The London TimesonLine carries 2 extensive interviews ( here 5/15, and 5/16)with the architect of BALCO, the man who brought together Barry Bonds, Tim Montgomery, Marion Jones, Bill Romanoski to introduce them to THG, HGH, and modafinil, Victor Conte. As always Conte was loquacious about anabolic use.
Part One Doping in sports (Part Two here)
How prevelance is doping in sports? Very, according to the expert.
As one of the world’s greatest doping experts, though, he has knowledge that few are prepared to share – and his view of world sport and the prevalence of doping in athletics in particular is deeply alarming. “It’s very difficult to reach a final of a world [athletics] event clean,” he said. “The overwhelming majority haven’t.”
What percentage have cheated to get there? “Closer to 80 per cent than 60,” Conte said.
He cites a final from a recent world athletics event from which three of the eight competitors were subsequently implicated in doping. “There are two others in that event that I provided with performance-enhancing substances,” he said. “So I already know that five of the eight were on it.”
Overall, how prevalent is doping in athletics? “I believe that of the 10,000 athletes that competed in Sydney [in the 2000 Olympics], at least half of them had used some sort of performance-enhancing substances,” Conte said. “They have linked 15 people to me. My question is, where did the other 4,985 people get their stuff?”
The entire doping enterprise was a vast conspiracy, according the Conte:
Running a successful doping operation, he said, “was about much more than developing drugs and methods. It was a network of people; to win any war, you need intelligence. I had access to information from people that were inside the labs. I would find out what they were doing in terms of testing designer steroids.
“I know of an accredited lab in Europe that had an employee who was coming in at night and doing prescreening of urine samples for athletes – to help these athletes beat tests and monitor clearing times. What I’m saying is, it’s not about the drugs, it’s about knowing who’s doing what, when and where.”
This intelligence network broke down when his athletes simply got too good. “This whole Balco thing [its downfall] was about athletes that had worked with me before, went to another camp, told them exactly what we were doing and then dropped Kelli White [a former client] in it,” he said. “Otherwise Kelli would never have tested for Modafinil [after the women’s 100 metres final of the 2003 World Championships in Paris].
(More after the jump)
How did the steroids conspiracy break down?
It is established fact that Trevor Graham, the former coach of Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, the United States sprinters, sent to the authorities a syringe of Conte’s “magic potion”, THG (tetrahy-drogestrinone). Conte said that this was only after his relationship with the three had ended in 2001. The next year, Montgomery broke the world 100 metres record.
“Montgomery had stockpiled the stuff he received from me, so he was able to walk away knowing he had the stuff and knew the protocol to use it for another year,” Conte said. “But having terminated my relationship with Trevor, Marion and Tim, a collusion developed and in 2002 they sent it to all the accredited laboratories. It then took them a year to develop the test.”
It was the rise of one of his new athletes, Dwain Chambers, the Briton, Conte said, that worried his former clients and they turned on him. “Dwain is a great guy who got caught up in something he shouldn’t have been in,” Conte said. “But he, like me, realized that this [doping] is what goes on, that these are the rules. He’s had tremendous damage done to his life because of it.”
But even when the whistle had been blown on Balco, according to Conte, he would have had every reason to have believed that it was not the end of the operation.
Does Conte believe the Olympics cover for steroid cheats?
“I have direct knowledge from Olympic governing body officials from the US who have told me about a number of cover-ups of positive tests,” he said. “These are cover-ups of people who won gold medals for the US. Even some of the athletes I personally worked with – I would get calls from the officials and they would tell me, ‘Your boy tested positive.’ And a few days later I would get a call and they’d say, ‘We’ve decided to cover this up.’
Can doping ever be stopped? Not according to the master of deception:
“My message is to the parents of the young athletes of the future: the use of performance enhancing drugs at the elite level is rampant. If you don’t want your son or daughter to take drugs, then you need to steer them in other directions. Because at some point, they’ll get to the level where they are told they have no choice but to use them.
“Am I saying that doping is right? No, I’m not. I’m just saying that’s the way it is.”
As long as there are unethical cheaters out there, sports will be dirty. Which means forever.
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