Steroid Nation

Kenta Bell joins ex-suspended athletes on USA Olympic team

Kenta Bell, a triple jumper on the US team in 2004, will join several other once-suspended athletes on the USA Olympic team.  Bell, served a 3 month suspension for methylpredinisone in 2007.  To the Oregon Daily Emerald:

Aarik Wilson, meanwhile, had no trouble getting to the Olympics in the triple jump. The three-time USA Indoor champion and 2007 USA Outdoor champion broke the 22-year-old Hayward Field record by jumping 57-2.25 on his final jump of the day, eclipsing 2004 Olympian Kenta Bell's mark of 56-6.5.

Bell, who served a three-month suspension for doping last year, survived Florida State graduate Rafeeq Curry's last jump of 56-5.75. All three had previously jumped the Olympic qualifying 'A' standard and did so again during the finals.

"Things have been going rough the last couple of years, but to come in and hit a jump early felt really good," Bell said. "The second time is better than the first time. This one was harder and I put a lot of work into this."

Bell joins Damu Cherry on the USA Olympic team, a hurdler who tested + for a nandrolone metabolite years ago, and Torri Edwards, a sprinter who tested + for a stimulant.

America, the land of the second, and third chance.

Daily Steroids Dose, July 4th Edition

1.  Morgan Hamm takes shot in the dark; corticosteroid shot may not be OK.  (San Fran Chronicle) (LA Times)

2.  Toronto cops in trouble for large drug ring, including steroids.  (CTV) (UPI)

3.  Former 100M world record holder and BALCO cheat Tim Montgomery pleads guilty to heroin charges.  (Sporting Life) (AP)

4.  The PGA kicks off dope testing.  (AP)

5.  Lord Coe not happy with Dwain Chambers's legal challenge.  (The Telegraph)

6.  Was Hawaiian firefighter selling Chinese steroids?  (Honolulu Advertiser)

Daily Steroids Dose

1.  Former Pittsburgh Steeler Steve Courson wrote a letter decrying steroid use before his death.  (Baltimore Sun)

2.  Dopers at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing expect to be banned for 2012 too.  (Globe and Mail)

3.  Chinese swimmer and wrestler banned from Olympics. (CNN)

4.  Floyd Landis's final futile plea, and Michael Rasmussen's court actions taint the start of the 2008 Tour de  France (Sporting Life)

5.  Ex-Seal gets 7 years for weapons and steroids.  (new band?  Guns and Roids)(Daily Press)

6.  Our friend Robin Parisotto interviewed on Australian Anti-Doping efforts.  (The Age)

7. The PGA tries to catch some of the many juiced golfers out there. Fore! (Washington Times)

8.  South African double amputee Oscar Pistorius runs a 47.78, misses Olympic qualifying in 400 (Sporting Life)

10.  Brian McNamee asks court to dismiss Roger Clemens's suit.  (AP)

11.  Admitted steroid user and WWE wrestler "Mr. Kennedy" urges Minnesotans to support Republican National Convention.  (City Paper) (mpg here)

German scientist criticizes Danish study that criticizes EPO urine tests

Those rascally scientists...always making life difficult.  Probably all they want is more government grant money.

Wilhelm Schanzer, director of the Laboratory for Doping Analysis in Cologne, Germany, says that the EPO study released last week in the Journal of Applied Physiology goofed up: "It's absolutely non-scientific"

Dang.  The International Herald Tribune carries the bad news.

A scientist involved in a study questioning the validity of testing for the performance-enhancing drug EPO called the research "factually wrong" and is calling for the paper to be retracted.

"It's absolutely non-scientific," said Wilhelm Schanzer, director of the Laboratory for Doping Analysis in Cologne, Germany. The lab is accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency and regularly tests samples of professional athletes.

The study was published last week in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Carsten Lundby and colleagues of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center in Denmark gave the oxygen-boosting hormone EPO to eight college students who were not athletes. They collected samples which were tested by two labs accredited by WADA, including the German lab.

The Danes are taking this stance:

Lundby and colleagues concluded that the two labs studied had contradictory results, and that athletes could theoretically take EPO without being caught.

"The test does not work as it should," Lundby said.

Their study was funded largely by Denmark's anti-doping agency.

The Germans counter:

Schanzer said on Tuesday the Danish authors misinterpreted his results, and that because his lab and the other lab used different reporting criteria, their results could not be compared.

What the other lab reported as a positive result, Schanzer's lab reported as "suspicious." Schanzer said that because this was a research project, they did not do all the confirmatory tests that would have been done under normal testing guidelines.

"It's not true that you could take EPO and not be detected," Schanzer said. The study's main finding, that labs cannot accurately identify EPO, is "outright false," he said.

None of this explains anything.  Hopefully Schanzer will document what he means.  The situation appears clear as cholesterol right now.

Lundby stood by his findings and said the test was flawed.

Floyd Landis loses the 2006 Tour de France...again

Just in: In the longest contest in world sports history (slightly shorter than World War 2), the official results of the 2006 Tour de France are in.  Floyd Landis lost his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Amazing.  You all know about the history of the deal.  Landis wins the '06 Tour.  He tests positive for testosterone (high T:E ratio).  Landis is disqualified, resulting in a huge uproar from Landis fans.  Landis takes his defense to the people with the Wiki-Defense.  Landis loses a split decision at the USADA hearings in Malibu CA.  Landis loses appeal at the the CAS.  Books are written.

Is the Landis saga over?  Doubt it.  Next up: The 1985 World Series will be decided by the end of July at the CAS -- Denkinger's bad call to be debated.

  Guardian link here.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has dismissed Floyd Landis' appeal to regain the 2006 Tour de France title and upheld his two-year drugs ban.

Landis was stripped of the title - which passed to Spaniard Oscar Pereiro - and handed a two-year ban from the sport after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone.

CAS' verdict sees the 32-year-old disqualified from the 2006 race and banned from cycling for two years from January 30, 2007. He has also been ordered to pay US 100,000 (£50,000) to the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Landis has always maintained his innocence and appealed the decision against him at every stage.

Today's ruling was his last hope of clearing his name and his failure to do so means he is the first rider in the 105-year history of the Tour to be stripped of a title for doping.

Landis' first appeal failed last September when the USADA upheld the original ruling after agreeing his sample from Stage 17 of the Tour was positive for exogenous testosterone.

Within three weeks of that ruling, Landis announced he would appeal to CAS, saying: "I hope the CAS panel will review my case on the basis of the facts and the science, and to approach my appeal from the principle that the anti-doping authorities must uphold the highest levels of appropriate process, technical skill, science and professional standards to pronounce judgment on matters that hold an athlete's career, accomplishments and livelihood in the balance."

That appeal was heard behind closed doors in New York in March this year, with CAS hearing 35 hours of evidence.

Such was the volume of evidence, CAS immediately warned that it would require several months to reach a verdict.

The two-year ban imposed on Landis applied from January 2007, meaning he faces another seven months out of the sport in the wake of today's verdict.

CAS' verdict comes just five days before the start of the 2008 Tour de France. 

The CourierMail claims 'Australian Mastermind' behind giant doping conspiracy

In a very secretive story, the Australian newspaper the CourierMail says an 'Australian mastermind' lies behind a huge conspiracy to export steroids out of China.  Story Here:

AUTHORITIES fear an Australian expatriate in China is the mastermind of an Olympic doping operation after a giant steroids shipment was intercepted.

Customs agents discovered 40kg of steroids in a shipment from China at Port Botany in Sydney, prompting a global investigation involving US drug investigators.

They have tracked the source of the drugs to an Australian-born man who is based in China.

Authorities fear he could be part of a syndicate attempting to supply substances to cheating athletes at the Beijing Olympics in August.

"He is possibly targeting the Olympics," Australian Customs national investigations manager Richard Janeczko said.

"Customs is working with international partners to establish his whereabouts in China. But given where the Games are being held it is a concern."

Talk about mysterious?  Who is this mastermind?  The Australian version of Victor Conte?

(The Australian Anti-Doping agency has been) working with Chinese anti-doping agents and the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

The record haul was intercepted in March last year at Port Botany.

The steroids were disguised in bulk canisters labelled "amino acids".

The shipment, in powder form, weighed 80kg, with 40kg of the active performance-enhancing substance.

"We believe there is a demand for this sort of stuff in Australia," Mr Janeczko said. "These quantities most likely would have been turned into tablets or capsules."

He said China was a logical source of performance-enhancing drugs because of its vast chemical industry.

"The Chinese are really being quite cooperative," he said. "Because of China's large chemical manufacturing sector, both it and India are the places you go to get this stuff."

ASADA chief executive Richard Ings said that while he could not comment, "as a matter of policy, there is a seamless sharing of information between ASADA and Customs on matters of mutual interest".

EPO doping tests questioned: Just when you thought it was safe

A very disturbing New York Times piece cited research to be published in Blood (oops goofed that one up) the Journal of Applied Physiology, that questioned the effectiveness of EPO testing.  Give 8 athletes EPO and how many will test positive: ZERO (this is wrong; Lab A found all 8 tested positive for EPO; Abstract here).  It looks like the Times did not exactly get the analysis correct.

Athletes who want to cheat by injecting themselves with a performance-enhancing drug that boosts their blood cell count can do so with little risk of getting caught, a new study indicates, possibly exposing another flaw in what is regarded as the world’s toughest anti-doping program.

A urine test that is supposed to detect the drug, and that will be used in the Tour de France next month and in the Olympics in August, is likely to miss it, the study says. The substance, recombinant human erythropoietin, known as EPO, stimulates bone marrow to speed up production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. And with more blood cells, endurance athletes like cyclists and distance runners can perform better.

"Likely to miss" EPO doping is like saying we are all likely to run at a speed a bit less than the speed of light.

We know Marion Jones used EPO, and was only positive on an 'A' sample.

Although athletes have said EPO is in widespread use, few have tested positive. Most of the athletes who have been linked to doping in recent years have been caught not through drug testing, but rather through criminal investigations. In the August 2006 issue of the journal Blood, the American lab accredited to conduct EPO testing reported only 9 positive tests out of 2,600 urine samples.

The new study may help explain why: the test simply failed.

Oh yeah, the test failed...spectacularly in Lab B if the Times is to be believed.  However when we read the study, actually Lab A found all 8 EPO users to be positive, and Lab B found 7 samples to be 'suspicious'.

The study, to be published Thursday in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, was conducted last summer and fall by a renowned lab in Denmark, the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center. The investigators gave eight young men EPO and collected urine samples on multiple occasions before, during and after the men were doping. The men’s urine samples were then sent to two labs accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and EPO tests were requested.

The first lab found some samples positive and a few others suspicious. (A suspicious result does not bring sanctions for doping.) The lab also declared a sample positive, although the man had stopped taking the drug and it should have been gone from his urine. His previous urine sample, obtained when he was taking EPO, was negative in this lab’s test.

The second lab did not deem any urine sample positive for EPO and found only a few to be suspicious. The two labs did not agree on which samples were suspicious.

The anti-doping agency’s rules say that if an athlete’s urine shows traces of EPO, it must be tested again by a different accredited lab. The athlete is declared guilty of doping only if the second lab also detects EPO. By that rule, none of the subjects would have been charged with using EPO, even though their red blood cell counts rose and their performances on an endurance test improved.

Dr. Don Catlin uttered a conservative invective.  Something along the line of '*#@&%@# that worthless test" would have been more appropriate.

“The paper certainly is an eye-opener,” said Don Catlin, the chief executive of Anti-Doping Research, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. “It’s quite remarkable.”

Charles Yesalis was a bit more pessimistic:

The findings in the latest study should be no surprise, said Charles E. Yesalis, a professor of sports science at Pennsylvania State University. For decades, he said, anti-doping authorities have claimed they have tests that work and for decades athletes have been taking drugs without getting caught.

The anti-doping authorities, he said, “remind me of little boys whistling in the graveyard.”

So here is where we are at with weeks to go before the Tour de France and the Beijing Olympics: the EPO doping test appears to be an utter failure at detecting EPO doping.   Disconcerting.

Viva Viagra link here

Link down to the Viagra story.

Viva Viagra: A rise for athletic peak performance or an impotent placebo?

Is Viagra getting top athletes up for peak performance?  Or is ithe  frug one more impotent PED placebo sham?

Recent stories concerning the use of Viagra by multi-drug cheat Roger Clemens and others raises the question: Does Viaga stimulate athletic performance?  The drug could be a legal PED as WADA does not prohibit sildenafil as a performance enhancing drug.

