Steroid Nation

Chief executive of USA Track & Field exhorts President Bush not to pardon Marion Jones

Marion Jones, tacked away snuggly  in a Texas federal prison, wrote to President Bush asking for a pardon.  The head of the track federation who witnessed her drug-cheating drew up a counter-proposal: DON'T.

Doug Logan -- cheif executive of US Track and Field -- wrote an open letter to President Bush exhorting him not to wipe off Marion Jones's fast sins.  The New York Times elaborates:

“Our country has long turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of our heroes,” Doug Logan wrote in an open letter to President Bush. Logan was named chief executive of the sport’s national governing body last week. “If you have athletic talent or money or fame, the law is applied much differently than if you are slow or poor or an average American trying to get by. At the same time, all sports have for far too long given the benefit of the doubt to its heroes who seem too good to be true, even when common sense indicates they are not.

“To reduce Ms. Jones’s sentence or pardon her would send a horrible message to young people who idolized her, reinforcing the notion that you can cheat and be entitled to get away with it. A pardon would also send the wrong message to the international community. Few things are more globally respected than the Olympic Games, and to pardon one of the biggest frauds perpetuated on the Olympic movement would be nothing less than thumbing our collective noses at the world.”

Jones, as we all recall, vehemently denied use of PEDs even to the point of a defamation suit against BALCO executive Victor Conte, whose ring distributed steroids to Jones.  Jones was also involved in fraud with her partner drug-cheat Tim Montgomery.

Jones is among about 2,300 offenders seeking pardons and commutations during the final months of President Bush’s term in office. Her lawyer, Henry J. DePippo, did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter sent by Logan was a striking departure from the often-timid remarks made by leaders of various Olympic sports federations. It reflected the anger that many antidoping officials felt after Jones called into question the legitimacy of drug-testing procedures before acknowledging that she had taken illicit substances.

Will the President pardon an Olympian who used weapons of mass enhancement?

Carl W. Tobias, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Richmond School of Law and who has tracked President Bush’s pardons, said the chances that Jones would receive a pardon appeared “pretty long and may be getting longer,” in light of Logan’s letter.

Tobias said that Bush had been “extremely stingy” in granting pardons, compared with other recent presidents, and that Jones’s high profile could work against her.

“I just think she would somehow be perceived as getting some slack because of who she was,” Tobias said.

“So much attention is trained on her, and maybe that makes it more difficult than if she were someone who is less well known.”

Daily Steroids Injection

If the news isn't about Brett Farve it's about Dara Torres.  Good review of her career. (Orange County Register)

2.  South Africa remember a drug-riddled Marco Pantani, Riccardo Ricco's idol.  (IOL)

3.  Ricco remembers Floyd Landis;  doubts the validity of the EPO test.  (The Guardian)

4.  The New York Times picks up on suspicions about Jamaican runners.  (NY Times)

5.  Missouri's swimmer Max Jaben could be in trouble with the NCAA because of positive drug test.  (Swimming News)

Dwain Chambers: Bad news from the judge's chambers

UK sprinter Dwain Chambers today found out that a UK judge will not issue an injunction allowing him to run as a representative of the UK in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  Story here (Bloomberg):
Sprinter Dwain Chambers failed to have a lifetime suspension from the Olympics lifted by a London judge today and won't be allowed to run for Britain in Beijing next month unless he successfully appeals the ruling.           

Chambers, banned from the Olympic team in 2003 for taking steroids, went to the High Court in London after winning the 100 meters in last weekend's trials in Birmingham. The top two finishers there are usually selected for the U.K. Olympic team.    

Chambers was attempting to get an injunction to be able to run and the court was ``not convinced'' by his arguments, Justice Colin Mackay said. The ruling can be appealed. Jonathan Crystal, Chambers's lawyer, didn't comment as he left the court.    

``It is a matter of regret that Dwain Chambers, an athlete with such undoubted talent, should by his own actions have put himself out of the running to shine on the Olympic stage in Beijing,'' British Olympic Association Chairman Colin Moynihan said in a statement. ``The BOA will continue to send a powerful and important message that nobody found guilty of serious drug cheating offenses should have the honor of wearing a Team GB vest at the Olympic Games.''    

The 30-year-old Chambers was the first athlete to be banned for testing positive for THG, the designer steroid distributed by Balco, the California-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that has been at the center of a U.S. probe of drug use by top athletes.

One can see Chambers was a gifted Sub-10 second 100M sprinter.

