Antonio Pettigrew's bio at the University of North Carolina's site says this:
He's an Olympic gold medalist. He's a five-time world champion. He's a world-record holder. And now Antonio Pettigrew enters his second season as an assistant coach at North Carolina, where he will share his vast knowledge and expertise with the Tar Heel sprinters, hurdlers and relay teams.
In addition to the Olympic and world championship titles he piled up in the 4x400 meter relay during his career, Pettigrew is a five-time U.S. champion in the 400 meters - over a remarkable span of 12 years. His first title came in 1989, just two years after graduating from high school, and his last came in 2001, an extended period of consistently maintained excellence rarely seen in the world of track and field.
Pettigrew's incredible success extends even farther, though. He spent his collegiate days competing at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N.C. - where he earned his degree in 1992 - and was a 10-time All-America performer and four-time Division II NCAA champion in the 400 meters.
Wonder if that 'vast knowledge' includes some juicy tidbits on HGH? Memo Heredia tarnished those gold medals for the moment, naming Pettigrew as an unexpected doper, in the Graham perjury trial Wednesday in San Francisco.
Heredia testified Wednesday that he sent performance-enhancing drugs - both directly and through Graham - to Sprint Capitol athletes such as Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew and Dennis Mitchell.
Today, Jones and Montgomery stand convicted of felonies related to the BALCO probe, and Pettigrew is considered clean, polishing his gold medals and coaching track at the University of North Carolina...
Pettigrew's name stands out from the cast because he never tested positive during a long career that included Olympic medals and a world record in the 4x400 relay.
Heredia said he provided Pettigrew with human growth hormone and the endurance-booster erythropoietin. He showed Western Union money transfers to the jury, saying that they reflected drug transactions. He said Graham introduced him to the sprinter.
Prosecutors are expected to call Pettigrew to the stand today and question him under oath. If he confesses to doping, it will present an interesting challenge for non-governmental anti-doping authorities. In the absence of positive urine or blood tests, such anti-doping agencies certainly can rescind an athlete's Olympic or world championship medals, but typically only within an eight-year statute of limitations.
That could leave only the most recent of Pettigrew's gold medals vulnerable - such as the gold medals from the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, or the 2001 world championships in Canada.
Athletes busted here for doping might find they lose more than their reputations: the USADA sits in the gallery monitoring the action.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has been closely following the Graham trial, with a representative sitting in the gallery taking notes since jury selection on Monday.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, said Wednesday that he couldn't comment on any particular athlete, but affirmed that his organization was eager to collect any doping evidence that could emerge from the criminal justice system.
"As we've maintained since the start of the BALCO investigation, we will aggressively pursue any reliable evidence that a doping violation has been committed," Tygart said in a telephone interview.
It will be interesting to see if Pettigrew piled up those gold medals with the aid of HGH and EPO.
If you are too fortunate, you will not know yourself; if you are too unfortunate, nobody will know you.
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