A new story by the Times Online looks more at the potential of sildenafil citrate -- Viagra -- to get athletes up and going for competition.

Athletes are turning to a new performance enhancing drug: Viagra. Traces of the drug, which is intended to alleviate sexual dysfunction, are increasingly appearing in the testing of samples from sports competitors.

It has become so widespread that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is considering whether to include Viagra in its list of substances banned in international sports.

Christiane Ayotte, head of a Wada-accredited laboratory in Montreal, said she regularly identifies Viagra and Cialis, a similar product, in the urine of male sports competitors. No action is taken because it is not illegal.

“Each time there is a seizure of banned drugs you can be sure that there’s Viagra and Cialis found as well,” she said.

The New York Daily News said this about Viagra:

Roger Clemens, whose claims he never took steroids are under federal investigation, has apparently discovered the benefits of another performance-enhancing drug sweeping the sports world - Viagra.

Clemens stashed the clearly marked, diamond-shaped pills in a GNC vitamin bottle in his locker at Yankee Stadium, according to a source familiar with the clubhouse, perhaps keeping the drug undercover to avoid the inevitable wisecracks about all the girlfriends he needed to please.

The Telegraph makes claims for the drug's benefit in both explosive and endurance sports -- like sprinting and cycling:

Experts believe Viagra could help in events requiring explosive power, such as sprinting. The drug works by dilating blood vessels allowing more blood to reach the penis. This action could also allow more oxygen and nutrients to reach muscles.

Other experts suggest the drug, which allows couples to have longer sex sessions, could also help with endurance sports, like marathons and cycling.

Don Catlin, an American expert on doping, said he had suggested several years ago that Viagra could be used to enhance athletic performance.

"I thought there was some reason to be concerned about it and to put it on [Wada's banned] list," he told the Sunday Times newspaper.

A study of cyclists who took sildenafil citrate (the scientific name for Viagra) while racing at altitude found it reduced their time over 6km by 15 per cent.

PED 'expert' Victor Conte endorses NO enhancers (as noted in the comment below):

Victor Conte, who ran the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative in San Francisco and supplied banned substances to top competitors, such as Marion Jones and Dwain Chambers, the runners, has claimed of Viagra: “All my athletes took it. It’s bigger than creatine [a legal muscle-building supplement]”.

There may be another reason athletes are taking Viagra – to compensate for the impotence brought on by using banned hormones.

Ya gotta get up for Victor Conte endorsement, eh?

(more after the jump including Viagra studies at the University of Miami)

Justin Gatlin obtains a 'restraining order' allowing him to compete at Olympic trials

Apparently finding a sympathetic judge, sprinter Justin Gatlin obtained a 'restraining order' allowing him to compete at upcoming Olympic trials.  Even as the judge criticized the US track and Olympic bureaucracy, it would appear she threw up her own bizarre interpretation of law: she over-ruled the highest sports court on the planet, international regulatory bodies, and Bill Cosby's mother.  The judge issued an order that covered 10 days, covering the Olympic trials occurring on June 27; 10 days will not cover the Olympic Games in Beijing.  However, all interested parties will be wasting more time back in court on Monday for more.

The judge's actions overrules the suspension determined by the USADA, the USATF, and the USOC, and perhaps even the IAAF in Gatlin's case.  (Gatlin was originally given an 8 year suspension) Even more interesting, the Pensacola Florida judge over-ruled the recent decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Laussanne, the highest level of arbitration in Olympic sport.

Gatlin's most recent suspension occurred when he was caught juicing with testosterone in 2006.  If the sprinter were given a 2 year ban, he might be eligible for the 2008 Olympics (although the start date for the ban is also in dispute).  Regulatory agencies meted out a 4 year ban for Gatlin, based on an earlier positive for amphetamines, which the sprinter said he took for ADHD.  Gatlin claimed his ADA civil rights were violated when he was suspended for using the ADHD medication (although he didn't bother filling out a TUE).  Thus Gatlin should not been given a 4 year suspension, but a 2 year suspension for the androgenic drug cheating.

The judge should have delivered a retroactive restraining order keeping Gatlin away from coach Trevor Graham.  To the AP:

A Florida federal judge says banned sprinter Justin Gatlin should be allowed to compete at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.

U.S. District Judge Lacey A. Collier's temporary restraining order is only in effect for 10 days, and the trials don't begin until June 27 in Eugene, Ore.

Gatlin's lawyer, Joe Zarzaur, says his client is "guardedly, cautiously optimistic."

A Monday hearing in Pensacola has been set to discuss the order.

"We respect and will participate in the process," USA Track and Field spokesman Jill Geer said. "Our general counsel (Lamont) Jones will be in Florida on Monday to be part of the hearing."

Gatlin's complaint alleged that penalizing him for a 2001 doping violation, which involved medication he was taking for attention deficit disorder, violates the Americans with Disability Act.

We don't want drug cheats with ADHD to suffer, or do we?  And does one issue a restraining order against a track organization?  Does the organization need to stay 1000 feet from Gatlin (or was the order an injunction?)

Two weeks ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a four-year doping ban against the reigning Olympic 100-meter gold medalist. Gatlin asked CAS to rescind the 2001 doping violation — his first of two — which he had hoped would reduce his penalty to a two-year ban, allowing him to compete at trials.

The order, like Gatlin's appeal to CAS, centers on the 26-year-old's first doping offense — a positive test for amphetamines at the 2001 junior nationals. The substance was part of medication Gatlin was taking for attention deficit disorder.

Gatlin received a two-year suspension but was reinstated after one year.

Now he wants that offense erased, contending the punishment violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Collier made it clear she agreed and that only a maze of international sports bureaucracy clouded the issue.

"In the midst of this intractable situation, it is abundantly clear that, if anyone were to actually deal with the facts of this case head-on, they would readily conclude, formally, that plaintiff was not at fault for the first violation, and would as a consequence end his suspension immediately," the judge wrote.

Do international regulatory agencies need to adhere to Pensacola Florida judges?  I mean the state that gave us a George Bush presidency might have some international credibility problems.

Despite the judge's ruling Friday, it's not clear whether the international bodies that govern participation in the Olympics must abide by it.

When the CAS rejected Gatlin's appeal, CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb said the only legal option he knew of for Gatlin was to go before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, an appeal provided by Swiss law because CAS is based in Switzerland.

The U.S. Olympic Committee agreed.

"We view this as an anti-doping matter and believe the appropriate forum for adjudication and resolution is through the American Arbitration Association or the International Court of Arbitration for Sport," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said at the time.

The other aspect is the timing of the ban.  The CAS recently changed the ban to July 2006, which would make a 2 year ban effective (even if the 4 year ban were rolled back).  The Pensacola judge blew that maneuver off too.

....Instead, CAS rejected that argument and changed the start of Gatlin's ban to July 25, 2006 -- the day he voluntarily accepted his provisional suspension -- instead of May 25, 2006. So he wouldn't be reinstated before the trials even if his ban had been reduced from four years to two.

Anyone now totally confused with all the initials used in this post?

Growth Hormone: New biomarkers, and calls for more regulation

First we go to News-Net Medical for a report on the search for new biomarkers, that may be useful in the anti-doping crusade.  Investigators have been looking at proteins that change when exogenous HGH is administered.  Biomarker detection would aid a regulatory agency like WADA when trying to detect drug cheats l ike Marion Jones, who abused HGH on the way to her discredited Olympic medals.  (Update: The debate about the performance enhancing effectiveness of HGH continues on)

Researchers have found potential new biomarkers for growth hormone, which they say could help the sports community in detecting growth hormone abuse. The results of the animal study will be presented at The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Many athletes are misusing recombinant human growth hormone, a drug intended for people who are growth hormone deficient, because of its supposed ability to decrease fat and increase muscle. However, detection remains a challenge. The growth hormone drug appears only briefly in blood and is identical to the growth hormone that the body naturally makes, said study coauthor John Kopchick, PhD, of Ohio University.

"Variability is a problem with current testing for growth hormone doping," Kopchick said. "It is gender and age-sensitive. We're looking for a test that will give standard results for everyone."

The authors are attempting to identify proteins in the blood that could be biomarkers for growth hormone action. A biomarker is a substance that can be detected in higher-than-normal amounts in the blood, urine, or body tissues and thus could be used for screening.

A bookmarker would alert authorities that doping has occurred.  For instance the decrease in LH seen when testosterone is administered would be considered a biomarker.

Kopchick's group injected six male mice with growth hormone once a day for a week and also injected six male mice with saline, to serve as controls. On the eighth day they determined the protein changes in the blood of all mice.

Several proteins or their isoforms (genetic variants or protein sub-populations that are modified differently) greatly increased or decreased in the growth hormone-treated mice, compared with controls, the authors reported. They included transthyretin, clusterin, albumin, and apolipoprotein A-1 (apoA1).

If the results translate to humans, these proteins have the potential to be new biomarkers for growth hormone action, according to Kopchick. Regulatory agencies could use new biomarkers for growth hormone in their attempts to halt the abuse of this drug among athletes, he said.

"Extension of these results to humans is of paramount importance, and these studies are ongoing," he said.

The second report originated with a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where Dr. Thomas Perls describes the huge anti-aging industry's use of HGH.  Dr. Perls will point out that HGH use in Anti-aging is entirely unresearched, and potentially dangerous.  To Science Daily:

Since their previous article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2005 on the clinical and legal aspects of growth hormone for anti-aging, in which researchers from Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago alerted the medical community and lay public to the deceptive mass marketing and illegal distribution of growth hormone for anti-aging and athletic enhancement, the authors provide new evidence demonstrating that these deceptive and dangerous activities have grown worse.

Remarks Dr. Thomas Perls, Director of the New England Centenarian Study and an associate professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, who has monitored the anti-aging industry for over the past ten years, "despite the overwhelming evidence that the risks and dangers of growth hormone far outweigh the clinically demonstrated insignificant benefit in normally aging individuals, the prescribing, distribution and sale of hGH for alleged anti-aging aesthetic and athletic enhancement has dramatically grown over the past few years. Clearly, the coordinated and aggressive marketing campaigns of the anti-aging and age-management industries are highly and most unfortunately effective."...

Contrary to published claims, neither long-term safety nor health benefits have been demonstrated in normally aging individuals taking hGH. A review of clinical studies among healthy, normally aging individuals found that hGH supplementation does not significantly increase muscle strength or aerobic exercise capacity. However, documented adverse effects include soft tissue edema, arthralgias (joint pains), carpal tunnel-like syndrome, gynecomastia (enlarged breasts) and insulin resistance with an elevated risk of developing diabetes. Increasingly more and more animal and laboratory studies suggest an increased cancer risk.

Dr Perls came up with the following recommendations:

The authors suggest that several measures need to be taken to address the inappropriate distribution and use of hGH.

Among their recommendations:

• The public must be accurately informed by physicians and scientists who do not have a vested interest in hGH, about health risks, fraudulent marketing and illegal distribution of this drug.
• Organizations that promote or indirectly profit from the medically inappropriate and illegal distribution of hGH that have been accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to offer American Medical Association Physician Recognition Award (PRA) category 1 CME credits or other categories of CME credit should, at a minimum, have their accreditation revoked.
• U.S. manufacturers of hGH must be more effective in, and held accountable for, controlling the distribution of the drug to companies providing the drug for illegal uses.
• Congressional hearings and media attention surrounding hGH should focus less on athletes and prominent entertainers who are also victims of deceptive marketing and pushing of hGH, and much more on the distributors who are violating federal and state laws by making the drug available for non-approved uses.

Who's who in the Trevor Graham BALCO perjury trial

A brief look at some of the track and Olympic cast of shady characters who won tainted glory for the US track team in Olympic games and world championships.  This cast appears dirtier than an old cinder track.

Marion Jones: arguably the greatest female tack track athlete of the past decade.  After denying PED use for years, she is now serving hard time in a Texas prison for lying about PED use to federal investigators.

 

Tim Montgomery: Once world record holder in the 100M dash, he was recently sentenced to hard time for a fraud scheme, and was recently arrested on heroin charges.  The IAAF stripped Montgomery's world record like a thief would strip an old car when his BALCO connection became public.

 

Trevor Graham: coach of elite track athletes at Sprint Capital USA in North Carolina.  Should have been 'Dope USA' considering the athletes he coached now enshrined in either the doping hall of fame, or federal prison or both.

 

Andrew Pettigrew: owner of several 4x400 gold medals (see below), now a coach at University of North Carolina.  Hired for his vast knowledge of sprinting, and perhaps vast experience with HGH and EPO.

