Steroid Nation

Daily Steroid Dose

1.  The LA Times attempts to interview "Mr HGH" Gary Matthews Jr., who is also called "the human out".  Apparently HGH got his tongue too.  What's he getting?  6,000.000?  (LA Times)

2.  Jose Guillen, meanwhile, deserves some kudos for picking it up over in Kansas City.  10 or 11 game hitting streak.  (TSN)

3.  Boston police officer escorted cocaine-carrying trucks through Boston.  Public defender blames behavior on steroids use.  (Boston.com)

4.  Drug-cheat Tom Montgomery gets 46 months for fraud.  (The Press Association)

104 men out? Feds may subpoena 104 MLB players in Bonds/BALCO trial

Life could be very interesting for about 104 former and current MLB players.  Word comes from ESPN that the federal investigators in the BALCO/Barry Bonds perjury trial may be interested in talking all 104 players who tested positive in the 2003 pre-comprehensive testing policy 'steroid urine screens'.  (Actually the New York Times broke the story with the source)

Tucked away inside the United States attorney’s office in the Northern District of California are documents that link more than 100 major league baseball players to positive tests for steroids conducted in 2003...

According to a lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government’s plans are supposed to remain confidential, federal authorities will seek to question each of the 104 players about where and how they obtained the substance detected in their urine samples.

The authorities then intend to distribute the information they receive to federal prosecutors around the country.

Remember all the Fed-MLBPA fighting about the release and use of the information from the 2003 MLB preliminary steroid tests?  The MLB tested players for PED use.  If 5% percent tested positive, then the MLBPA and the MLB would institute PED controls.  That data was gathered by federal investigators, leading to a court battle of the use of the files obtained from testing labs.  The feds won the use of positive player results through several court proceedings.

The tone of the investigation and trial should send some chills through the MLB rank and file, perhaps more trepidation than generated by the Mitchell Report; the Gov't has the power of prosecution:

Distributors, not users, have been the focus of the government’s investigations into performance-enhancing drugs ever since the authorities began seriously looking into the issue in 2002. But the 104 players would be asked to provide testimony — to federal agents or before grand juries — to lead investigators to the distributors. The players’ identities could become public if their testimony is used in government documents to obtain search warrants or to charge individuals. The players could also be called as witnesses at trials.

Regardless of how many of the 104 names eventually become public, the notion of simultaneous drug investigations being conducted by various federal attorney’s offices around the country would be a significant setback to Major League Baseball, which has struggled to get control of the issues related to performance-enhancing drugs.

A very full and comprehensive history of the MLB testing, the Gov't raids, and the court proceedings with analysis can be found on the NY Times website.

One wonders how far this investigation would have gone if Barry Bonds simply admitted to PED use in the original BALCO trial; the entire episode might have stopped right there.

Daily Steroid Dose

1.  Giants owner Peter McGowen, went through Bonds era, retires.  (San Jose Mercury-News)

2.  The courts can contain drug-cheats (News-Observer)

3.  Problems with Jason Giambi's fat steroid-enhanced contract?  (NY Daily News)

4.  Jose Canseco to fight at Atlantic City?  (PressofAtlanticCIty.com)

5.   Middle schooler writes about steroids and sports heroes (Beacon News)

Daily Steroid Dose

1, Oscar Pistorius  gets a leg up on IAAF; cleared to run in Olympics. (ESPN)

2. Trevor Graham trial to start on Monday (Reuters)

3.  Hunky Brazilian swimmer Gusmao given 2 years ban for doping. (The Guardian)

4.  Hilton Head island woman receives package of unordered steroids.  Will enter Ms Olympia contest soon.  (Islandpacket)

Ben Johnson, not Barry Bonds, won the Kentucky Derby; Big Brown's trainer gives Winstrol every 15th

Admitting he uses legal anabolic steroids Rick Dutrow stated he administers Winstrol to all his horse, every 15th of the month.

