Asafa Powell’s physical trainer, Chris Xuereb, has denied claims he was to blame for the positive drug tests recorded by Powell and Jamaican team-mate Sherone Simpson.
And Xuereb has insisted that it was time for the athletes to take “responsibility for their doping, instead of looking around for a scapegoat”.
The trainer was accused by the athletes’ manager, Paul Doyle, of supplying them with contaminated dietary supplements after putting them on a new course of vitamins recently.
They subsequently tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine. Doyle told the Daily Telegraph: “Asafa’s had probably 150 to 200 clear tests in the past.
"He starts working with a new physio who gives him new supplements and all of a sudden he has a positive test in his first test. It’s obvious there’s no other reason why he would have tested positive other than something being in the new supplements he’s been taking.”
But, in a statement released to a number of media outlets, Xuereb refuted the claims and said he had given the athletes only legal substances.
He said: “Both athletes are clearly looking for a scapegoat. I am confident, and I have also spoken to researchers and the police, that I have done nothing wrong.
“I am extremely disappointed that these athletes have chosen to blame me for their own violations. WADA [the World Anti-Doping Agency] and the public needs to stop accepting these stories and hold these athletes accountable.”
Xuereb and the two athletes have been placed under formal police investigation in Italy after officers arrived at their base in Lignano in the north of the country on Sunday evening and seized supplements and medicines from their rooms.
According to Doyle, the athletes had requested the police raid after contacting WADA following their positive tests.
In his statement, Xuereb claimed that the confiscated products had been found to be legal, though on Tuesday Italian police said they were still looking for a suitable laboratory for the substances to be analysed.
According to media reports in Xuereb’s native Canada, the trainer was referred to Doyle by a Toronto chiropractor, Carmine Stillo.
Doyle, who had worked with Stillo previously, asked him if he could recommend a therapist who was free to start work at short notice to treat a hamstring injury suffered by Powell in Australia in March.
Stillo said he told Doyle that Xuereb had “good hands” but also warned that he had no professional qualifications as a physiotherapist.