 

CJ Hunter: once husband of Marion Jones, was one more Olympic thrower who doped.  He got caught.  Hunter left the Sydney Olympics in disgrace (he says to cover for then wife Marion).  Hunter implicated Graham in doping as far back as 2005.

 

Angel "Memo" Heredia: in the word's of the SF Chronicle's Gwen Knapp: Heredia, the Mexican athlete-turned-dealer-turned-witness, got help with a work visa in the United States because of his testimony. His most relevant remark on the case came not in court, but in an interview with the Sunday Times of London:  "Conte was sent to jail, I don't know what is going to happen to me, but I could go to jail, too. But I can tell you, nothing is going to stop. Athletes are still going to South Africa to train; they're still doping."

Jerome Young: (ESPN)    Young, the 2003 world champion in the 400 meters, was banned for life last year by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency following a second doping offense. He tested positive for EPO at a Paris meet in July 2004. He is believed to be the first sprinter to test positive for EPO, popular with endurance runners and cyclists.  Young's 4x400 Gold in Sydney remains controversial. The other members of the 4x400 team retained their gold medals on appeal (how ironic) while Young lost his.  Multiple positives for things like nandrolone.

 

Dennis Mitchell: (from the USAToday): Young ran in the opening heat and semifinal round of the relay in the 2000 Olympics. Michael Johnson anchored the team in the final to win the last of his 14 Olympic and world championship gold medals. Other members of the team were Antonio Pettigrew, Angelo Taylor, and twin brothers Alvin and Calvin Harrison. 

Justin Gatlin:  Another world record holder in the 100M, this Tennessee sprinter tested positive at a Kansas meet in 2006 for testosterone, a finding which completely baffles him (SI).  His early career mysterious positive for a stimulant, led to an another apparently baffling 4 year suspension from track.  Gatlin wants back in for the 2008 Olympics, which may have motivated him to record damning phone conversations with his old coach Graham.  That's probably not going down well at the Sprint Capital USA/Trevor Graham reunion parties in the future.

Twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison (USA Today): The Harrisons also were punished in subsequent doping cases. Alvin Harrison agreed to a four-year ban after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency obtained doping evidence from the U.S. Senate. Calvin Harrison, who still had a 1993 doping positive on his record, tested positive for modafinil in 2003 and was banned for two years

Victor Conte lays out Dwain Chambers's doping/steroid protocol; Does Blue Cross/Blue Shield cover this?

Yesterday Victor Conte -- the BALCO mastermind -- informed the UK press that trying to assure a clean Olympics remains an uphill fight.  Today, Conte lays out Dwain Chambers doping schedules, ostensibly so the UK's doping authorities improve doping control (BBC).  Did Willie (We originally wrote 'Eddie') Sutton ever tell the Feds how to secure bank vaults?

Per your request, this letter is to confirm I am willing to assist you in providing UK Sport and others with information that will help them to improve the effectiveness of their anti-doping programs.

The specific details regarding how you were able to circumvent the British and IAAF anti-doping tests for an extended period of time are provided below.

Very official introduction, but let's cut to the chase here...what are the drugs?

Your performance enhancing drug program included the following seven prohibited substances: THG, testosterone/epitestosterone cream, EPO (Procrit), HGH (Serostim), insulin (Humalog), modafinil (Provigil) and liothryonine, which is a synthetic form of the T3 thyroid hormone (Cytomel).

Once again, we state amazement of the depth of the drugs used on these athletes.  Treating insulin like protein powder is playing with deadly fire, in the short term.  In the long term, HGH, and EPO will kill you from cardiac hypertrophy or from hyper coagulable states (that's what causes the young pro cyclists deaths). 

(We list Conte's pharmaceutical evaluation of the individual drugs after the jump)

In general terms, explosive strength athletes, such as sprinters, use anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin and EPO during the off season. They use these drugs in conjunction with an intense weight training program, which helps to develop a strength base that will serve them throughout the competitive season. Speed work is done just prior to the start of the competitive season.

It is important to understand it is not really necessary for athletes to have access to designer anabolic steroids such as THG. They can simply use fast-acting testosterone (oral as well as creams and gels) and still easily avoid the testers. For example, oral testosterone will clear the system in less than a week and testosterone creams and gels will clear even faster.

Is drug-free Olympics a pipe dream? Yes says BALCO's Victor Conte

Might it be possible to hold a drug-free clean Olympics?  Ask Victor Conte, as CBCSports did:

A drug-free Olympic Games is too much to expect, says Victor Conte, the man who served four months in a California prison for distributing steroids to Olympic and professional athletes.

"No, I think that is an unrealistic goal," he told CBCSports.ca. "I think it can be cleaned up substantially, if those with the money and the capacity to clean it up express a genuine desire to do so. But not 100 per cent."

Are there Olympians who compete drug free?  (maybe in curling)

Conte does not believe all Olympic-calibre athletes use drugs. He says there are some "genetically gifted athletes" who achieve Olympic success without drugs. He does contend, however, that he knows of several world championship and Olympic finals where all the athletes used performance-enhancing drugs.

When asked how he can make such an inflammatory statement, Conte admits he has supplied most of the female athletes in one world championship sprint final himself. As for the others, he claims he has it on good authority that they were being supplied with performance-enhancing drugs by associates.

Also interesting that Conte knows other elite athletes, who juiced on 'The Clear':

Conte says there are others ("less than 10") who used "The Clear" whose names have never been revealed and some are world champions. Unless they tell lies about him he says he will not reveal their names. He says he has never supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Canadians.

A little less-than-subtle threat there, huh?  More Conte principles:

"Eighty per cent of the testing should be out of competition and not at meets," Conte says, "Number two, focus on the top-20 athletes. Instead of testing the top-50 twice, test the top-20 five times.

"They are the only athletes who get the lanes, win the medals and make the money. Throw your hook into the pond where you know the fish are biting. At competitions that's more IQ testing than drug testing because you have got to be pretty dumb to test positive at a competition."

That makes sense, going to where the money is (Sutton's Law..Willie not Eddie).  However those elite athletes often receive breaks from testers.  How to beat a test?  Here is one way:

Conte explained to CBCSports.ca how some elite athletes evade out of competition testing..."They fill out a whereabouts form and say they are going to place X and they go to place Y. Then if the tester shows up the worst consequence is they get a missed test," says Conte. "But they have also got a short cycle of steroids under them. It's like strike one in baseball, you are still up to bat. Then you change and instead of Y you go to X next time. I have calculated the odds of them coming to test you when you give misinformation on your form. It's about 25 to 1. Those are pretty good odds...

"They fill up their own cell phones so that when the testers call it says. 'Sorry, the mailbox is full, you can't leave a message.' Then the testers call other numbers. By the time they show up the athletes are clear, and they test negative. What's the worst consequence? It's a missed test."

Marion Jones's medal-stripped teammates start defense fund

Feeling disrespected, Olympic-relay teammates of disgraced sprinter Marion Jones want to fight the power.  However they need some money; the group founded a defense fund for the fight: The Innocent Olympic Athletes' Legal Defense Fund.  (AP)  Up for a donation?   

Interesting that one of the appellants, Chryste Gaines stands accused of anabolic steroid use by BALCO's Victor Conte.  Another athlete, sprinter Torri Edwards, earned an Olympic ban for drug cheating.

Marion Jones' relay partners are raising money to pay legal fees in the fight to retain the 2000 Olympic medals they've been ordered to return.

Jones teamed with Jearl-Miles Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander-Richardson and Andrea Anderson to win gold in the 1,600-meter relay, and with Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson to win the bronze in the 400.

But Jones had her medals stripped last year after she admitted to doping during the Sydney Games. Earlier this month, the International Olympic Committee disqualified the other seven athletes, while conceding none of the athletes broke any rules. The runners had refused to give up their medals, saying it would be wrong to punish them for Jones' violations.

A news release sent Wednesday from the athletes' attorney, Mark Levinstein, said the athletes have until May 1 to appeal the IOC decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Hennagan said the athletes want to fight the IOC decision.

"However, the cost of fighting the IOC with all of its resources and paying for legal proceedings before the court in Switzerland is more than our combined resources," she said.

With Levinstein's help, the athletes established The Innocent Olympic Athletes' Legal Defense Fund.

The U.S. Olympic Committee offered to pay for the athletes' defense should they choose one of three attorney's the federation has agreed to provide for them, spokesman Darryl Seibel said.

He said the offer to pay for the USOC-chosen attorneys remains on the table. One of the three attorneys the USOC is willing to pay for is Maurice Suh, who represents Floyd Landis and Justin Gatlin in their pending doping cases.

Sprinter Latasha Jenkins 1, USADA 0: beat doping tests

Sprinter Latasha Jenkins defeated the US Anti-Doping Agency in her appeal to overturn the ban leveled against her for nandrolone use.  The USADA is now 35-1.  The Canadian Press with the story:

American sprinter LaTasha Jenkins is free to compete again after the World Anti-Doping Agency dropped its appeal of a U.S. arbitration ruling that cleared her of a positive drug test.

The decision means Jenkins is the first athlete to beat the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency on a drug charge.

Jenkins, a silver medallist over 200 metres at the 2001 world indoor championships and bronze medallist at the 2001 world outdoors, tested positive for the steroid nandrolone at a meet in Brussels, Belgium, in July 2006.

She was cleared in December by a three-person U.S. arbitration panel. It ruled the results of her test were compromised because both European labs testing her sample violated international standards that require the tests be run by two different technicians.

WADA appealed that ruling in February to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, but has now dropped the case.

Jenkins trained with steroid-tainted coach Trevor Graham.  Interesting that the defense attorney for Jenkins sneered at the dope tests.  Perhaps the lab procedures need tweaking but dude get a grip: Graham's charges (Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery) flood the doping courts with the juice.

The decision upholds the earlier arbitration ruling, which broke the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's 35-0 record of prosecuting American athletes in front of arbitration panels.

Jenkins was defended by the Valparaiso University Sports Law Clinic.

"It was a good day for athletes," said Michael Straubel, a Valparaiso Law School Professor who argued the case along with four university law students.

Jenkins had been coached by Trevor Graham, who is charged with three felony counts of making false statements to federal investigators. The government has accused him of lying in 2004 when he denied distributing steroids or telling his athletes where they could get them. He is scheduled to go on trail next month.

Mexican steroids/HGH dealer threatens to blow the spikes off track and field: Names Maurice Greene as a doper

The New York Times -- fresh off the press -- says that a Mexican ex-athlete, and big-time steroid/dope dealer will blow the top off track and field when he testifies at the Trevor Graham trial.  Angel Guillermo Heredia claims to substantial evidence that implicates 12 T & F athletes who won 26 Olympic medals and 21 world championships  (Heredia and Graham in photo left below).  Four names are known dopers, and 8 will be novel drug users.  The biggest new name: Maurice Greene.  (A New York Times editorial calls for an end to the Olympic Games) (Update: Not Mo Greene's first brush with doping)

When one of the most successful coaches in the history of track and field goes on trial next month in the long-running federal investigation into doping in sports (ed note: Trevor Graham, charged with three counts of making false statements to federal agents) lawyers for both sides are prepared to reveal that cheating in track is far more widespread than previously known...

Angel Guillermo Heredia is identified as Source A in the felony indictment. He agreed to be a cooperating witness three years ago when, according to court filings, investigators confronted him with evidence of his drug trafficking and money laundering. Since then, Mr. Heredia said, he has provided prosecutors with documentation and with the names of many elite track athletes and Olympic medal winners...

Among his clients, Mr. Heredia identified 12 athletes who had won a combined 26 Olympic medals and 21 world championships. Four of the 12 athletes, including Ms. Jones, had been named and barred from competition for illicit drug use. Eight of the 12 — notably, the sprinter Maurice Greene — have never been previously linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

Mr. Greene, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a five-time world champion, has never failed a drug test.

Greene is a former world-record holder in the 100M.  The Times article extensively documents Heredia's situation, although Greene is the only athlete named.  Among other points:

• The Feds have been working with Heredia for 3 years
• Heredia kept extensive records detailing his accusations about athletes
• Heredia dealt HGH EPO, and testosterone, all of which he said were easy to sneak past drug-testers
• The dealer cooperated with IRS agent Jeff Novitzky

Heredia gets specific with Greene:

Mr. Heredia told prosecutors in December 2006 and The Times recently that Mr. Greene had paid him a total of about $40,000, including the $10,000 wire transfer, for advice and steroid creams, EPO, insulin and stimulants in 2003 and 2004. Mr. Greene had already won two Olympic gold medals when Mr. Heredia said Mr. Greene first contacted him after the 2002 track season. By then, Mr. Greene had lost the title “world’s fastest man” to Tim Montgomery and was also losing races to Dwain Chambers; court records later showed that those sprinters were being helped by taking Balco drugs.