He was also stripped of his 2002 European 100-meter title and had his British 100-meter record of 9.86 seconds annulled.    

Chambers was named to the U.K. team for the World Indoor Championships in February after winning a trial. He had threatened legal action if he was omitted.

      Interesting predicament for Chambers.  Is a lifetime ban justified?  Is the ban justified for Chambers who doped up with a number of powerful hormones.

 

D (dope) Day for UK's Dwain Chambers

Today, the UK's premier sprinter Dwain Chambers learns whether his appeal to the country's Olympic committee will allow the tainted sprinter to compete at Beijing in 2008.

Chambers case is particularly disturbing.  Chambers worked with tainted coach Remi Korchemny who obtained drugs from BALCO.  Chambers did not just use a little nandrolone from supplements; he doped with the cream, and the clear (anabolic steroids) HGH, insulin, and modafinil.

Chambers legal case stems from the BOA (British Olympic Association) lifetime ban for drug-cheats.  Chambers contends this is restraint of trade (interesting; couldn't any common criminal in prison claim this?).  The BOA fears a protracted battle.

A formidable array of opponents line up against the disgraced sprinter.  The Telegraph for instance.  A long list of UK Olympic athletes including Chambers sprinting foe Craig Pickering, oppose the sprinter's Olympic dreams.  Famous UK track coach Frank Dick also opposes the sprinter.

Chambers is seeking a temporary injunction against the British Olympic Association's rule that prevents athletes who have committed a serious doping offence from representing Team GB at future Games. As Chambers becomes the first athlete to challenge the BOA rule in court Jo Pavey, Martyn Rooney and Goldie Sayers, three leading British track and field athletes, have joined the large contingent supporting the 16-year-old bylaw.

Two weeks ago, when the British Athletes' Commission revealed more than 100 members had signed its petition to keep the bylaw, only Craig Pickering, the sprinter, and 800 metres runner Becky Lyne were among Chambers' contemporaries to have put pen to paper. But since then Beijing-bound Pavey, the Commonwealth 5,000m silver medallist, the 400m runner Rooney and javelin thrower Sayers have said yes to the bylaw remaining in place. Helen Clitheroe, Andrew Steele and Will Sharman are among others who have signed the petition along with the former Olympic champions Sally Gunnell and David Hemery.

The Times Online discusses the Chambers legal challenge:

Dwain Chambers will sit in Court 76 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London today and await a verdict that could define his career or end it. If the sprinter is successful in gaining an historic injunction temporarily lifting his Olympic ban, he will be added to Great Britain’s modest list of medal contenders for the Games in Beijing. If he fails then, subject to an appeal, he may have nowhere left to run.

Jonathan Crystal, QC, will argue that the BOA bylaw banning convicted dopers for life is “an unreasonable restraint of trade”. The irony is that Chambers’s trade has been restrained by Euromeetings, an umbrella group of leading promoters who decided last year not to issue invitations to drugs cheats. Chambers has been able to run only at low-level meetings this year and remains excluded from the grand-prix circuit.

Crystal will say that it is unfair that the sprinter has served a two-year doping ban, in accordance with the rules of the IAAF, the sport’s world governing body, but still has an Olympic ban. He will state that other countries do not have such a bylaw and a number of former offenders will be competing in Beijing. Robert Englehart, QC, for the BOA, will ask why it has taken Chambers four years to present his case.

However the Birmingham Post offers a spirited defense of Chambers:

To describe the issue as difficult does not even begin to untangle the many threads that have become so twisted. The High Court will decide on the legal position, whether Chambers can go to Beijing, but there is no one to arbitrate the moral case. Should he be allowed?

The answer to that depends on an individual’s beliefs about the what is good for athletics and what is good for Dwain Chambers the person.

Clearly as a human being Chambers knows he has done wrong and is contrite but more importantly clean of the seven banned substances he once used to cheat himself, his friends and his rivals.

There may be a physiological legacy of the drugs he has taken and some mental benefits having experienced certain high pressure situations he might not otherwise have reached. Both are valid concerns but as things stand neither can be proved - or disproved.

What we are left with, therefore, is a series of related issues each of which seem to point towards Chambers being allowed to run in Beijing.

There is apprehension about the message it would send out, a fear that other, younger athletes would look at his case and deduce that a two-year ban is a small sacrifice to pay for a shot at an Olympic gold medal.

That theory breaks down because if they serve a ban they will have been caught and will have been stripped of their medal.