US Triple Crown hopeful Big Brown has received regularly monthly treatments of Winstrol, an anabolic steroid banned in 10 states but not any where Triple Crown horse races are contested.

On Friday, the eve of Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown's attempt to win the second leg of the treble here at the Preakness, the New York Daily News reported that trainer Rick Dutrow administers the steroid to all his horses.

"I give all my horses Winstrol on the 15th of every month," Dutrow told the newspaper. "If (authorities) say I can't use it anymore, I won't."

Winstrol, also known as Stanozolol, is legal in 28 of 38 states with horse racing - including Kentucky, Maryland and New York, where the final race in the triple crown, the Belmont Stakes, will be contested next month.

But the steroid is among four allowed only for therapeutic use in the other 10 states with racing.

Hey, apparently it's all good with the horse racing industry.  Beef up those mares.

Racing Medication and Testing Consortium executive director Scot Waterman told the News that he expects other states to adopt the more limited rules on Winstrol before next year's Triple Crown races.

"We're pretty confident that all of the states will be done with the rule-making process by the end of the year," he said.

Waterman said that should one of Dutrow's horses have been injected Thursday and raced this weekend in one of the 10 states with therapeutic-only rules, it would likely test positive for a banned substance.

"He would probably have a positive," the physician said. "That type of use is what moved us to begin the process we began a couple years ago (of tightening rules on the steroid).

"There was evidence these products were being overused or abused." Big Brown is trying to become the first horse to sweep all three Triple Crown titles in the same year since Affirmed in 1978.

Ben Johnson won a gold medal on Winstrol.  Barry Bonds could not win a triple crown on testosterone, HGH, insulin, T3, and Clomid.  Big Brown just may show that Winstrol is the triple crown drug.

 

Female MMA fighter -- Barbie of the MMA -- suspended for anabolic steroid -- Carina Damm loads up on nandrolone

Apparently she doesn't give a damn about the masculinzing side effects of steroids: Carina Damm tested positive for nandrolone following an MMA match.  MMA Junkie.com with the report on the "Barbie of the MMA":

For the first time in U.S. mixed-martial-arts history, a female fighter has tested positive for steroids.

Carina Damm, who recently defeated Sophie Bagherdai at an April 3 Fatal Femmes Fighting event, tested positive for elevated levels of Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid that develops naturally in the human body.

However, according to the California State Athletic Commission's Bill Douglas, Damm came in at 37.9 ng/mL, which far exceeded the 2 ng/mL threshold, after being tested at the Los Angeles event.

Douglas today submitted the results via email.

Damm (9-3), a four-year fight veteran who recently signed a three-fight contract with Elite Xtreme Combat, has been suspended one year (through April 2, 2009) and fined $2,500. She's the first U.S. female fighter to fail a test due to steroids, though she can request an appeal of the suspension.

The Brazilian was riding a four-fight win streak and was scheduled to next fight Debi Purcell at a June 27 ShoXC event.

Deepened voice, beard, acne, diminished breasts, enlarged genitals, infertility, birth defects...who cares about side effects when a girl can win a fight.

Dwain Chambers sneers at British Olympics Association

Drug cheat, BALCO team member Dwain Chambers sneered at the British Olympic Association yesterday, in his attempt to compete at the 2008 Beijing Games.  Chambers given a lifetime ban by the BOA will initiate legal proceedings allowing him to run in the UK Olympic trials, thus flipping off the ban. (to the Telegraph)

Considering the recent data suggesting the long term beneficial metabolic effects of anabolic steroids, Chambers will be running at an advantage in the trials.

Dwain Chambers took the first step yesterday in resurrecting his dream of running in the Beijing Games and overturning a lifetime ban by the British Olympic Association by effectively daring UK Athletics to exclude him from the Olympic trials in Birmingham in July...

Chambers spent a busy morning yesterday at UK Sport frankly outlining the extraordinary scale of his doping in the 2002 and 2003 seasons which resulted in a two-year ban which ended at the end of 2005.