(more after the jump)

Steroid Briefings

1. Wooster MA bodybuilder in jail for steroids/GHB/GBL and threatening a US prosecutor finds redemption in jail.  His policeman co-conspirator doesn't.  (The Telegraph)

2.  European cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke seems to be in trouble again.  FVK was a promising cyclist with a model wife.  However he became involved in doping, street drugs and attempted suicide last summer.  Report indicate cocaine this time. (VeloNews)

3.  Irish swimmer Andrew Bree may be using uppers.  (Swimming World)

4. British sprinter Dwight Chambers to meet with KU anti-doping chief (BBC Sports)

5. WADA purchases HGH blood test kits.  (SF Chronicle)

Daily Steroid Briefings

1.  Pakistan suspends fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar for steroids violations.  (PR Inside)
2.  Brown University Provost knowingly took Provost-Enhancing drugs (April Fools edition of the Brown Daily Herald)  Claims it was flaxseed oil.
3. Suspected juicer Katerina Thanou (photo) was awarded a medal taken from admitted juicer Marion Jones. (AP)  That seems like justice.
4.  Australian custom officials found 2000 vials of anabolic steroids headed from Thailand to Australia.  Sylvester Stallone was nowhere in sight.  (IBM News)
5.  Steroids in the water.  New meaning to 'well pump'? (The Chief Engineer)

Floyd Landis's last stand; Dig deep taxpayers, dig deep

Down in the valley, General Custer Floyd Landis looks at the masses of USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) and WADA warriors encircling him above.  Can Landis find a way out of this predicament?  And who is footing the bill on this process: Landis's defense fund, and your taxpayer checkbook (financing the prosecution).  Hey, at least we will have a final decision on the 2006 Tour de France.

US cyclist Floyd Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory for doping, began making his appeal to a three-man panel from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) here on Wednesday.

The private hearing is expected to continue through Monday with no comments from any of the participants, both Landis and the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) having agreed to the closed-door session unlike last May's open US hearing.

Landis, 32, has denied wrongdoing and fought his positive test for steroid testosterone on July 20, 2006, but a USADA arbitration panel ruled 2-1 against him last September, resulting in a two-year ban through January 29, 2009.

The International Cycling Union stripped Landis of his 2006 crown after that verdict, awarding the title to Spain's Oscar Pereiro.

Also like General Custer, Landis costs the tax payers a chunk of money.  MSNBC covers this story:

The (Landis) hearing starts Wednesday at a Manhattan law office. Unlike the explosive arbitration hearing Landis lost last May, this one will be closed to the public and is scheduled to last five days — less than half the time of last year’s hearing in Malibu, Calif.

But it will still be costly, and a good chunk of the cost will be footed by USADA, which gets about 70 percent of its $12 million annual budget from the federal government, and the rest from the U.S. Olympic Committee.

When all of USADA’s expenses are added up, it’s possible prosecuting the Landis case from start to finish could eat up between 5 and 10 percent of the agency’s annual budget.

“Generally, we would always prefer to spend our time and resources in supporting clean athletes and not having to prosecute guilty ones,” USADA CEO Travis Tygart said Friday. “But justice takes time and money, and that’s part of the process we have in the United States. Athletes have the right to defend themselves when they have positive tests.”...

Some witnesses are paid for their time, with the sides paying the expenses of the witnesses they call. One of the more interesting revelations of the last hearing was the tale of Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, an expert called by Landis, whose travel expenses included a $20,000 charter flight to California.

CAS, largely bankrolled by the International Olympic Committee and various sports federations, will pay for arbitrators — including one from New Zealand and one from Paris — to travel to New York for the hearing.

In May, Landis’ spokesman Michael Henson — who has since left the Landis camp — estimated the cost of the cyclist’s defense alone could reach $2 million by the time it was over. That would include fees for Suh, one of the top attorneys in Los Angeles, and Howard Jacobs, a high-profile attorney who represents several athletes in doping cases. Jacobs will not appear at the CAS hearing.

(More after the jump, and an ironic twist to the story)

 

Saloon slinging steroids (and HGH)?

The Toledo Blade reports that police found a cache of 'steroids' and syringes in an Ohio bar during a raid on the joint. 

Charges filed against two owners of the Rodeo Bar & Grill in Oregon were dismissed yesterday after a third owner admitted the steroids and syringes found during a search of the business in January were his, their attorney said.

Johnathan Roumaya, 23, of 3140 Shoreland Ave., Washington Township, pleaded no contest and was found guilty yesterday in Oregon Municipal Court to a misdemeanor charge of possession of dangerous drugs. A misdemeanor charge of permitting drug abuse was dismissed. He faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Mr. Roumaya was referred to the probation department yesterday for a presentence investigation. He is scheduled for sentencing April 14.

You're going to read that the owner claimed he used the 'roids personally, but why keep his stash at such a public venue?  Wonder if slinging steroids has made local bar scenes like certain bars sling the rock?

The Rodeo Bar and Grill, 3150 Navarre Ave., is believed to be where Michael Gagnon, 24, of Adrian was drinking Dec. 30 prior to heading the wrong way on I-280 and crashing the pickup he was driving into a van, killing five members of a Maryland family.

Authorities searched the bar in January and found steroids and syringes in a filing cabinet. The items found were listed as a blister pack containing nine tablets of Clenbuterol, a bottle with liquid Clenbuterol, several vials of the human growth hormone Jintropin, and a bag of syringes and more human growth hormone. Clenbuterol is a steroid used in meat production that's banned in the United States.

Mr. Potts said Mr. Roumaya bought the steroids for his use though never used them. The other owners, Mr. Yousif and Mr. Murdzia, had no knowledge of the steroids being at the bar, their attorney said.

"[Mr. Roumaya] wanted to be a man about it," Mr. Potts said. "He wouldn't allow his partners to be put through the ordeal and expense to defend themselves when they knew nothing about it."

Good job 'man'.  Also note that neither clenbuterol nor HGH is a steroid.  Perhaps bars join other black market sources of steroid/HGH distribution:

• Buying drugs from AIDs patients
• Distribution from the Russian mafia and other elements of organized crime
• Anti-aging clinics
• Rogue doctors and vets
• Smuggled from Mexico
• Some synthesized in home labs

Sleazy business, huh?

Guest spot: German doping controversy festers

Today we feature a guest spot from Jürgen Kalwa, who writes for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and maintains the blog American Arena.  Mr Kalwa also co-authored the book "Korruption in Sport", reference found at the bottom.

We asked Jurgen to review an emerging doping issue in German spors, to which we referred here.  This story may explode into a BALCO-like situation.  The post will be continued after the jump.

The inner-German public discourse about doping has reached a new level. For the first time, since the large-scale cycling scandal revealed that German riders had never been as clean as they proclaimed, investigative journalists are battling for their reputation. The most recent case involving revelations about a blood bank in Austria and its connections to unnamed German cross-country and biathlon skiers has riled up the bosses of the skiing federation who, in the past, have been counted on to produce Olympic medals and World Championship and make sponsors, including the German army, happy. 

A federation spokesman has threatened legal action in spite of the fact that no names have come out and Hajo Seppelt, the investigative TV reporter at the center of the controversy, has stated: "We are not sure current members of national teams are involved. These are cases from the past."

But Germany is a unique landscape in the world of doping. Because long before BALCO and the scandals of the Tour de France there had never been a bigger and smarter manipulation scheme than East Germany's secret program which fed its young with strong illegal unhealthy muscle-building substances. After the country vanished in 1990 the West German justice system dealt with legal issues. Sports organizations resented and rejected
coaches and consultants from the East, in order to keep their house clean.  This noble stance was shown to be a facade, when German cyclists admitted one by one how heavily involved they were in tainting a popular sport and how they had fooled everybody including drug testing labs trying to catch them. (continued after the jump)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Korruption im Sport", was published in 2006 and is the first effort of a group of German sports journalists to educate other journalists (and the public at large) about how corrupt sports has become
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3931801217/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF

It is not only talking about doping, but about a whole host of shenanigans.

Huge new blood doping scandal simmering in Europe?

Reports tricking out of Germany may be the cusp of an emerging blood doping scandal. The Velo News presents the issues:

The new year is just days old and cycling is already looking head-on at another potentially explosive doping story.

The German public television station ARD reported Tuesday that Michael Rasmussen as well as his former Rabobank teammates Denis Menchov and the now-retired Michael Boogerd were among 30 elite athletes said to have used an Austrian-based laboratory for banned blood-doping practices.

ARD also alleged that biathletes and Nordic skiers used the Humanplasma lab, which has facilities in Vienna.

Officials from that office refused to comment when contacted by VeloNews late Tuesday and said a lawyer would be addressing questions Wednesday. However, German biathlon officials were quick to deny the allegations, as were Boogerd, retired Austrian pro George Totschnig and interim Rabobank manager Henri van der Aat.

There is a follow-up account here at AFP.

The Tour de France pulled the plug on Rasmussen last year, despite his race lead for suspected doping.

Chinese cricket fighting scandal: bug juice

Calling George Mitchell.  There appears to be a massive culture of doping in the ancient Chinese sport of cricket fighting.  Sources say greenies are the PED juice of choice.

A story today appears in the LA Times concerning both singing and fighting crickets.  Other reports (Toronto Star) focus on cricket fights.

Chinese love crickets for their songs (emanating from the beating wings) their fights, and soon their beauty contests.  The insects reside in comfy jars, pampered with lush diets. 

Crickets are taken very seriously in this city, where the best specimens can cost thousands of dollars. But it's not all about money. Crickets are being rediscovered by young Beijingers eager to appreciate an old and unique part of their own culture. Fanciers here also are organizing cricket fights, and the sponsors of the recent singing contest are planning a competition for the best-looking cricket...

However, the first issue is doping of the cricket wings.  Unscrupulous cricket agents will dope the wings to produce a better song.

That's where the doping comes in: The cricket's song is produced by its wings, and an unscrupulous seller sometimes will apply a drug to slow the rate of vibration and lower the pitch.

The second issue concerns those ever-popular cricket fighters.  Says here (The Toronto Star) that anti-doping measures must be taken or cricket managers feed their beasts amphetamines (or stimulants).  Chinese cricket coaches express great concern about cricket diet and cricket doping (and here):

"They're very much like athletes," Zhao says of the crickets. "Diet is very important. But most owners won't tell you what they normally feed their crickets before coming to the tournament. They keep that secret."

Owners say vegetables are most frequently on the menu. But snake and even crab meat are often fed to crickets.

And apparently that's not all.

The containers are always kept in a holding room for one to three days before a tournament, not just to ensure that all competitors eat the same food – but to ensure the owners "do not feed them stimulants."

Doping in cricket fighting?

"Oh, yes," says Zhao. "It sometimes happens."

It's worth the training.  The winning crickets get dates with a couple voluptuous female crickets.  The losers -- well they get depressed (and maybe B-12 plus lidocaine)

The losing cricket almost never suffers any serious physical harm. Mental health, sadly, is a different matter. The loser is usually so distraught that he refuses to fight another round for about 24 hours. The Chinese handlers have found a way around this by throwing them in the air and making them fly. A study by neurobiologists at Stanford University found that forcing the motor skill of flying onto the crickets helped bring them out of their depression. Implications for human depression are yet to be determined (see “Will fighting crickets unlock the mystery of human depression?”).

The Roidie Awards 2007 Part One: Excellence in Sports Doping

We are proud to announce the 2007 'Roidie awards for excellence in sports doping.

This was clearly a great year for drug-cheats.  Many fine performances in cheating, lying, and deception.  There were so many deserving entries and potential winners we listed several ties. We are already juiced for 2008.

This is the first installment.  Epic task gathering all this together.   Over the weekend we should be adding categories, that is if the Iowa Caucuses can be postponed a week or two.