The Telegraph calls Chambers regimen of drugs (he admits to) "The Magnificant Seven"  Chambers drug cocktail is typical VIcto Conte PED use.

Dwain Chambers took the following seven drugs, according to Victor Conte, of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), who supplied him:

• Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG): Once undetectable, this is the designer steroid, nicknamed "the clear", that Chambers tested positive for in 2003.
• Testosterone cream: Used in winter to work alongside THG.
• Erythropoietin (EPO): Boosts the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells and once thought to be used solely in stamina-based sports.
• Human Growth Hormone: By injection and used during the winter to aid recovery from heavy weight sessions.
• Insulin: Another one used during heavy winter training and used in conjunction with dextrose, whey protein and creatine.
• Modafinil: The American sprinter and drug-cheat Kelli White tried to get away with this stimulant as a treatment for narcolepsy. One tablet is taken an hour before competition.
• undefined: Used to accelerate the metabolic rate before races. Two tablets taken one hour before competition.

Ex-Bash Bro Jose Canseco bashed in ring match

Apparently Jose Canseco needs lessons from Evander Hollyfield on appropriate steroid regimen before a fight.  Despite towering over his opponent, the Vindicated boxer hit the canvas after meeting a vicious left hook from ex-Eagles return man Vai Sikahema.  Within 2 mi minutes of the fight, Canseco who claims to be a MMA fighter kissed the canvas.  Ouch.  To Ringside:

Jose Canseco, baseball legend and legendary snitch in the minds of many, tried his hand at boxing. Standing 6’4” and weighing 245 pounds, he sure looked like a heavyweight champion, but the much smaller Vai Sikahema, of the Philadelphia Eagles, sent him crashing to the floor with a vicious left hook and finished the former “Bash Brother” in less than two minutes. Let this be a lesson to all athletes that excel at one game. Boxing is tougher than it looks and size and strength are only two pieces of the puzzle.

Sikahema (to the left) ruthlessly bashed the black belt Bash Bro.  (Canseco shows above his abdominal training in anticipation of gut punches).

Back to ladies poker, Jose...

Daily Steroid Injection

1.  Millard Baker's take on the David Jacobs affair in Plano.  (MesoRX)

2. Barry Bonds's agent suggest major league collusion because 44 year-old Barry doesn't have a job.  (SF Chronicle)

3.  Juiced cop nailed in NYPD random test.  No it's not Sargent Jason Giambi this time.  (NY Daily News)

4.  Jose Canseco gets KOed by a little guy.  (Is this for real?)(The Olympian)

Met batboy Radomski finds evidence of Rocket fuel delivered to Roger Clemens's Houston pad

The New York Daily News reported that Metboy Kirk Radomski found receipts for packages of HGH shipped to the Rocket's Houston launching pad.  The new evidence further complicated Clemens's steroid/HGH defense. (Update:  ESPN reports Metboy Radomski found the Clemens receipt under a broken TV:  "My TV broke and I said, 'Damn, I got to get it off the dresser,'" Radomski said Wednesday. "And it was right there.")

Confessed drug supplier Kirk Radomski has provided documentary evidence to the government showing that he shipped drugs to the Texas home of Roger Clemens, who is under investigation for perjury after telling Congress he never used steroids or human growth hormone.

According to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, Radomski has discovered shipping receipts for a package of two kits of human growth hormone that he sent in late 2002 or 2003 to Clemens at the pitcher's palatial mansion in Houston. Radomski is believed to have also provided the government with new information and receipts for drug shipments to other players.

However, the beneficiary of the HGH might not have been the Rocket, but rather Debbie Rocket, Clemens's admitted HGH using wife.

Radomski, who received a five-year probation sentence in February after cooperating with government investigators, recently informed the feds about the materials. The Justice Department is continuing its investigation in New York as well as in Texas and Florida.

The Clemens package was addressed to William Roger Clemens, in care of Brian McNamee, according to the sources, who said that McNamee did not sign for the package.

According to the sources, the timing of the shipment to Clemens' home coincides roughly with the dates when Clemens' wife, Debbie, used human growth hormone in preparation for her participation in a pictorial in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. They also expect the evidence to corroborate McNamee's claims that Clemens was behind his wife's use and was present when McNamee injected her just after the drugs arrived at the couple's home.

Clemens denied use of PEDs including anabolic steroids and HGH, however admitted wife Debbie used HGH to prepare for a Sports Illustrated expose photoshoot with the Rocket.

