The Major League Baseball may have come to an agreement with its players to test their blood for human growth hormone but the game will be expected to come to grips with its present testing before it touts itself as the leader in new drug testing, said BALCO founder Victor Conte.

Conte further remarked that MLB should be using a more sophisticated form of detecting testosterone or its HGH testing would not really make a difference as players often make use of small amounts of testosterone in conjunction with HGH.

From Articles.nydailynews.com:

“HGH is not effective unless it is used in conjunction with testosterone or other anabolic steroids,” Conte says. “It’s important to understand that HGH is not an anabolic agent. It is an anti-catabolic agent. It basically helps to reduce muscle degradation and enables a player to maintain the gains they’ve made using steroids for a longer period of time. By itself, HGH has been shown to have no significant performance-enhancing effects.”

Conte, who is now an advocate for stronger testing, has been saying for years that the 4-to-1 testosterone to epitestosterone ratio used by baseball and other leagues to detect testosterone use is ineffective.

“Testosterone gels, creams and patches will clear an MLB player’s system within a matter of hours and be below the 4 to 1 T/E ratio allowable in urine,” he says. “A player could possibly use a fast-acting form of testosterone at night after a game to help with recovery and their T/E ratio would be within the normal range by the time they would get to the ballpark the next evening.

“If MLB were to implement CIR testing, I believe they would possibly catch a significant number of players using testosterone,” Conte says.

Tags: anabolic steroids, BALCO, baseball, HGH testing, human growth hormone, Major League Baseball, MLB, steroids, testosterone, Testosterone gels, testosterone to epitestosterone ratio, Victor Conte

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On Wednesday, Mexican fighter Juan Manuel Marquez defended himself as doping clouds arose after his strength coach was revealed to be among those involved in a major doping scandal that stung US athletics.

“Whatever doping they want to do – blood, Olympian – whatever they want to do, I’ll do it, as long as he does it too,” Marquez said through a translator.

From Sport24.co.za:

Victor Conte, whose BALCO products were at the centre of a major doping scandal, revealed in a Twitter posting on Monday that Marquez’s strength and conditioning coach was Angel Heredia, who testified in a doping investigation.

Heredia admitted providing banned performance-enhancing substances to Trevor Graham, former coach of disgraced former stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery among others.

Alex Ariza, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, commented about Marquez looking bigger and stronger as well. Together with Heredia’s past links to doping, Marquez found himself on the defensive about his fit physique.

“It’s a shame all the work I’ve done has been trashed by these guys, Conte and Ariza,” Marquez said.

Tags: athletics, BALCO, conditioning coach, doping, Juan Manuel Marquez, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Trevor Graham, Victor Conte

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Angel “Memo” Hernandez, the strength and conditioning coach of Juan Manuel Marquez, recently threatened to sue Alex Ariza, his counterpart in the camp of Manny Pacquiao.

“I would like to say through this medium and the public that logically, we are preparing a lawsuit for defamation against Mr. Alex Ariza,” Hernandez said, his words translated from Spanish.

From Boxingforum.com:

While it is unclear exactly which of Ariza’s comments have sparked Hernandez’ statements, Hernandez has come under scrutiny lately after former BALCO chief Victor Conte revealed through his Twitter account on Monday that Hernandez is the former Angel Heredia.

As the government’s star witness in the infamous BALCO doping cases, Heredia testified before a San Francisco court in May of 2008 that he had sold banned substances—namely EPO, growth hormone and steroids—to Olympic sprinters like Marion Jones.

Conte ended up serving four months in prison for his role in orchestrating the steroid distribution scandal.

However, Hernandez’ ire was not directed at Conte, but rather at Ariza and Pacquiao, the latter of whom will fight Marquez on Nov. 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“On his behalf, the declarations he has made are very direct. I think they’re very prejudicial not just with respect toward the image of Juan Manuel Marquez, but for mine as his physical trainer,” Hernandez said.

Tags: BALCO, conditioning coach, EPO, growth hormone, Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny Pacquiao, Marion Jones, steroid, steroids

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Victor Conte, one of the United States’ most controversial doping experts and founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), believes that the record-breaking success of Jamaican athletes at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China was a fraud.