This report will be co-posted at Epic Carnival. With no further delay, your first installment of the 2007 Roidie award winners:

Category: Best Female Juicing:
4. (tie) World record holder Jolanda Ceplak will sit 2 years for EPO use
4. (tie) Brazilian swimmer Rebeca 'The Hulk' Gusmoa bulks up on testosterone
3. East German female Olympians deliver deformed babies after forced steroid use
2. Barry Bonds's ex-girlfriend and BALCO witness Kimberly Bell bares biceps and pecs for Playboy
1. Marion Jones admits to long-standing juicing, loses all Olympics medals

Category: Sickest Steroid Story:
4.(tie) Kayak world champion Nathan Baggaley blames positive 'roid test on brother's orange juice (later Baggaley arrested for ecstasy)
4.(tie)  Kansas City Royals give juicer Jose Guillen 36,000,000
4.(tie).  Landis buddy reveals former Tour de France winner Greg Lemond was a victim child sex abuse.
3.  Stories leak out about dogs juiced with roids fighting for entertainment; Michael Vick steroid-infused dog fighting bust
2. Juicer (HGH), boozer, greenie user former-Yankee Jim Leyritz arrested for DUI and vehicular homicide
1. 'Roids found in WWE wrestler Chris Benoit after family homi-suicide

Category: Hottest Steroids for the Stars
5.  Belgian cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke, supermodel wife, involved in Tour de France, doping, and suicide attempt
4. Former NFL lineman Tony Mandarich develops into well known photographer
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger's on-going juice associations (breaks leg, winner of his bodybuilding classic busted; congratulates fellow 'roider Bonds etc.)
2. HGH use caused abscesses in Anna Nicole Smith's gluts
1. Rocky on Roids -- Sly Stallone busted in Australia for 'roids and HGH

Category: Top Steroid Busts
5.  Operations Raw Deal, Massive PED bust
4.  Grimsley bust documents released (and here)
2.(tie) Ongoing saga of Internet Pharmacy Busts
2.(tie) Kirk Radomski 'Metboy' pleads guilty to being The Walmart of steroid dealers
1.  The Mitchell Report (and here)

Category: Best Overall 'Roid Story:
5.  Pro Cycling and Tour de France's ongoing battle with doping, including Floyd Landis futile Wiki tour/defense
4.  Roger Clemens's fight against steroid and HGH charges (and here)
3.  Marion Jones, after years of denying doping admits to steroid and PED use, loses Olympic gold medals
1.(tie)  Barry Bonds breaks career home run record, then indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice
1.(tie)  Mitchell Report reveals widespread PED use in pro baseball

Marion Jones documents released: Anatomy of a doping conspiracy

Anyone looking for a step-by-step instruction manual on how to "influence times, win track meets, and dope without detection" click on over to ESPN's rendition of the court documents released yesterday in the Marion Jones-BALCO case.

Jones's BALCO documents became public knowledge in San Francisco/White Plains NY after the resolution of her case, and impending sentencing.  Included:

• A calender of drugs, doses, and meets
• A ledger of Jones's testosterone and epitestosterone values from local labs and from the IOC.  Wanna see what Jones tested at the Sydney Olympics?
• The Jones affidavit prepared by IRS agent Jeff Novitzky
• The Govt's sentencing memorandum where the US Govt recommends from 0 to 6 months prison time for the elite sprinter

The BALCO plan, carried out by Victor Conte and James Valente, appears to patterned after the East Germany Doping Machine.  The dope dealers carefully crafted a PED regimen of the clear (in this case norbolethone and tetrahydrogestrinone), EPO, HGH, and insulin.  So much for clean Olympics.

Jones never tested positive for PEDs during her competitive career, although she did throw an a-sample positive for EPO once.  Speaking to the problems with dope-testing, Jones extensive doping flew completely under the WADA radar for years.  Jones vehemently denied doping, even suing those who said she used PEDs.  Her drug-cheating only came to light during legal proceedings against her associates(Tim Montgomery).  (from ESPN)

Jones won five medals -- three of them gold -- at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and became one of the world's most famous female athletes. The ledger specifically indicates she used performance-enhancing drugs in the month immediately before the Olympics began, and during the Games.

For years, Jones had vehemently denied her use of performance-enhancing drugs, going so far as to trumpet a lie-detector test she took and to issue a full-page, bold-faced denial in her autobiography.

On Oct. 5, Jones pleaded guilty to one count of lying to investigators about her drug use when she told them in a Nov. 4, 2003, interview that she had never taken the banned drugs, never even seen or ingested the drug in the case known as "the clear," and never received any of those substances from track coach Trevor Graham.

Graham is under indictment for making false statements. He has pleaded not guilty, and his case is still pending.

Jones also pleaded guilty to one count of lying to agents in connection with her role in a check-fraud scheme. The government is recommending a prison sentence up to six-months long.

The International Olympic Committee has stripped Jones of three gold and two bronze medals and barred her from attending next year's Beijing Olympics. And the International Association of Athletics Federation nullified all her results dating back to 2000 and wants her to pay back about $700,000 of her winnings.

Marion Jones stripped naked (of medals)

In the past we reported that Marion Jones was flat broke, and that Marion Jones was wiped out.  Now, it is official: Marion Jones is stripped naked...of Olympic medals...News from Australia.

Drug cheat Marion Jones has been formally stripped of the five medals she won during the Sydney Olympics, after she revealed she was using steroids at the time of the games.

The Sprinter admitted she had taken the performance enhancing drug the clear before the 2000 games.

The International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge confirmed the organisation's decision, which follows a two year ban placed on Jones by the IAAF in November.

Jones won three gold and two bronze medals in track and field events in Sydney, all of which have been handed back.

The once world class athlete may still receive a lifetime Olympic ban.

There is no joy is seeing such a talented athlete descend into ruins.  We are not sure of the message here, but those who supplied her with PEDs appear to be in much better psychological and financial positions than Marion Jones.

 

Dick Pound and Victor Conte meet: The Odd Couple redux

This is a great tale of two mismatched men: One, a disorganized, sloppy sportswriter; the other a fastidious meticulous writer/photographer.  They live together in New York, sharing misadventures, and joviality, thus coming to learn great lessons about life and love.  Couple guys hanging out for laughs and tears.

No, the tale is not quite Neil Simon's 'The Odd Couple'; however the two men seem just as mismatched.

The New York Post reports that WADA's soon-to-retire-boss Dick Pound will meet with BALCO's chief executive the infamous Victor Conte this Wednesday in New York.   For years, BALCO's Conte bedeviled WADA's Pound with illegal PEDs including the cream (T and EpiT) and the clear (THG), supplied to world class athletes against the WADA regulations.  BALCO corrupted Olympic athletes including Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Kelli White, and many others.  Pound chased Conte like a keystone cop.  Good times. (from The Post)

He knows who's been naughty and nice - and Victor Conte is going to share that knowledge with World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound on Wednesday in New York.

As the Daily News has reported, Conte has already provided some information on what he calls "rampant drug use in elite sports" to WADA officials and will offer more details in the meeting with Pound, the drug-monitoring agency's outgoing president.

Conte, the mastermind of the BALCO laboratories at the center of a federal steroids investigation that has already ensnared several elite athletes, served four months in prison for distributing steroids and laundering money. The BALCO investigation has brought charges against the recently indicted Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, the sprinter who pleaded guilty last month to lying to federal investigators.

Conte has been critical of Pound and other anti-doping advocates as being soft on catching drug cheats, but says he believes he can help clean up sports.

"It's my hope that this will help with the effort to create a more genuine level playing field for the competitors and to enhance the perception of integrity for the fans," Conte said. "I'm also doing this for the young athletes of the future. Ironically, I feel it's some of the poor decisions and past mistakes I've made that uniquely qualifies me to make a contribution.

"I plan to share specific knowledge of past and present Olympic-caliber athletes, coaches and suppliers involved with doping around the world and how they've been able to easily circumvent the anti-doping procedures in place."

Victor Conte, proffering public service by snitching on the athletes he lured into drug-cheating, monitoring their blood and urine, to allow them to slip by the WADA PED testing.  Feel-good story of the season.

Dogs and Cats, Wolves and sheep.  Felix and Oscar...

World reknown doping authority Donati: abolish all tainted records

World famous anti-doping activist and researcher, Professor Alessandro Donati renounced the current world records in rack, weight-lifting, and swimming at the 'Play the Game' conference in Iceland last week.

As reported in The Pulse, Donati condemned current records as tainted.

One of the worlds leading doping experts italian Sandro Donati made a controversial proposal at his plenary session about visions for a doping-free sports culture: Delete all previous and standing individual sport records.

The statement came up Tuesday at the Play the Game-conference in Reykjavík, Iceland. In Donati’s opinion todays world records are a product of a culture build on doping use.

(paraphrase) I don’t believe in the records. I can’t believe any of them in e.g. athletics, swimming and weightlifting. In these kind of indivisual sports I believe doping is behind all the records and we know from Stasi- and KGB documents that their athletes were doped, says Sandro Donati to thepulse2007.org.

Donati says the dishonesty of dope tainted records negatively influences youth interested in sport.  He notes youth sport models itself after the professionals; the dope-influenced professional competitors send the wrong message to youth.  From 'Play the Game'

Currently, he said, we are instilling the wrong values in our children. Youth sports programmes are modelled on professional sport, which is inherently, and perhaps hopelessly corrupt. We would not allow our children to model themselves on drug abusers or corrupt gamblers – so why do we encourage them to imitate and idolize professional sportsmen? 

Furthermore, he said, initiatives such as IOC President Jacques Rogge’s plan to create of a “Youth Olympics” from 2010, are just adding to the problem. Although the games are aimed at combating child obesity, he pointed out that competitors will represent a tiny elite and it is precisely this concentration on the elite that causes high dropout rates from sport and subsequent child obesity.

Donati speaks of the business of sport leading to the perversion of sport.  He also takes a shot at the IOC saying they abdicate responsibility for doping control.

However, another conferee -- Vest Christiansen, a lecturer at the University of Aarhus -- presented his research:

During the course of his research, Christiansen investigated the reasons that professional athletes choose to stay clean. Most of those interviewed said that they understood why their colleagues took illegal drugs. The most common reason others refrained was not related to their health. Many athletes legally gamble with their health to reach an elite level, he pointed out, and some see doping as a logical progression. Moral qualms were also low on the list.  According to Christiansen, most athletes refrain from doping simply due to the fear of being caught, and the subsequent social stigma of being branded a “drugs cheat”.

 

 

Pound slices into the PGA

World Anti-Doping Agency head Dick Pound got his hooks into the PGA today.  Our source is the UK's Times Online.  Pound clubbed pro golf last year for lack of doping controls.  He was sure to club the PGA when Gary Player chipped out the 'steroids in golf' story last week.

The PGA has resisted any acknowledgement that there may be a problem,” Pound said. “We would be happy to sit down and help golf come together with a significant and robust programme. I have said [to the PGA], ‘Look, this is your opportunity to lead, not to be forced to follow, so get on with it. The time is now. “ ‘You should do this while you still have the initiative, rather than being forced into it as the result of a scandal. Then you are going to have the whole of golf regarded with suspicion. Do it now before there’s a big public problem.’ ” The tardiness of the PGA to respond to drugs-testing is in contrast to the European Tour, which is to start testing in the new year.

Last Pound drove into the PGA without a particular source.  Now he can point to an ally with stature in Player:

Pound said that his “suspicion” was that there are professional golfers who are using drugs. “Gary Player says he knows, so that’s fairly powerful medicine from somebody who has only the integrity of the game at heart,” he said.

“It comes from one of the icons of golf who has no particular axe to grind other than to try to maintain the integrity of the sport. It’s a wake-up call that has not come in such stark terms to date from the golf community.”

 

Professional athletes in the USA appear to be loathe to let Dick Pound and WADA lay a glove on them.  Perhaps Pound sees this as a way to penetrate the American pro scene.

Asked what he had been told to arouse his suspicions, Pound said: “Some say they know, others say they strongly suspect, but it’s really not the point.”

 

Tainted or untainted? Double records in track discussed

Track records became so distorted with presumptive doping, that officials now talk about keeping a set of double records: presumably steroid and then presumably clean. Very good story in the Indy Star today.  (also this link to Track and Field News)

The sport appears to be addressing how PEDs (performance enhancing drugs; or APEDs (appearance +PED) affect the top performances, and how that cheat clean athletes attempting to break those records.

Should the world's oldest sport start anew?

So many records in track and field are implausible, presumably because of undetected doping, that they are out of reach.

Unlike baseball, which is stuck with bloated home run figures from a steroid era, track has the authority to clean the slate. Governing bodies have invalidated records set by athletes caught using drugs.

For instance we carried a story concerning Sanya Richards who ran a 48.7 last year.  The world record -- felt to be tainted -- is held by Marita Koch of East Germany at 47.6.  Can a 'clean' athlete (especially in women's track) beat these old tainted records?