Following those discussions his agent, Nick Collins, released a short statement which points to an imminent legal challenge to the BOA in the High Court.

The statement read: "We can confirm that Dwain Chambers will be taking proceedings to secure his eligibility/participation in the Olympic and national trials in Birmingham from July 11-13."

The UK national championships double as the Olympic trials.  And an army of lawyers appear to be drooling to help out the drug-cheat.

Crucially the trials - which if held in isolation will be the preserve of the BOA - are also doubling as the National Championships and Chambers could run the qualifying time of 10.85 sec, required to enter, in his sleep. Objectively there would seem no legal impediment to him running but Chambers is taking nothing for granted and wants to win that battle first.

Having secured that right to compete in Birmingham, and having been offered the services, free of charge, of a number of specialised lawyers, Chambers believes he will be in a position to seriously challenge the ruling. The BOA are the only Olympic Federation in the World to now unambiguously ban competitors who have fully served drugs ban from competing at the Olympics.

It doesn't appear to matter than once a drug-cheat, always a drug cheat.  The law may want to allow the clean athletes a continued disadvantage to the drug-cheats.

If and when Chambers does appeal it will not be against his Olympic ban per se, but the right of the BOA to even sanction such a ban.

Even hardline former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound believes that Chambers would win such a legal action. "As a matter of law, I think the BOA would be on pretty shaky ground," said Pound.

"If the BOA sought to deny me a place in the 2008 Olympic team on the basis solely of my earlier drugs offence, I would say they don't have the power to do that. I've always felt it was fairly clear what the outcome of a challenge would be."

Arrogance.

Daily Steroid Dose

1.  NFL officials meet with steroids dealer David Jacobs; asking for advice on HGH appearance enhancement.  (USA Today)

2.  SI in-depth review of the Bonds BALCO perjury case. (SI.com)

3.  Tony Mandarich continues to excel at professional photography.  (Mandarich web site)

4.  More on Psysops on steroids.  (TheRawStory)

Austrian distance runner caught with EPO -- Susan Pumper

Distance runner Susan Pumper, who recently set a Austrian national record in the half marathon, tested positive for EPO. IHT with the story.

Austrian distance runner Susanne Pumper faces a two-year doping ban after her "B" sample came back positive.

Pumper confirmed the results Thursday. The 37-year-old runner had been provisionally suspended by the Austrian Athletics Federation after her "A" sample tested positive for EPO after a half marathon in Vienna on March 9.

A positive doping test is usually followed by a two-year ban from the International Amateur Athletics Federation.

Officials said her national record of 1 hour, 12 minutes, 21 seconds in the half marathon set last month will not be recognized.

Pumper was forced to sit out last month's Vienna City Marathon, where she had hoped to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

EPO increases the red blood cell mass, by inducing synthesis, and marginalization of the cells.  Cyclists long abused EPO for an anaerobic advantage in races such as thew Tour de France.  Considering Victor Conte's revelations about track, and suspensions like Pumpers, obviously track athletes abuse EPO too.

EPO can be extraordinarily fatal too (is that redundant?)

Autopsy out on Eight Belles

The autopsy (called necropsy by the horse reporters, and we don't know why) report on Eights Belles the filly who broke down at the Kentucky Derby after a second place finish came out today.  Nothing remarkable with the horses bone structure.  The toxicology report will be out later looking at immediate steroids (which of course will not tell you about lifetime history of steroid use).  From the AP:

An autopsy reveals that euthanized filly Eight Belles had no pre-existing bone abnormalities that caused her to break down after the Kentucky Derby.

The tests were performed by chief Kentucky veterinarian Lafe Nichols. It confirms compound fractures of both front legs at the fetlock joints.

The autopsy didn't include results of post-race drug tests. It will be several days before those are available. Eight Belles' trainer, Larry Jones, has requested additional tests to prove the filly wasn't on steroids.

Eight Belles was euthanized on the track at Churchill Downs after the Derby when she broke down while jogging about a quarter-mile past the finish line. She finished second to Big Brown in the race.