Conte made his suspicions of Usain Bolt and other Jamaican runners known during an interview with Italian newspaper, La Gazetta dello Sport.

From Examiner.com:

According to Conte, athletes from another Caribbean nation told him that at the 2001 IAAF world championships in Edmonton, a doctor from their team supplied them with testosterone, EPO (erythropoietin) amongst other steroids. Furthermore, Conte intimated that an informer told him that prior to the 2008 Olympics, Jamaicans were using the same methods that he was using during his time at BALCO.

“I don’t have proof, but all you need to do is look at the results: I strongly suspect (Usain) Bolt, and the others (Jamaicans),” Conte said.

Tags: BALCO, doping, EPO, erythropoietin, Olympic Games, steroids, testosterone, Usain Bolt, Victor Conte

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Victor Conte, the former doping guru, has claimed that all eight 100 meter finalists at the Sydney Olympics were cheats.

The finger of suspicion was also raised by Conte at world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica in an interview with Italy’s La Gazetta dello Sport.

From Heraldsun.com.au:

Conte, the former mentor to disgraced track star Marion Jones, was the brains behind the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) which produced and supplied once-undetectable designer steroids to many top sports stars.

A police raid on BALCO in 2004, and the fallout from the affair, rocked athletics and baseball to its foundations and has ended the career of many promising athletes.

Three-time Olympic champion Jones never tested positive, but her career fell apart after she was jailed for perjury amid a federal investigation into BALCO which uncovered the full scope of Conte’s operation.

“I believe that before the BALCO affair, 80 per cent of athletes were using steroids, today that figure stands at about 65 per cent,” Conte said in the hard-hitting interview.

Tags: BALCO, baseball, doping, steroids, Sydney Olympics, Usain Bolt, Victor Conte

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In the perjury trial of Barry Bonds, the former baseball player and the home run King, prosecutors finished their closing argument by painting him as a slippery superstar.

Prosecutors remarked that the ex-baseball player lied to hide his use of performance enhancing drugs.

From Reuters.com:

Nedrow said witnesses’ testimony, documents, a secret recording, drug bottles and syringes show Bonds lied to protect his reputation, recklessly thwarting a grand jury investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO).

The government agreed not to hold him accountable for his 2003 grand jury testimony — unless he lied.

“Why would the defendant testify falsely after getting immunity?” Nedrow asked. “The reason was a secret and it was a powerful secret and it was that he had been using anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. He had concern that it would taint his accomplishments.”

Bonds’ attorneys planned to deliver their closing argument on Thursday with jury deliberations set to begin as early as Friday in the highest profile U.S. case involving sports and performance-enhancing drugs.

“All he had to do was tell the truth,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nedrow said before a packed courtroom. “He chose not to tell the truth and that’s why he’s here.”

Tags: BALCO, Barry Bonds, baseball, Performance enhancing drugs

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A suspected steroid ring in Florida that was accused of distributing anti-aging treatments to celebrities and muscle building drugs to professional athletes has been busted by authorities.

At least eight people were arrested in Florida, New York, and Texas, according to officials.

From Reuters.com:

“There are celebrities involved in the case as consumers,” Albany District Attorney David Soares told reporters in Orlando.

Officials also confirmed a report in Albany Times Union that the investigation could expose steroid use by current and former Major League Baseball players, National Football League players, bodybuilders and college and high school athletes.

Soares alleges the network prescribed anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and other substances over the Internet and without face-to-face examinations, supplying a large portion of the national market for illegal online steroid sales.

“The recent steroid raid in Florida doesn’t surprise me at all. People from all walks of life now are using performance enhancing substances,” Victor Conte, the head of the BALCO lab who served jail time on steroid distribution charges, told Reuters. “From athletes to movie stars, there seems to be an ever-growing need to find a competitive edge.”

Tags: anabolic steroids, BALCO, bodybuilders, human growth hormone, Major League Baseball, muscle building drugs, National Football League, online steroid, steroid

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Barry Bonds, the baseball home run king, used steroids from a lab that was able to attract other athletes because of his involvement.

This revelation was made by a federal prosecutor during the perjury trial of Bonds.

