Al Jazeera reporter Deborah Davies appeared on NBC’s Today show Tuesday morning to further defend the documentary the network aired Sunday night, The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers, which, among other allegations, claims that multiple shipments of human growth hormone were sent to Peyton Manning’s wife, Ashley Manning.
But although reports have claimed the documentary suggests the Denver Broncos quarterback took the HGH his wife received, Davies clarified that Al Jazeera is “not making the allegation against Peyton Manning.”
“The only allegation in the program is that [pharmacist] Charlie Sly said that growth hormone was sent repeatedly from the [anti-aging clinic] Guyer [Institute] to Ashley Manning in Florida,” Davies said.
But as to why the documentary would single out Ashley Manning in its investigation into doping in sports, Davies offered a murky explanation.
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“On the one hand you have a banned drug being sent to the wife of one of the most famous football players in your country. On the other hand, you have a drug that is actually illegal to prescribe to a patient for anything other than one of three very serious illnesses,” Davies said, pointing out that Peyton Manning hasn’t denied that HGH was sent to his wife and arguing that Ashley Manning should indicate, without revealing her medical history, whether she received HGH for one of the three illnesses it ss used to treat or for some other, illegal, purpose.
“This is an hour-long documentary about doping in sport. Within that documentary, there is a very short section at the end. It’s the section that everyone’s picked up on. But that section follows a very long journey charting our investigation into banned substances, one of which is growth hormone,” Davies added.
The Broncos quarterback has slammed any suggestion that he took HGH as “complete garbage.” But he also told ESPN, “Any medical treatments in my life that my wife receives, that’s her business. It had nothing to do with me. Nothing that has ever been sent to her or that my wife has used have I ever taken. Absolutely not.”