 

OK, so why did this filly break both ankles.  Someone needs to look at the medical and drug history of the horse.

Victor Conte lays out Dwain Chambers's doping/steroid protocol; Does Blue Cross/Blue Shield cover this?

Yesterday Victor Conte -- the BALCO mastermind -- informed the UK press that trying to assure a clean Olympics remains an uphill fight.  Today, Conte lays out Dwain Chambers doping schedules, ostensibly so the UK's doping authorities improve doping control (BBC).  Did Willie (We originally wrote 'Eddie') Sutton ever tell the Feds how to secure bank vaults?

Per your request, this letter is to confirm I am willing to assist you in providing UK Sport and others with information that will help them to improve the effectiveness of their anti-doping programs.

The specific details regarding how you were able to circumvent the British and IAAF anti-doping tests for an extended period of time are provided below.

Very official introduction, but let's cut to the chase here...what are the drugs?

Your performance enhancing drug program included the following seven prohibited substances: THG, testosterone/epitestosterone cream, EPO (Procrit), HGH (Serostim), insulin (Humalog), modafinil (Provigil) and liothryonine, which is a synthetic form of the T3 thyroid hormone (Cytomel).

Once again, we state amazement of the depth of the drugs used on these athletes.  Treating insulin like protein powder is playing with deadly fire, in the short term.  In the long term, HGH, and EPO will kill you from cardiac hypertrophy or from hyper coagulable states (that's what causes the young pro cyclists deaths). 

(We list Conte's pharmaceutical evaluation of the individual drugs after the jump)

In general terms, explosive strength athletes, such as sprinters, use anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin and EPO during the off season. They use these drugs in conjunction with an intense weight training program, which helps to develop a strength base that will serve them throughout the competitive season. Speed work is done just prior to the start of the competitive season.

It is important to understand it is not really necessary for athletes to have access to designer anabolic steroids such as THG. They can simply use fast-acting testosterone (oral as well as creams and gels) and still easily avoid the testers. For example, oral testosterone will clear the system in less than a week and testosterone creams and gels will clear even faster.

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  Sprinter Michelle Collins reinstated after almost 3 year BALCO suspension (Philly Daily News)

2.  The PGA announces Anti-Doping policy (PGA.com)

3.  The Philippines announce new Anti-Doping program (SEA Games)

Is drug-free Olympics a pipe dream? Yes says BALCO's Victor Conte

Might it be possible to hold a drug-free clean Olympics?  Ask Victor Conte, as CBCSports did:

A drug-free Olympic Games is too much to expect, says Victor Conte, the man who served four months in a California prison for distributing steroids to Olympic and professional athletes.

"No, I think that is an unrealistic goal," he told CBCSports.ca. "I think it can be cleaned up substantially, if those with the money and the capacity to clean it up express a genuine desire to do so. But not 100 per cent."

Are there Olympians who compete drug free?  (maybe in curling)

Conte does not believe all Olympic-calibre athletes use drugs. He says there are some "genetically gifted athletes" who achieve Olympic success without drugs. He does contend, however, that he knows of several world championship and Olympic finals where all the athletes used performance-enhancing drugs.

When asked how he can make such an inflammatory statement, Conte admits he has supplied most of the female athletes in one world championship sprint final himself. As for the others, he claims he has it on good authority that they were being supplied with performance-enhancing drugs by associates.

Also interesting that Conte knows other elite athletes, who juiced on 'The Clear':

Conte says there are others ("less than 10") who used "The Clear" whose names have never been revealed and some are world champions. Unless they tell lies about him he says he will not reveal their names. He says he has never supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Canadians.

A little less-than-subtle threat there, huh?  More Conte principles:

"Eighty per cent of the testing should be out of competition and not at meets," Conte says, "Number two, focus on the top-20 athletes. Instead of testing the top-50 twice, test the top-20 five times.