From Slam.canoe.ca:

Bonds, 46, who has pleaded not guilty to lying about use of performance-enhancing drugs, dressed in a dark suit with a light blue shirt and matching tie and conferred amicably with his team of five attorneys before the trial got under way.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew A. Parrella began by detailing a U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), whose head pleaded guilty to providing illegal performance enhancing drugs to professional athletes.

The Bonds case is one of the last strands in a lengthy investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Doping revelations tarnished the reputation of baseball, known as America’s national pastime.

Parrella promised to offer eyewitnesses who saw Anderson injecting Bonds, and evidence of anabolic steroids that were found in the home of Anderson and premises of BALCO.

Tags: anabolic steroids, BALCO, Barry Bonds, baseball, Performance enhancing drugs, steroids

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The former trainer of Barry Bonds, Greg Anderson, could face jail time again as perjury trial of his childhood friend and former client, Barry Bonds, finally gets underway.

Anderson is expected to appear in Judge Susan Illston’s U.S. District Court for answering questions about whether he will testify about his relationship with Bonds and whether he supplied the home run king with designer steroids from the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO).

From NYdailynews.com:

“Greg has been advised of various options,” Paula Canny, one of Anderson’s lawyers, told the Daily News this past week. “I’m not going to say what Greg and I have talked about, but given his past conduct, it’s pretty easy to predict – based on past behavior – what his future conduct is going to be.”

If indeed Anderson is marched off to prison, it will be the fourth time he has been put behind bars in the past six years – he was jailed once for steroid distribution and twice for his refusal to testify against Bonds. Anderson’s determination has substantially damaged the government’s case against Bonds, and has been a great personal cost as well as Anderson’s young son grew while he was in jail. And Anderson’s personal training career has gone off the rails.

“None of us are the same,” says Canny, who is close to Anderson. “If you would have said in 2003 or 2002, nine years later we’d still be dealing with this, I don’t think anybody would have ever thought that.”

Anderson will appear on whatever dates he is subpoenaed, but he will almost certainly refuse to answer prosecutors’ questions, according to his attorney.

Tags: BALCO, Barry Bonds, designer steroids, Greg Anderson, steroid distribution

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Victor Conte, the founder of the designer drugs pharmacy BALCO, has revealed that Marion Jones, the greatest female athlete of her generation, was provided with insulin, growth hormone, EPO, and ‘The Clear’ (users’ slang for THG) as well as nutritional supplements.

Conte also said Jones was on a cocktail of drugs including insulin, growth hormone, EPO, and THG when she won three gold medals and two bronze at the Sydney Olympics.

From Independent.ie:

“People have asked me: ‘Do you feel guilty about what you did? Are you ashamed?’ The answer is no. I got to a point where I realised elite sport is about doing what you have to do to win. My clients didn’t come to BALCO to learn how to do drugs. Most were already using (drugs) before they came.

“I’ve seen athletes being forced to decide whether to use or not use, and it’s much more painful for them to entertain the idea of giving up their dream than to use anabolic steroids. That’s what’s really going on. That’s the choice athletes face when they get to the very top.”

Conte’s interview contains extraordinary detail about Jones and the drugs regime that he oversaw, beginning with the build-up to the Sydney Olympics.

“CJ (Hunter, the shot-putter and her husband at the time) had called me six weeks before the Olympics to ask me to work with Marion,” he says. “I started providing her with insulin, growth hormone, EPO and ‘The Clear’ (users’ slang for THG) as well as nutritional supplements. She was on all of it at the 2000 Games. I tell you this knowing Marion passed a lie-detector test saying it’s not true. All that shows me is lie detectors don’t work.”

Conte also said, “Soon I was working with their (Jones and Montgomery’s) rivals,” he says. It is here that Dwain Chambers, of Great Britain, enters the story, another who, despite being banned, continues to profess his innocence. Conte says he gave Chambers “the full enchilada”: ‘The Clear,’ insulin, EPO, growth hormone, modafinil and a testosterone cream.

Tags: BALCO, EPO, growth hormone, insulin, Marion Jones, modafinil, nutritional supplements, testosterone cream, THG, Victor Conte

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