As the AT&T USA Track and Field Championships come to Indianapolis this week, world records are mostly out of the question. Women, especially, have as good a chance of capturing ghosts as they do of breaking world records.

"It is disappointing to step on the track and know for the next year or two, your time probably won't compare to the world record," American sprinter Sanya Richards said.

Richards is aiming at the 22-year-old record of 47.60 seconds in the 400 meters held by Marita Koch. Koch represented East Germany, which had a systematic doping program that was uncovered in files of Stasi, the secret police, and published in Germany.

Several years ago, German officials proposed a bifurcation of records:  tainted v. untainted:

In 1999, Germany proposed that "records of the new millennium" be created. A congress of the IAAF, the sport's international governing body, rejected the idea.

Yet the notion is kept alive by reformers such as Gianni Merlo, chairman of the IAAF press commission, who favors a new list of records. Garry Hill, editor of Track & Field News, supports introduction of old and new millennium records.

"Go to a bifurcated system," Hill wrote in an e-mail. "Give the sport back its thrill of the world record chase, but at the same time, don't disenfranchise all the fair-playing greats who went before."

Records set by women from the former Soviet bloc, or by Chinese distance runners in the 1990s, aren't the only ones to which circumstantial evidence is applied. Florence Griffith-Joyner's 100-meter time of 10.49, set at Indianapolis in 1988, is widely viewed with suspicion, partly because of doubt about the wind reading. "FloJo" never failed a drug test.

There are issues with track records, that need to be considered:

Two issues that shouldn't be lost in the debate are these:

Records are rare in track and field, and always have been. Jesse Owens long jumped 26 feet, 81/4 inches in 1935, and the record lasted 25 years. Bob Beamon jumped 29-21/2 in 1968, and the record lasted 23 years. Sebastian Coe ran 800 meters in 1:41.73 in 1981, and the record lasted 16 years.

As Craig Masback, CEO of USA Track & Field, put it in an e-mail:

"This contrasts to a sport like swimming, where they are still on an aggressive growth curve in terms of adding new participant countries (and where changes in pool and swimsuit technologies have also helped athletes get faster)."

Revising records would be as much an attempt to build fan interest as it would be to make right the marks that were wrongly achieved. For instance, no one else in this century has come within 11/2 feet of Jonathan Edwards' 60-foot triple jump from 1995. No one suggests the squeaky-clean Edwards was doping.

"He landed straight up and down like a pogo stick, with no flexion," marveled Mike Conley, the 1992 Olympic champion in the triple jump. "I would have just crumbled to the ground."

Just as there are ancient and modern Olympics, Conley said, the sport's eras could be divided and have records for each.

"We need a shot in the arm somewhere," said Conley, who is trying to help lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. "That is definitely a concept that we should look at."

A convenient way to amend some records is to change weights of implements (shot, discus, hammer) or to raise heights of women's hurdles.

That wouldn't address other events. Moreover, unless drug testing improves, a new record book could still include drug-tainted marks.

Those East Germans, who had the systematic doping machine messed alot of things up:

The International Olympic Committee has made no attempt to strip medals won by East German athletes. The IOC, which has the power to annul results going back eight years, recently opened an investigation into possible doping in cycling at previous Olympics.

Meanwhile, female athletes are stuck looking at records seemingly taken off the Sci Fi Channel. Richards, for one, sounds undaunted in pursuit of Koch's time.

Richards met Koch for the first time last year in Monte Carlo at a gala in which Richards was recognized as the world's Athlete of the Year. Richards' best is 48.70, which would have put her 9 meters behind Koch.

Richards conceded that the issue is "touchy" but said she has examined Koch's race and believes she, too, can break 48 seconds. Anyway, Richards said, that is the record.

"And I'm going to keep my eyes focused on it," she said. "And hopefully, one day I'll be the world record-holder."

Old v. New records after the jump.  This is really a good article.

 

Dick Pound Tees off on the PGA; wants steroid testing in pro golf

Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal, pulls a driver out of his prolific bag to tee off at the PGA tour for not implementing a performance-enhancing drug (PED) testing program.  Golf.com brings us the interview.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has told me that there is no drug problem in golf and that one reason he resists implementing a drug-testing program for the Tour is that he does not want golfers lumped with professionals in baseball, football, basketball and hockey, sports that all too clearly have a significant problem with the use of performance-enhancing substances.

Well, yeah, from perusing photo of the top golfers we see two groups: skinny guys, and guys with bellies.  Doesn't look to The Nation that golfers inject HGH with Insulin and T4; rather a couple beers and some cheese fries after the round.

But by not testing for drugs, Finchem runs the risk that precisely the opposite will result. Investigations by enforcement agencies are turning up more and more cases of drugs being supplied to athletes. If golf is dragged, kicking and screaming, into adopting a drug-testing policy after public disclosure of drug use, golf will be perceived exactly like the other sports. There'll be the now standard mantra of denial that a problem exists and then, only under public or congressional pressure, reluctant adoption of a minimal testing program. It doesn't have to be that way.

There are enough warning signals to suggest that action should be taken sooner rather than later. Body shapes on Tour are changing. Perhaps not all of the extra distance off the tee can be attributed to technology or improved fitness. If there is a problem, better to eliminate it before it becomes ingrained, as it has in far too many other sports, professional and amateur. To do otherwise courts the athlete's Lowest Common Denominator rationalization: "I had to do it because others were, and no system existed to catch the cheaters." It is an all-too-familiar refrain, however unconvincing, proffered in quasi-defense of ethical failure.

Again, the golfer physique may be better than the glory days of Billy Casper, Jack Nickolas, and Dale Murphy.  Tiger Woods obviously works out.  Zack Johnson doesn't look like he pours down the cold ones at night.  However these fellows don't  appear like they have been hanging with Victor Conte, Greg Anderson, and Barry Bonds in the gym bathroom with a couple syringes.

We suppose Pound has a point, stop drug-cheating before it even starts.  Once someone uses Winny to get 20 more yards off the tee, then the pressure is applied to the other golfers to match that power output.

But we cannot look forward to asking John Daily to drop his trousers, pull up his shirt, then pee into the cup (which he couldn't see under his belly)...

More Pounding after the jump.

 

Edwin Moses spikes the track & field drug-cheats

Olympic medalist, world class sprinter Edwin Moses responding to the interview by Victor Conte (here and here) let's it fly.   Moses is mad as hell and he isn't taking it anymore.

Moses doesn't seem to be a fan of Conte, and the other track stars who doped.  Like Carl Lewis ahead of him, Moses speaks out on corruption in his sport.  Moses writes in the TimesOnLine.

Over the last two years I have watched in disgust as more and more “name brand” athletes have become ensnared in the omnipresent net that we have come to know as “testing positive” for performance-enhancing drugs. Whether each athlete implicated is guilty or not, the names form an embarrassing Who’s Who in the world of sport.

The braggadocio of Victor Conte – head of the Balco laboratory in California, who has admitted distributing steroids and who is practicing his magic arts upon the weak-minded again after being released from prison – as revealed in the pages of The Times last week, tipped the scales of my silence: it is now time for me, and for other clean, world-class athletes from every sport, to speak out loudly against the claim that doping is simply “the way it is” and the only way to the top.

To advise (as Conte does so self-servingly and despicably) that parents of kids with dreams of elite-level performance should “steer [the kids] in other directions” if they don’t want to take drugs, simply because “at some point they’ll get to the level where they are told they have no choice but to use them”, is preposterous and spineless.

Mose reiterates that hard work and tough training is required.  However, he holds the record for consecutive race wins...without drug-cheating.

To reach the pinnacle of my event, the 400 metres hurdles – and to stay there without ceding victory, as I did, for nearly a decade – I did not need or want to use performance-enhancing drugs...

I invented a training regimen that included stretching, flexibility development and dynamic exercise techniques. And I was willing to deal with – for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years – the intense and relentless discomfort that comes from training mercilessly, two or three times a day. Through sheer focus and willpower, I made sure that the harder and more painful it got, the faster I became.

By definition, the elite level of sport is not open to just anyone. Only the very rare individual will succeed. But to suggest that drugs are a de facto key to one, two or more world-class victories is a lie. I delivered 122 consecutive victories and four world records on the basis of sweat and refined skill, period.

Moses agrees somewhat that the dopers are defeating the anti-doping authorities:

Counsel to all would-be champions: in training, there are no short cuts. Anyone who tells you differently is selling pure compromise. Infuriatingly, Conte may be correct when he says that “the ineptness of the antidoping programmers contribute to the use-or-lose mentality that athletes are almost forced into”. It is true, the system that we initiated in the fall of 1988 is in critical need of reform – and, moreover, requires resources to design and sustain reform...

As one of the few active athletes with experience both in front of and behind the scenes, I can attest that the integrity of drug-testing operations has always been threatened by unscrupulous people in search of a fast dollar, an association with fame, a secure seat on a privileged board or an uncomplicated ride on the twisting back of a corporate sponsor. The appropriate response to corruption is not to exploit the problems for personal gain, but to insist upon and drive home significant and sustainable improvements. Both the public and private sectors need to invest in this effort. The public, too, needs to demand change.

The values of honest sportsmanship, a level playing field, clean competition and sheer passion for the game that Laureus represents are the values that must propel me and others like me to speak out against characters like Conte, his cronies, his clients – and the systems and stakeholders that enable their crooked work. If we fail to take a stand for sport as we love it and once practiced it, our legacy will be mean indeed.

Edwin Moses won gold medals in the 400 metres hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. Between 1977 and 1987 he achieved the longest winning streak in athletics history, 122 races.

The Floyd Landis case just exploded, or imploded, or both

(Update here: Landis friend apologized to LeMond) (Landis posts seen after the  jump) (Good background summation at The Fanhouse, thanks to With Leather)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Confused'  Everything appears to be 'confused'.  Or 'obtunded'?  'Bewildered'?  'Mortified'?

The Greg LeMond testimony at the Floyd Landis hearing just exploded like a roadside bomb in Baghdad.  If what happened, is what we think happened, the hearing either exploded or better put 'imploded'.

It would appear from reading Rant, or TBV, that the following occurred:

• Greg LeMond testified about phone call from Floyd Landis in which he came close to admitting he doped:
• ('q': question from attorney; 'a': answer from Greg Lamond; 'him/his': Floyd Landis)
• q:  did you give advice?
  a:  clear that i did not judge, if you did change the sport to save the sport and hoped and encouraged him to come clean?
  
  q:  what was his response?
  a:  what good would it do?
  
  q:  did you share a story with him, a very personal matter.
  a:  yes.
  
  q:  purpose
  a:
  
  q:  his response?
  a:  i don't see any good that would come of that, it would destroy a lot of my friends
• Understand this is hearsay, that is LeMond's report of the conversation
• The story LeMond apparently shared with Landis concerned his childhood sexual abuse, and his 'hiding' it.  He meant to convey something about 'the truth' or 'a secret'.
• However, it was then revealed that last night, before his testimony, LeMond received a threatening, and probably obscene phone call:
• (From Rant) But that wasn’t all. LeMond also gave an account of a threatening phone call he claims to have received on his cell phone last night on his way to his hotel. The caller, LeMond says, claimed to be his uncle, and went on to mention that he would be at the hearing and that he was going to tell LeMond’s long held secret.

(From TBV) The actual language:  "LaMond's uncle and they would play "hide the weenie" tomorrow.

• LeMond recorded the cell phone number, then reported it to the police.  Someone traced the call to Will Geoghegan, a Floyd Landis friend (From TBV).  Apparently Landis shared the LeMond abuse information with this fellow.
  
• This is Will Geoghagen, Landis's friend, who is with him in Court. So, Lemond is basically saying Will called Lemond on Lemond's cell phone, using Will's own cell phone to make the call in order to intimidate Lemond.
• Landis' lawyer tried to question LeMond about Lance Armstrong.  LaMond's attorney stepped in to say LeMond would not answer questions about Armstrong.  Howard Jacobs (Landis' attorney) asked to stroke (can you believe we wrote 'stroke', rather than 'strike'; what a Freudian slip) LaMond's testimony.  At which point the arbitrators called a recess to reassemble the exploded courtroom and the disemboweled spectators.
• When reconvened, LeMond was absent, Geoghegan was gone (said to be fired) and American cycling run through.  (It is also reported Geoghegan was called to the stand, however he fled to retain counsel...good idea)

Thus in a matter of hours, an American legend, Greg Lemond, said that an American hero, Floyd Landis, came dangerously close to admitting steroid use.  Lemond trusted Landis with a personal story of hidden abuse in hopes of getting Landis to admit to some truth (like steroid use).  Landis may have published a threat against Lemond, should Lemond ever talk.  All this followed with a very obscene threat revolving around Lemond's abuse that came from a Landis' friend the night before Lemond's testimony.

