The AP discusses UK sprinter Dwain Chambers's new book as more of the text is revealed. Not surprisingly Chambers names more track athletes who used BALCO for doping including Kelli White.
British sprinter Dwain Chambers names several doping-tainted
American athletes in his autobiography chronicling his use of
performance-enhancing drugs.
Sprinters Kelli White, Chryste Gaines and Alvin Harrison, all of whom were busted for doping and served suspensions, are all mentioned when Chambers recounts his ties with BALCO founder Victor Conte.
"He kept telling me to talk to the other athletes, talk to my coach Remi (Korchemny), Chryste Gaines and Kelli, Alvin Harrison to name a few. I told him I would," Chambers writes in the book "Race Against Me: My Story...
"In time I became fully aware of Victor's role and his purpose in recruiting the best athletes in the world," Chambers writes. "Victor was a pharmacologist with a living to make."
Chambers says he started taking THG, also known as "The Clear," and other drugs such as HGH and EPO, in 2002 after meeting Conte in the United States while training.
"As time went on, I became more and more familiar with associating certain athletes with certain drugs. ... I made Kelli White my main confidante and the attraction grew by the day," writes Chambers, who says he dated White for more than a year.
White won the 100 and 200-meter races at the 2003 world championships in Paris, but both her medals were stripped after she tested positive for modafinil
Chambers, who admitted using 300 combinations of illegal PEDs assumes a strange and paradoxiacally moral attitude toward illict drug doping:Although Chambers says both he and White "agreed that we hated having to cheat to win," he later says he didn't know THG was on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances.
"If THG was on there I was out of America on the very next flight and Victor Conte was history!" Chambers writes, but then later in the book adds, "I printed the list off. It ran to nearly eight pages. I went over it three times and found no reference at all to THG. Victor was right: it wasn't on the banned list."
"In my own mind, I wasn't cheating."
In earlier excerpts from the book printed in the Daily Mail, Chambers says he was a "walking junkie" and took "more than 300 different concoctions" of performance-enhancing drugs that cost him $30,000 a year.
"It wasn't a problem. I was earning big money at the time," Chambers writes.
White (photo right) who to her credit confessed to all the doping, is an example of how the drugs produce an incredible physique. Once again, consider all records in the 'steroids era' to be at risk of PED taint.
Chambers also hits the syringe on the head in the last statement.."The money..."
Also note the irony of calling Conte a 'pharmacologist'.
Interestingly, Chambers has been running in Italy, I would have said I'd hope the other guys could have won but who knows if they are running on a level field.
"Chambers' autobiography is published on Monday and book extracts criticising Lord Sebastian Coe and questioning Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu's drug testing conduct have all reignited the debate over his continued participation in the sport, helping to overshadow the build-up to this Italian event."
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/low/athletics/7931339.stm
Sounds good: but I may have to wait to read a good used copy of it when the price comes down.
Posted by: fromlancetolandis | 03/08/2009 at 22:09
At age 16 was invited to be a featured skater in an ice show in Colorado! Was also a Low Test Judge for a number of years.
Posted by: Timberland Boots | 08/29/2011 at 05:02
I must say this is indeed a very good novel, though, I have just reached about half way down the road reading the novel but has been the one that has always kept me interested in it. I just can't keep myself to get done with
Posted by: UGG Greenfield | 10/07/2011 at 02:03