Coach Trevor Graham's sprinting prodigies seem to be running the ex-coach down these days. Or perhaps they are running on empty.
During the Graham perjury trial Thursday and Friday, former sprinters like Dennis Mitchell provided insight into Graham's coaching technique: use HGH and EPO. Lance Williams give his insight from the SF Chronicle:
Three former stars of Trevor Graham's world-renowned Sprint Capitol track club accused their onetime coach Thursday of helping them to become drug cheats.
In somber, sometimes halting testimony in Graham's trial on charges of lying about distributing banned drugs, sprinters Antonio Pettigrew, Jerome Young and Dennis Mitchell - each a former U.S. champion, each a winner of Olympic gold medals - told similar stories.
The three athletes claimed Graham had advised them to use human growth hormone, steroids and the blood doping product EPO - drugs the coach allegedly guaranteed would kick their performance to a higher level.
Very damning testimony. Doubt there will be much talk that Heredia isn't a credible witness anymore. This testimony further corroborates the rather tawdry collusion Graham's operation became.
"If you want to run 9-8 (9.8 seconds), you need to do these things," Mitchell, four-time U.S. 100-meter champion and winner of three medals at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, quoted Graham as saying.
The coach said drugs "would help me compete," testified Young, twice the U.S. 400-meter champion and a relay gold medalist in the 2000 Olympics.
The three said their coach referred them to his drug connection - Angel "Memo" Heredia of Laredo, Texas, who earlier told the jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that he had often bought steroids in Mexico and express-mailed them to Graham and his athletes.
The former track stars also claimed Graham had monitored their drug use and its effects. Pettigrew, four-time U.S. champion in the 400 meters and also a relay gold medalist at the 2000 games, testified that Graham would quiz him on whether he was "taking what he needed." Mitchell claimed Graham had injected him with growth hormone on two occasions.
The more testimony comes out, the greater the depth of Trevor Graham's involvement in doping his athletes: Advised the athletes; connected the athletes with the steroids dealer; monitored the drugs and the doses, and injecting the athletes. Why didn't Graham just put the drugs on his Master-card too? (more after the break
More Graham stories:
Their story of pervasive drug use was echoed in the testimony of a lesser-known former Sprint Capitol athlete, Garfield Ellenwood, now coach at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida and also the coach of Liberia's Olympic track team. He claimed that shortly after he joined the club in 1998, Graham instructed him how to inject himself with steroids that had been express-mailed by Heredia.
Ellenwood said he had told his new coach, "I want to be the best sprinter in the world and break the world record." He said Graham responded, "If you want to get to the next level, there are some things you need to do."
Graham's lawyer said Graham told the truth when he denied supplying drugs to the athletes. Very funny...
Graham's lawyer, William Keane, says the coach told the truth when he denied providing drugs to his athletes. In court, he accused Heredia of testifying falsely about Graham to avoid being prosecuted for steroid dealing himself.
In court Thursday, Pettigrew, Young, Mitchell and Ellenwood corroborated major portions of Heredia's account. But it was clear the athletes were reluctant to implicate Graham - and themselves.
Pettigrew, now a track coach at the University of North Carolina, is godfather of Graham's daughter. When first approached by federal agents, he told them Graham was a brilliant track coach, "a mastermind at breaking down a race," as he put it.
But Pettigrew also acknowledged he had lied to the agents in denying that Graham had arranged for him to use drugs. It was only when the agents confronted him in a second interview and told him he could be prosecuted unless he told the truth that he said he realized, "Everything was coming out of my past that I did, and I knew it was wrong."
After that, he said he told the agents the story he repeated for the jury: Beginning in 1996, Graham arranged for him to obtain growth hormone and EPO from Heredia. The drugs, he said, had a powerful effect - "I was running incredible times in practice, and I was able to recover faster," as he put it.
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