This is all hard to believe.  (more after the jump)  Everyone shower.

BALCO boss Victor Conte gives roadmap for steroid cheats, Part Two

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 Two: Detection of steroids in athletes. (Part One here)

Are anabolic drugs currently in vogue with cheating athletes?  Can these drugs be detected by authorities?

...he (Conte) reels off the drugs he claims are in use. “Do athletes use insulin? Yes, it’s undetectable,” Conte said. “Do athletes use thyroid medication? Yes they do, it’s undetectable. Do they use growth hormone? Yes, it’s undetectable. Do they use EPO [erythropoietin]? Yes they do, that test is extremely easy to beat.”

WADA has become more sophisticated in catching anabolic steroid users, however the athletes manipulate the chemical properties of the drugs to beat the system.  Fast acting testosterone is out of their bodies before the anti-doping police catch up:

“The use of designer drugs is significantly lower now because they [Wada] have changed the rules and now, if they find anything related in structure [to another illegal substance], even if they don’t know what it is, they can call it a positive test,” Conte said. “So now people are doing it with fast-acting testosterone. They can use, for example, testosterone undecanoate; a lot of athletes are doing it in Italy, it’s freely available in Mexico.

“You take these pills – typically 40 milligrams each – three or four times a day and you need to duck and dive for only a short time because they clear the system in four days. So you can do very intense weight training for just a couple of weeks and significantly enhance your explosive strength.”

How should the doping authorities pursue the drug-cheats?  The 'alturistic' Conte laid it out for them:

How could the doping police do a better job? Conte insists that he has answered these questions. He has had three meetings with the US AntiDoping Agency and in February 2005 he spent three hours with an official from Wada. “And I didn’t do it in exchange for leniency,” he said. “I did it for the right reasons: to create a fully cooperative acknowledgement of the massive drug problem in elite sport.”

For the doping authorities to be more successful, he recommends better target-testing. “When you see that the fastest two men in the world are both from a track club in Los Angeles, for instance, or the Bay Area, or North Carolina or Jamaica – this should be worth looking at. What you need to do is take the dollars you have and the number of tests you have and focus your resources on the top ten in each event. Why test the top 100 – the people who are not winning races and not winning dollars? Why test everybody two times when you could test the top ten ten times?”

He also recommends better timing of the testing. “The testing used to drop off hugely in the fourth quarter of the year. But my point is, this is the off-season quarter when the athletes are using substances for their intensive weight training. Why did the testers decide to take a nap then?”

This is why, he said, Balco’s level of sophistication is not required to be a cheat. “I know of people who have very little information and are still able to get round the procedures. The authorities say they are improving – and they are. But is it still relatively easy for athletes to use drugs and beat the system? The answer is yes.”

And yes, it appears Conte is still smarter than everyone else.  Ask him.

Victor Conte tells all to the Times, Part One

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)

Floyd Landis hearing opens today at Pepperdine

The long awaited Floyd Landis arbitration hearing opens today at Pepperdine University Law School in Malibu, California.  The San Jose Mercury story here:

Floyd Landis stands accused of cheating in last year's Tour de France. But once the long-awaited hearing for the Tour winner begins Monday in Southern California, the sports drug-testing establishment also is likely to find itself on trial.

Landis plans to challenge the accepted practices of drug testing and the integrity of its officials in a high-profile case expected to last 10 days at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

The hearing represents "an important test to see if the anti-doping system can begin to change for the good of sport and the sake of justice and fairness," Landis said Thursday.

The case has attracted thousands of supporters who watched with awe Landis' stunning comeback in last year's Tour. Americans embraced the refreshingly honest Mennonite with the injured hip, who rallied to keep an American on the victory stand in the first Tour of the post-Lance Armstrong era.

The hearing will center on a positive test for artificial testosterone and the competence of the French laboratory that analyzed it last summer during the Tour. Landis, who plans to testify, faces a two-year suspension and would be the first Tour winner in the race's 104-year history to be stripped of his title.

Whatever the outcome of the hearing, one has to admire the  perseverance, and the determination of Landis and his fans.  The Landis camp partially turned the focus from his culpability to the testing agencies, including the French agency, the USADA, and WADA.

Landis continues under suspicion, however an appeal to the general public's distrust of bureaucracy, big government, and 'the man' now sets new standards for any anti-doping agency.  Athletes dope then deceive the public; agencies commit sloppy work errors while lab testing, then return false positives.  Where is Norman Mailer when you need him to sort out these moral dilemmas and complex scenarios?

Great coverage is over at Trust But Verify.  TBV will keep you up-to-date with the press, and with the blogsphere on reports.  Rant is always good for a idiosyncratic view of things.  And we here at Steroid Nation are all about The Truth :-); which is what we say it is, basically because of our supernatural powers (don't we need some humor to get through all of this?)

Arbitrator Chris Campbell wrote this about the process:

Make your best points at the hearing quickly and narrow your focus. Your case will
often be won or lost in the first hour of the hearing.

Sounds like good advice.

Soccer player gone for juicing...used iv of garlic

In the 'Man that's overkill' category, a soccer player from Japan sits out a 6 game suspension after he employed an iv drip for garlic infusions.  From the San Jose Mercury-News:

Japanese soccer player Kazuki Ganaha was battling the flu recently, prompting him to take a garlic intravenous infusion for its anti-bacterial properties.

Boom. Six-game ban from the Japanese league. Relax, Gilroy. The striker for Kawasaki Frontale wasn't suspended because of the garlic. He was punished for the IV drip, which is in violation of the league's anti-doping rules. The rule also is in line with FIFA, soccer's world governing body.

The league has nothing against garlic, baked beans or any other potentially offensive foods.

Perhaps the league should have suspended him for faulty logic problems.  If he had 'the flu', any anti-bacterial is of no use.  A virus causes 'the flu' (influenza).  Other than stinking up the place, garlic would be worthless.

Is Major League Baseball getting a surge of 'stimulant' buzzes?

SignOnSanDiego.com (The San Diego Union-Tribune) and Mark Zeigler report that MLB players may be speeding ahead with 'stimulant' (really amphetamine) use.  Way ahead.

It is a single number buried in a 14-page report from the World Anti-Doping Agency, but it is another strong indication that major league baseball players are continuing to pop amphetamines and other banned stimulants despite the introduction of testing last year.

MLB sends urine samples to a Montreal lab, which is WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) certified.  Test data is released to WADA, and WADA boss Dick Pound.  WADA reported the increased amphetamine positive test results in the annual report.  The numbers are startling:

In years past, the Montreal lab reported about 20 annual positives for banned stimulants.

In 2006, the first year MLB began stimulant testing there, the number jumped significantly.

To 104.

The data get complicated because it appears that the positive amphetamine tests are not broken out into sport specific data.  However, the jump in positive tests for amphetamine occurred when the MLB tests were added to the Montreal lab's work load  (more detail about this after the jump).  This suggests, but does not verify that the five-fold increase in amphetamine positives occurred because of the addition of the MLB samples.

Experts and players long identified amphetamine use as problematic in MLB clubhouses as well reported by Zeigler and the San Diego Union-Tribune in April.  That piece details greenie use by Pete Rose, among others.

Barry Bonds, by report, gave a positive urine for amphetamine; this was never confirmed by MLB.  MLB policy on amphetamine use differs from the policy on steroid use. A player testing positive for amphetamine use goes into counseling for the first positive test and is suspended 25 games for a second.  As seen this week, in the MLB a positive test for steroids results in a 50 game suspension, first time.

Sounds like WADA and MLB might have some explaining to do.  Perhaps someone can 'leak' this...

Postive THC for female paralympic skier. Heavy penalty to follow.

Medal winning Canadian, paralympic skier Kimberly Joines drew a 9 month suspension for a positive THC test taken at an Aspen World Cup event in January 2007.  WADA lists the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, as a PED.  Over the top?

The report here in Canada.com states that Joines suffered a fractured spine in 2000, which left her paralyzed.  She competes in paralympic downhill skiing event.

BONN, Germany — Canadian Paralympic skier Kimberly Joines has been banned from competition for nine months after testing positive for marijuana.

The Edmonton native tested positive at a World Cup event in Aspen, Colo., in January.

Joines, 26, had illegal levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, the International Paralympic Committee said Thursday.

She was given a nine-month ban because it was her first doping offense.

Joines, who broke her back in a snowboarding accident in 2000, won a bronze medal in the sit-ski super-G at the 2006 Turin Paralympics.

A couple years ago Joines slipped off a ski-lift, falling 35 feet with only minor injuries.  After a fall like that anyone might need some THC to get back to skiing.

Should THC be on the PED list?  Perhaps it relaxes certain competitors.  However, The Nation wonders if THC isn't anti-PED.  We would certainly consider a far lighter sanction (to bed without munchies) than given for the heavy duty PEDs.  Joines will be forced to suffer disproportionally for the severity of the offense.  As indicated here in First Tracks Online, the paralymphian will pay a heavy price for a light dose of THC.  Several medals she won will go up in smoke:

According to the IPC Anti-Doping Code (Article 12.1 and 12.7), all individual results obtained at the 2007 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup and thereafter shall be disqualified. This includes the forfeit of any medals, points and prizes. Joines recorded a gold medal in Super G on January 17 in Aspen, a 5th place in Slalom in Arte Therme, Italy on March 12, and a 6th place in Giant Slalom the following day. Joines took home the bronze medal from the Super G in Arte Therme on March 14. She ended up in 6th place overall on the 2007 World Cup, ranked third in Super G, 5th in Slalom and 6th in Giant Slalom.

Trouble in Paradise: Honolulu Marathon woman's winner juiced. Called the 'Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire of the...Marathon'

From the Honolulu Advertiser comes breaking news that the 2006 women's winner of the Honolulu Marathon  -- Lyubov Denisova -- kicked out a high Testosterone:Epitestosterone ration, indicating she used a testosterone steroid.  The test leads to automatic disqualification of 3 races she ran in since the urine sample;  however she keeps the serious $67,000 prize of the Honolulu.

Lyubov Denisova, who set a new women's course record at last year's Honolulu Marathon, has tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone and could be suspended from competition for up to two years.

Denisova's manager Andrey Baranov confirmed today that the 35-year-old Russian runner tested positive for an elevated testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio — the same finding that derailed 2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis.

According to Baranov, the elevated testosterone level was caused by a supplement Denisova ordered over the Internet in January. He said he was unaware of the purchase until after the test.

Ah, the supplement excuse, highly developed by NFL player Shawne Merriman.  Of course, there have been cases of supplement contamination.  However, her manager trots out the Sammy Sosa 'no speaka the English' defense for good measure.

"She went to the Internet to save money on something you would normally get at a GNC," Baranov said. "She read that it would increase her oxygen capacity and increase muscle strength, and she thought that it was legal to use. Her English is limited so she didn't understand. She should have called me or the Russian (Track and Field) Federation, but she didn't.

This athlete is a very seasoned marathon runner.  She should be able figure out these junior high supplement problems.  This positive test probably costs the runner, big time:

The World Anti-Doping Agency conducted the random "out-of-competition" test at Denisova's home in Gainsville, Fla., on March 20.

Following regular testing protocol, the sample was divided in two. When the "A" sample revealed evidence of performance-enhancing drugs, the "B" sample was sent to Montreal for independent confirmation.

Baranov said he received word last Friday that the "B" sample did indeed confirm the original finding.

Once the findings and penalties are officially announced, Denisova's results from the three races in which she competed after the date of the test will be voided.

Denisova won the More Magazine Half-Marathon Relay in New York on March 25. She placed seventh in both the Cooper River Bridge Run 10K in Charleston, S.C., on March 31, and the Boston Marathon on April 16.

However, she can keep the $67,000 from Hawaii.  Nike might not be so nice:

Denisova's record finish at the Dec. 9, 2006, Honolulu Marathon, and the $67,000 she received in prize and incentive money, cannot be redressed — much to the consternation of Honolulu Marathon Association president Jim Barahal.

"We're extremely disappointed that our defending champion tested positive," Barahal (Hawaii Marathon Offical) said. "It's totally against the ethic of our sport. We can't go back in time and take back the money and the title, but it's a reasonable conclusion that if she was cheating in February and March, it's likely that she was under the influence in December.

"I can't prove it, unfortunately," Barahal said. "It's disappointing that she's become the Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire of the Honolulu Marathon."