"They are the only athletes who get the lanes, win the medals and make the money. Throw your hook into the pond where you know the fish are biting. At competitions that's more IQ testing than drug testing because you have got to be pretty dumb to test positive at a competition."

That makes sense, going to where the money is (Sutton's Law..Willie not Eddie).  However those elite athletes often receive breaks from testers.  How to beat a test?  Here is one way:

Conte explained to CBCSports.ca how some elite athletes evade out of competition testing..."They fill out a whereabouts form and say they are going to place X and they go to place Y. Then if the tester shows up the worst consequence is they get a missed test," says Conte. "But they have also got a short cycle of steroids under them. It's like strike one in baseball, you are still up to bat. Then you change and instead of Y you go to X next time. I have calculated the odds of them coming to test you when you give misinformation on your form. It's about 25 to 1. Those are pretty good odds...

"They fill up their own cell phones so that when the testers call it says. 'Sorry, the mailbox is full, you can't leave a message.' Then the testers call other numbers. By the time they show up the athletes are clear, and they test negative. What's the worst consequence? It's a missed test."

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  Do steroids trickle down from the pros to the youth?  (Rocky Mountain News)

2.  Dwain Chambers heartened by breakdown of Euro doping resolve. (The Telegraph)

3.  Hell has no humor like a woman who is dope tested. (Tasmania Mercury)

Feds grow 10 new charges against Barry Bonds: 14 counts of perjury and a random obstruction of justice

Ya'all remember Barry Bonds, the MLB's career and single season home run record holder?  Barry's back and he continues to surpass old performances.  The federal attorneys in charge of indicted the slugger found 10 new perjury charges lying around.  Like an old syringe of nandrolone, they injected old material into the new upcoming court proceedings.  To the New York Times site:

Barry Bonds was re-indicted Tuesday by the federal authorities in an effort to fix the original indictment in his perjury case.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Bonds on 14 counts of making false statements under oath about whether he used performance-enhancing drugs and one count of obstruction of justice.

What do you do when you deal with steroids? You grow -- things like charges increase.

The indictment filed Tuesday came in response to a motion Bonds’s lawyers filed in January to have the case dismissed. United States District Judge Susan Illston ruled in February that federal authorities must either narrow the indictment or bring new charges to proceed with the case.

The government responded by filing the new indictment, but none of the counts concern different testimony than in the original charges.

In November, Bonds was indicted on five felony charges — four for perjury and one for obstruction of justice — for testifying before a federal grand jury in 2003 that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

 

We will take the black-stripped weasel, the leaf monkey, the tapir. 3 mongooses, and some nandrolone to go. Women in Minnesota traffic in exotic animals and steroids

Weird happenings in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.  Two women who profiteered from exotic animal sales also purchased anabolic steroids. Not good.  Here is Ms. Yang in another venue. A Ms. Lor suffered abuse as a 13 year-old when she was left for dead after one beating.

To KAAL Minnesota:

Two east Metro women were indicted Monday in connection with smuggling protected wildlife into the state.

Pa Lor of Oakdale and 36-year-old Tia Yang of Lake Elmo were each charged Monday with one count of conspiracy to smuggle wildlife and one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute steroids.

Their indictment alleges that from 2005 to 2006, the two women brought wildlife into the state and sold them at the International Marketplace in St. Paul. The women sold elephants, giant squirrels, leopard cats, mongooses, and flying squirrels.

Over a span of two years, investigators purchased wildlife from Lor at a booth in the International Marketplace, a booth leased by Yang.

In 2006, authorities executed a search warrant at the market booth and recovered a black-striped weasel, gibbon, leaf monkey, monitor lizard, tapir, slider turtles, and small-clawed otter.

The two women also illegally purchased 184 units of a substance containing steroids.

If convicted, both Lor and Yang face potential maximum penalties of five years in prison on the smuggling count and five years on the steroid count.

Figure this one out.  Exotic animals and steroids?  Are they 'tapiring' into a new market?  (It is well known the Hmong population in Minnesota abuses anabolic steroids)

Ladies day with the steroids: Indian lifter Kavita Devi suspended

Indian weightlifter received a ban when she tested positive at an international weight-lifting contest.   To the International Herald-Tribune:

A female weightlifter from India was banned for two years after failing a test by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Kavita Devi was sent back from the recent Asian championship in Japan after the Weightlifting Federation of India was informed of her positive steroid test, WFI president Harbhajan Singh said Tuesday.

Singh said Devi did not challenge the test or ban.

India's weightlifting federation was suspended from international competitions after a spate of positive tests since 2004. After missing the 2006 Asian Games, India was readmitted to international competition last year.

More here on the ban, including the culprit steroid which is methadienone:

Kavita's 'A' sample was found positive for the banned steroid methadienone and she has refused to go for 'B' sample testing.

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  Ole Miss Quarterback recruit Jared Foster indicted for steroid sales (Sun Herald)

2.  Barry Bonds to be a Tiger?  (MLive)

3. Chris Bell (Bigger Stronger Faster) "What's the big deal about steroids" (Fighthype)

4. Goose Gossage at Cooperstown (Democrat and Chronicle)

5.   A Greek swimmer tested positive for doping (IHT)

Memo to world: Angel "Memo" Heredia speaks on the record for the Times

Recent stories from out of California hint that a relatively new witness will blow the spikes off track and field.  Angel 'Memo' Heredia emerged as Gov't witness in the post-BALCO perjury trials now underway in the San Francisco Bay area.  The TimesOnLine published an incredible piece on Heredia today.  "Blow the spikes off" would be a description of his account.

On March 10 three years ago Angel Heredia was feeling at one with the world as he returned to his room on the campus of Texas A&M University in the small south Texas town of Kingsville. He had been for a workout and didn’t think twice about the two campus police officers standing not far from the entrance to his room. Maybe a break-in, he thought.

Chatting briefly with the officers, he walked on to his room. Inside there were two men, neither of whom he had met before, but that didn’t matter. He knew them. The uncommonly tall white one with the bald head was Jeff Novitsky, an investigator with the criminal section of the Inland Revenue Service (IRS); his African-American colleague was Erwin Rogers. If you were involved in elite-level athletics in the US in 2005, chances were you knew these gentlemen.

How important to track was Heredia?  This important:

As a supplier of banned drugs and an advisor on how to use them, Heredia had been supremely successful. Twelve of his athletes had won a combined total of 26 Olympic medals and 21 world championship medals. But now he and his lawyer had to consider their next move. IT WAS the story you couldn’t have made up. As the 2003 track season got into full swing, Victor Conte and Trevor Graham didn’t seem to have much to complain about. Owner of the Bay Area Laboratory CoOperative (Balco) in San Francisco, Conte was working with some of the best athletes in a number of sports. His clients included the star of the Sydney Olympics, Marion Jones, and the 100m world record holder Tim Montgomery.

Coach Trevor Graham held court in North Carolina.  As we know now, Graham mailed a tainted syringe to the USADA in an attempt to nail Victor Conte's BALCO operation, after the two men came to be competitors.  At the same time, Conte was undermining Graham with a letter saying Graham used a Mexican steroids dealer (Heredia).  Such is covert operations in track and field.

BALCO blew up.  The BALCO investigators probed Graham, who tried to play down the connection to Heredia.  As Victor Conte started down a path to conviction for steroid distribution and jail, the Feds tracked down Heredia.  The rest is history.  And how did Heredia stumble upon PEDs?

Heredia was a teenager and they were talking about what it took to be a champion. Delis pointed his right hand at his left arm, stuck out his index and middle finger and then brought his thumb through as if pressing the plunger of a syringe. The kid didn’t want to believe that but he suspected it was true. His own career didn’t amount to much; for all his fine technique, Heredia didn’t have the size, and then there were the injuries. Along the way, he realised Delis was right. Performance-enhancing drugs were everywhere and because he had his father’s love for chemistry, perhaps, Heredia was drawn to the science of performance-enhancement...

Heredia told the Feds about how he first came into contact with Graham. A friend of his, a pole vaulter, met the coach while studying at Raleigh in North Carolina. Graham wanted to know if there was someone in Mexico who might be able to get him certain drugs that would enhance the performances of his athletes.

“This friend told me Trevor was interested in getting growth hormone, testosterone and winstrol. Trevor called me and we set up a meeting for him to come to Laredo. He came over the Christmas holiday in 1996 with Randall Evans and Alvis Whitted, two of his athletes at the time. They travelled by car, about a 20-hour drive, which surprised me, and they stayed for four or five days.”

(more after the jump including elite track names)

 

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  All about EPO (Mark Zeigler at the San Diego Times-Union)

2.  More on horses and drugs, including steroids (WaPo)

3. WADA spent 1.3 million on Floyd Landis action (Canadian Press)

German hockey player finds doping test interupts 'private moment'

Germany continued to use hockey player Florian Busch, even though he refused a doping test, apparently requested at a delicate moment.  The Winnipeg Sun gets into the coverage:

In an era of sports doping stories galore, this was a new one. Busch, a German forward, was in limbo to continue play in the tournament when the World Anti-Doping Agency requested the IIHF suspend the player from the world championship as a result of his refusal to produce a urine sample when an out-of-competition request was made prior to the team travelling for the tournament.

After answering his door and refusing the random test, Busch made himself available to be tested a couple hours later and passed. Yesterday the IIHF ruled he could continue in the tournament. But the story was a bit on the sensational side in the details.

The player refused the test, which is akin to flunking it.  However he felt he was going to get screwed treated unfairly by the IIHF:

"He didn't do anything illegal, other than to tell somebody to get away from his front door," said Germany coach Uwe Krupp.

"I don't know how to put this delicately. His girlfriend was in his apartment at the time and he was not so inclined to make himself available at that moment for the test. He didn't want to deal with that person then and there.

"He's not a doping offense. He was in a private moment and didn't want to deal with the controller. A couple hours later he took the test and passed.

Interesting.  Seems plausible, expect that savvy Euro cyclists use excuses like this all the time.

"You have to understand that things are very different in Europe than North America right now because of the Tour de France scandals. Germany is leading the charge. A player has to inform the anti-doping agency where they will be every 24 hours by website or a 1-800 number. If they go away for 24 hours for a road game or a family trip they have to notify them every day. The first offense is a warning and the second offense means you are ineligible for the Olympics."

The IIHF accepted that the Germans had investigated the case properly and accepted the player's eligibility.

One more excuse for the doping Hall of Fame.

Daily Steroid Briefing

1. Husband of a Missoula cop pleads guilty to selling steroids over the Internet. (Billings Gazette)

2.  Just what did Roger Clemens apologize about? (Ledger-Enquirer)

3.  Steads on steroids; horse racing discusses the juice (Erie Times-News)

4.  Baseball and softball dropped from Olympics; Anti-doping measures (in baseball) not up to WADA standards. (Monterey County Herald)

5.  Brit Olympic athletes targeted for new HGH test (TimesonLine)

Doc and Ditka damn NFL dalliance on disabled vets; Say steroid use contributes to health disabilities

Mike Ditka tends to speak up on issues; we reported his dissatisfaction concerning the NFL's poor handling of gridiron health issues.  Ditka and wounded NFL vets claim the NFL drags feet when it comes to taking care of football-related injuries and disabilities of aged NFL veterans.  Ditka found new allies in tough talking doctors with serious charges about the NFL and the NFL Players Association. The docs say PEDs will make the entire demeaning situation worse over the upcoming years. To the New York Daily News.

...Simpson (is) an obesity expert who has a stake in the physician-owned Surgical Specialty Hospital of Arizona. "I saw guys who couldn't walk and guys who could barely walk, and I thought it was disgraceful how these guys have been abandoned by the NFL and the Players Associat