Clemens has denied under oath using human growth hormone, or having any prior knowledge that his wife was going to use HGH. The Daily News was the first to report in February that Debbie Clemens received at least one injection of the drug from McNamee.

Reached Tuesday by The News, Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said he wasn't aware the government had been informed of new shipping receipts .

As Hardin says the Rocket can deny almost anything because he never tested positive for a PED under baseballs anemic PED testing back in his day.  However the receipts do suggest that McNamee was truthful when he testified that Clemens was pumping his wife up, and was aware the ex-trainer injected the female Rocket with some extra juice.

Trevor Graham receives the ban of a lifetime.

Trevor Graham, the man with the dope plan, the man with the binge on a syringe, received a lifetime ban from track activities from the USTAF, the USADA, and the IAAF.  Graham fits into the BALCO puzzle of drug cheats.

Graham, the once leader at Sprint Capital USA, not only led sprinters like Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery down the dope and steroid path, he mailed Victor Conte's syringe with THG (the clear) to the USADA as a tip-off (that sure didn't buy him mercy).  Graham also testified at the BALCO grand jury, only not so truthfully; for his testimony he received a perjury conviction.  Today's lifetime ban appears very harsh.  (here the NY Times says a 2 year ban was considered for Graham in 2006)

To IHT:

Athletics coach Trevor Graham received a lifetime ban from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Tuesday for his role in helping his athletes obtain performance-enhancing drugs.

Graham has been banned from participating in any event sanctioned by the U.S. Olympic Committee, the IAAF, USA Track and Field or any other group that participates in the World Anti-Doping Agency program.

He was convicted in May of one count of lying to U.S. government investigators about his relationship to an admitted steroids dealer. He's still awaiting sentencing and has asked a judge to toss out his conviction.

Graham already was banned from all USOC-sponsored facilities and had essentially become a pariah in his sport, connected with too many athletes involved in doping — including Marion Jones and former 100-meter world-record holders Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery.

The USADA lectured Graham on stiff penalties and deterrence.  Why then are 3 ex-dopers on the USA Olympics team?  Just asking.

"While drug use by athletes is a serious wrong to be addressed with stiff penalties, involvement in doping by a coach is even more reprehensible and must be dealt with through the most severe of all sanctions," USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in a statement. "It is truly disgraceful when a coach uses his position to assist athletes under his care in doping."

Graham was nailed with these offenses:

• Tampering with or attempting to tamper with any part of doping control.
• Possession of prohibited substances and methods.
• Trafficking in any prohibited substance or prohibited method.
• Administration or attempted administration of a prohibited substance or prohibited method to any athlete or assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an anti-doping rules violation or any attempted violation.

Most of the BALCO athletes moved on after the scandal, and many were found guilty of other legal offenses too, including the imprisoned Marion Jones.

Few of Graham's former athletes are still in athletics. Montgomery, who was banned for life, was sentenced in May to nearly four years in prison for his role in a New York-based check-kiting conspiracy and pleaded guilty July 3 to distributing heroin. Gatlin is serving a four-year doping ban, and Jones is serving a six-month prison sentence for lying to U.S. government investigators about a check-fraud scam and her doping.

The most notable survivor is Shawn Crawford, the defending Olympic 200-meter champion. Crawford will run the 200 in Beijing and now trains with Bob Kersee, who also coaches sprinter Allyson Felix.

Though Crawford wasn't ever involved in the doping scandal, his name came up because Graham was a key player.

Daily Steroids Dose, Weekend Edition

1.  Dick Butkus will kick your butt if you use steroids.  (Northwest Journal)

2.   Experts expect steroid street prices to reach an all-time high. (Satire, SSNN)

3.  Manuel Beltran: facing 5 years in the clink?  (Bangkok Post)

4.  If only Brian Roberts were doping he might have hit for the cycle.  (Deadspin)

Daily Steroids Dose

1.  More on Roger Clemens's legal problems. The good news is that Clemens would be a first time offender. (SI)

2.  MMA fighter Alexandre "Pequeno" Nogueira tests positive for steroids.  (MMA Fighting.com)

3.  Jason Giambi's new image: the mustache...next a Corvette.  (The Missoulian)

4.  New Mexico security guard is a felon with weapons, 'roids, and a Whizzinator. (KOB)

5.   Hard not to be cynical when watching extraordinary athletic performances these days post-pharmacology.  (LA Times)

6.   Dwain Chambers seeks injunction to run in Olympics.  (Times Online)