my money tomorrow, Mourad, you'll be sorry and you'll be the loser because I don't like people taking advantage of me," it says, "just so you know you bought a pack of EPO and you got a pack of growth hormone!!!!". And further: "I'll tell you again, I want my money tomorrow, 150 Euro." The different spelling of the first name can be explained by the fact that in North Africa the Frenchman is also called Mourad Hamdouni.  
"They kill for 1000,- Euro"
The person who wrote these lines affirms the authenticity in lieu of oath to the ARD doping editorial office. In addition, other persons confirm that the contact with the mobile phone number indicated by the Whatsapp profile is indeed that of Morhad Amdouni.
Last week, when the ARD doping editorial office tried to question Amdouni about the communication and the accusations at home, he did not want to answer. "It's simply incredible to talk about such things, there's nothing," he said in the stairwell, "there's nothing to say about it, there's nothing."
Another Whatsapp protocol on the progress of the events, left to the ARD doping editorship, suggests the suspicion that conditions in the doping scene were similar to those in organized crime. Immediately after Amdouni's confrontation near Paris, an informant received unmistakable threats by whatsapp from Amdouni's environment.  
"You are in your own world XXX - in France there are Russians, Romanians ... who kill for 1000,- Euro and you, you play with it ...  One day all the athletes, whom you have done evil to, will turn against you ... there were some of them ... so it is in life ..."
The informant replied: "If someone does something to me, I don't regret anything." And: "XXX I'm not afraid of anyone."
Whereupon the other person wrote: "Ok then work together nevertheless further with the anti-doping agency as so far also already.
Amdouni himself later sent only a brief statement in French and German by email to a catalogue of 16 questions, which had been thrown into his mailbox, in which he did not respond to any specific question. He wrote that he was concerned with "avoiding any misinterpretation" and spoke of an "unfounded statement" against his person. According to information from the ARD doping editorial office, the French police are now also interested in his case.
 
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator