Not Mo Greene's first brush with doping/steroids: Coach John Smith of HSI under scrutiny in the past too

Last night, as part of a huge track and field scandal, world record holder Maurice Greene found himself injected into the world of dopers when Mexican steroid peddler Angle Heredia revealed that he supplied the juice to Greene.  However, this isn't the first time Greene made the lineup of the usual suspects.

Greene, a Kansas City KS native, left the Midwest to train with elite sprint coach John Smith in California.  Several years ago, Smith reportedly signed a deal with BALCO's Victor Conte (report from 2004).  Conte and BALCO promoted many of the same PEDs Green stands accused of using: anabolic steroids, HGH, and insulin.

John Smith, who coaches elite sprinters such as Maurice Greene and Ato Boldon, met and signed a non-disclosure pact with Victor Conte, the key figure in a steroid scandal, it was reported.

Trinidad's Boldon signed a similar document six weeks after Smith's three-hour meeting with the BALCO Laboratories president on October 11, 2001, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The report also said Smith exchanged e-mails with Conte in October and November of 2001.

Conte is among four men indicted on steroid distribution charges stemming from last year's discovery of the previously undetectable anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).

Smith coached Greene as well as several other elite athletes, some of whom were caught doping.

Among the athletes coached by Smith is Torri Edwards, promoted to the gold medal position in the 100m in last year's world championships after Kelli White was stripped of the title and banned for two years on her admission to the United States Anti-Doping Agency last week that she had been using banned drugs obtained from Balco.

Smith works with HSI Sports Management, who also employs Ato Boldon, similarly once named as signing a BALCO contract (same reference), and who once was Greene's training partner.

MAURICE GREENE, the Olympic 100 metres champion, is the latest leading sprinter to be linked with the United States doping investigation that led to the banning of Kelli White last week. White was stripped of the 100 and 200 metres gold medals that she won at the World Championships in Paris last year and Greene, like Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, now finds his feet caught in the spider’s web.

John Smith, Greene’s coach, is reported by a Californian newspaper to have signed an agreement with Victor Conte towards the end of 2001. Conte is the owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Co- Operative (Balco), which is alleged to have supplied elite athletes with illegal steroids. The newspaper said that it had seen the document signed by Smith agreeing “not to disclose or use confidential and proprietary information”.

The document does not explain the intention or motivation of the agreement. Ato Boldon, Greene’s training partner and a former 200 metres world champion, also signed such a document. None of the documents outline a programme of drug use but Emanuel Hudson, the president of the HSI track club, the sports management company for which Smith is the coach, denied that Smith had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

We suspect the careers of many elite track stars will be under intense scrutiny in the near future.  How many of those world records and Olympic medals are drug-aided?