The fallout for Denisova is potentially devastating. At 35, Denisova is already considered relatively old for a competitive marathoner. In addition to losing whatever money she might have earned from competing, Denisova, who bought her house in Florida shortly after her victory in Honolulu, could find her contract with Nike in jeopardy if she's dealt a prolonged suspension.

The organizer of the Honolulu Marathon doesn't sound pleased with her:

"She'll never run here again," Barahal said.

L'Equipe on Landis; BBC: Landis 'infuriated'

Here is the translated L'Equipe report on Landis.  Further Landis information here: L'Equipe translation and Landis' response.  Trust but verify, summarizes the bizarre reports out today.

Cycling - Doping - overpowered Landis

The analyses complementary carried out on the seven samples of Floyd Landis, taken at the time of the Turn of France 2006 and classified negative initially, would clearly let appear, on several occasions, of the synthetic testosterone traces. The runner American, victorious of the Outer Loop but controlled positive officially first once at the end of the test to this same exogenic testosterone, must appear next on May 14 before the panel of the American Agency antidopage (USADA) and risks a two year old suspension.

From now on, after having been first of all opposed to the principle of retroactive analysis, Landis, having confronted with the new overpowering results establish by the laboratory of Châtenay-Malabry (LNDD), will have to readjust its strategy of defense as fast as possible. Because these new positive samples, proven by the means of the technique of the IRMS, which distinguishes the origin from detected testosterone - natural or synthetic -, will consolidate the charge, in the event the USADA (and the UCI). Moreover, Floyd Landis, who has évertué itself for several months with décrédibiliser the French laboratory, will have well evil, this time, to use of this argument: the new analyses, carried out last week and enclosed this weekend, were carried out in the presence of two experts appointed by the American runner, and of two representatives of the USADA.

The BBC reports Landis is 'infuriated':

Floyd Landis says he is "infuriated" at US anti-doping officials over what he calls a "malicious series of actions" over his Tour de France B samples.

Tests on the samples at a laboratory in Paris concluded on Sunday with French paper L'Equipe reporting they showed traces of synthetic testosterone.

Landis's consultant Paul Scott was excluded from witnessing the tests, in the absence of two USADA experts.

Landis said it was "yet another in a series of malicious actions by USADA".

"How can I be expected to prove my innocence while USADA (the US Anti-Doping Agency) endeavors to break their own rules at every turn?" he questioned on his personal website.

"Together, they have turned this proceeding into a full-scale attack on my civil rights and a mockery of justice.

"I'm infuriated by the behavior of USADA and the (French anti-doping lab) LNDD," he added.

News Flash: Floyd Landis tests positive for synthetic steroid...again

Just in from news outlets (L'Equipe reference here):  Floyd Landis' urine samples, undergoing secondary testing show synthetic anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone).

As everyone breathing knows, Floyd Landis won the Tour de France in 2006.  However his urine samples tested for a high T:E after one of the stages.  Later, synthetic testosterone was found in a follow-up test.  Landis' Tour title was held in escrow as officials tried to sort the entire imbroglio out.

Since then Landis has gone public with his Wiki-defense, claiming any number of Tour screw-ups.  The USADA ordered testing of Landis other urine samples.  And....(from the LA Times) this just in.  Realize these tests DO NOT REPEATS of the Stage 17 of last year.  The LNDD compiled tests on other stages of the Tour where Landis T:E ration was under 4:1; those samples would not be normally be referred for synthetic steroid testing (SFGate).

Synthetic testosterone found in Landis’ “B” samples
by Philip Hersh, Special to The Times

Evidence of synthetic testosterone has been found in "several" of the other urine samples Floyd Landis gave while winning the 2006 Tour de France, the French newspaper L'Equipe reported on its website Monday.

The arbitration panel hearing Landis' case approved in March a request by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to allow testing of the other samples. The tests were done in the same Paris laboratory that found Landis positive on the sample given after the dramatic mountain stage victory that wiped out a substantial time deficit and put him in the race lead for good.

According to L'Equipe, which did not cite the sources of its information, two representatives each of both Landis and USADA witnessed the retests on the "B" portions of the urine samples.

Landis was tested eight times during the Tour de France; seven of the eight, on which only the "A" portion was analyzed, originally were declared negative. Those seven had not been analyzed with the more sophisticated carbon-isotope ratio testing until last week.

Landis held a press conference just minutes ago.  Report here.

Landis' hasn't gotten any official results, and hopes to get them in a few days. As noted in the earlier press release, they complained that USADA ran the analytical process, with their expert and attorney "over the line", while Landis' expers Scott and Davis were kept on the other side. They said that they were denied visibility into the critical parts of the analysis.

...Landis believes the leak could only have come from LNDD or USADA, an issue they expect to take up with the arbiters this week.

At the conclusion of the prepared remarks, Floyd gave a blistering attack, saying that he won the Tour fair and square; that is disappointed but not surprised by the leaked results, which show that what few rights athletes have are routinely ignored, reflecting a lack of ethics by the agencies. He thinks what happened at the LNDD borders on deliberate falsification and destruction of evidence.
 

(CBS report after the jump)

Steroid Nation available in China

Alerted by The Wizard of Odds, Steroid Nation panicked briefly.  Our critical information (smile) might not be making it into the site of the next Olympiad -- mainland China.  The Wiz noted that that site's URL is blocked by China.  Thus, we tested The Nation's availability to the huge mass of Chinese sports fans (on The Great Wall of China site).

We rest easier now.  We made it past the Great Firewall of China.  We continue our mission to inform the literate universe of the status of anabolic agents.

Vials found at world swimming championships

Preliminary reports indicate somethings amiss at the world swimming championships in Victoria Aus.  There are reports of a vial found containing an illicit substance.  From the Olympian Online:

MELBOURNE, Australia - Australia's anti-doping agency will test a clear liquid found in a hotel hosting a number of teams in the world swimming championships.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority will use its powers to investigate the clear liquid in the vials, given that the swimming worlds are under way and the hotel is hosting a number of competitors, ASADA spokesman Simon Tidy said today.

A small box containing vials of a clear liquid was found Tuesday in a common room at Melbourne's Parkview Hotel. Police said small traces of illicit drugs were found in the box, but not in the vials.

Sins of the MLB fathers: Why do second generation MLB players juice?

RealGMBaseball has an editorial pondering why '2nd generation' MLB players (Bonds, Matthews, Jr., Bell etc.) use steroids, and anabolics.  Interesting stuff.

This article is well researched and well written.

From a male child’s first steps, he is always trying to walk in his father’s footsteps. A son idolizes his father from the very onset of childhood. At a young age, a son wants so much to please his father and receive his approval and acceptance...

The author recounts how many sons follow in their father's footsteps from George W. Bush to Keifer Sutherland.  Then, the MLB sons:

Barry Bonds, Jerry Hairston Jr., David Bell, and Gary Matthews Jr. have all thrived at one point in their major league career. They all also have grown up watching their fathers play. And they all have been involved in performance enhancing scandals...

For centuries past, present, and future, sons will always look up to their fathers. However, sometimes extreme adulation can lead to desperate measures by those sons who are committed to supplanting their father’s past successes. In this case, four MLB players have grown up surrounded by the game and felt it was necessary to follow in their fathers’ footsteps, yearning to prosper and reach heights higher than their procreators had ever achieved. However, when bumps in the road occurred and it seemed as if they were on the precipice of failure, they turned to performance enhancing drugs rather than pure blood, sweat and tears. By toiling in this ever-growing illegal saga, their legacies will be forever jaded, and perhaps so will those of their fathers. So, rather than making their dads proud, they have done nothing but tarnish the reputation and the integrity not only of the game, but also of their family name.

The original article is much longer, and well worth a read.  Many more details than we include here.  Check it out.

 

Which Landis Sample Was Tested?

(By James)

This past weekend we attended the Landis' Tour of Innocence.  Recall that we wrote about it last Sunday.  Again, if your not familiar with Landis's argument, see the video links included in our previous post.  The videos take about 20 minutes to watch and they lay out the public argument the Landis camp is using to promote their innocence.

Floyd's technical arguments are led by Dr. Arnie Baker MD.  Arnie is a former doctor that now trains cyclists in the San Diego area - including Floyd for many years.

One of the arguments put forth by Baker is the possibility that the wrong sample was tested.  Or, the output from more than one sample was jumbled together in the lab documentation of Landis.

Last November when this was first brought public by Baker, officials at the Paris lab initially scoffed at the idea.  Later they admitted to some "typing mistakes" but assured everyone their was no doubt that the sample tested was Landis.  As we detailed last Sunday:

Baker now tells us that the incorrect sample number in Floyd's documentation was actually the sample number of another rider that was tested on stage 19.

Furthermore, that other sample was also tested at the LNDD on the same day as Floyd’s! This cast the labeling error in a whole new light.  The labeling error could have been more than just an innocent typographical error as another sample with that number was tested the same day in that same lab!

To further this argument, Baker provided us with the following slide.

(click on image for a larger version)

Does this mean the Paris lab tested the wrong sample?  Not necessarily.  But now that we know the incorrect number is not a random typo, it is up to USADA to show that the right sample was tested.  Short of a DNA test of the sample, we're not sure how they can prove this. 

Albany attorney Soares to forward names of Intenet 'users' to pro leagues

Albany district attorney David Soares will forward names and addresses of suspected professional athletes to their respective leagues.  The New York Daily News published the story today.

Albany District Attorney David Soares said yesterday he will take the names of any athlete who was buying drugs from two pharmacies involved in a nationwide steroid investigation and forward them to the leagues they play for, including the National Football League and Major League Baseball. Those players ultimately could be called as witnesses against the distributors and physicians who are the targets of Soares' ongoing investigation, known as "Operation Which Doctor."

How will Soares' office know whom is an athlete and whom isn't?  Do they have database technology?  Or someone from SI helping with the task?  And if the athlete uses an alias, such as Evander Holyfield, or ''Evan Fields' used, what then?

"We're going to be sending (the leagues) information to vet those names, see if they are who they say they are," Soares told the Daily News yesterday. The leagues should be able to identify whether the mailing addresses and other personal information associated with clients of the two pharmacies are in fact those of athletes, athletes using aliases or other clients who used the names of athletes as aliases while ordering steroids and human growth hormone.

The NFL and MLB are interestingly quiet on the possibility of receiving names of players who ordered drugs, as this is potentially a huge embarrassment.

Spokesmen for MLB and the NFL said they were unaware Soares would be sending a letter or providing names, and declined to comment further.

Soares said he does not plan to make the names public, but acknowledged that once the names are in circulation, it is entirely possible that they could find the light of day.

US Anti-Doping Agency bans track coach

The USADA banned for life,track coach Remi Korchemny.  The ban cites BALCO involvement and promotion of anabolics. Story in SFGate.com

In its announcement, USADA said Korchemny is "no longer eligible for participation in any sport organization that recognizes the World Anti-Doping Code, including the IAAF, USA Track & Field and the U.S. Olympic Committee.'' He is the first coach in any sport to be disciplined by USADA.

The coach thinks he is banned for using the wrong drink:

"I already suffered a lot,'' Korchemny told The Chronicle. "The punishment was very, very soft for me because the judge realized my role was minimal. I call myself a cherry in a cocktail glass  --  not the drink, just the cherry.

"The punishment is already over. I don't care. I am 75 years old. Why do I have to contest this and waste my energy? They can do what they want.''

He continues to  search as a volunteer track coach.

Best anti-doping chemist in the world, Don Catlin moves out of drug testing

Don Catlin, the preeminent expert in laboratory drug testing, is moving out of that endeavor to concentrate on research, the Washington Post reports today.  The Nation puts up some interesting posts, some amusing posts, but perhaps no more important post that this information.  Dr Catlin is a world class expert in detecting sports doping.  If he concentrates his efforts on research, odds are that some interesting innovative methods could be developed.  Stay tuned.

Don Catlin, widely considered the most respected chemist in the anti-doping community, has decided to leave the world of drug testing after more than 25 years to pursue research, he said today.

In a field in which testers have struggled to keep up with the innovations of cheaters, Catlin, 68, has been credited with nearly a dozen major testing discoveries and busts during the past decade, making him the most feared scientist among athletes who cheat with performance-enhancing drugs

Catlin was involved in:

• The BALCO investigation where he discovered the previously unknown steroid THG
• Devising a test for darbepoitin
• Developing the carbon-isotope ratio (CIR) test

Catlin's decision to leave the testing world comes a week after USADA CEO Terry Madden stepped down from his post, but the departures were not related.