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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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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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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The founder of BALCO, Victor Conte, who has been convicted in a steroid distribution scheme, is reported to have said that baseball star Barry Bonds knew he was taking designer steroids.

An ESPN website report, citing an unnamed source close to Conte speaking to ESPN magazine, said Bonds took a major interest in the composition of the substances he used to bulk his frame.

From Foxsports.com.au:

The source said Conte told him Bonds sought BALCO’s services to “get jacked” and knew exactly what he was taking.

Bonds has denied knowingly taking steroids even though his trainer, Greg Anderson, joined Conte and two other men in being convicted in the BALCO steroid probe.

Conte has said he had no dealings with BALCO baseball clients and denied the source’s story to ESPN on Friday.

Bonds testified to a grand jury in 2004 that he did not think items he received from Anderson were steroids, even though prosecutors believe they were, according to testimony uncovered by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The report said Patrick Arnold, who pleaded guilty in April to distributing steroids, made a similar admission.

Tags: BALCO, BALCO steroid, Barry Bonds, designer steroids, steroid, Victor Conte

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BALCO founder Victor Conte said that the recently developed anti-doping fight characterized by collection of blood samples from minor league players is fundamentally flawed.

Conte remarked that players will know in advance when they will be tested and said this appears to be ‘announced’ or ‘IQ’ testing instead of drug testing”.

From NYdailynews.com:

“A baseball player could possibly inject HGH as soon as leaving a ballpark and test negative from a blood sample collected ‘post-game’ the following day,” says Conte, who taught BALCO’s customers in Olympic sports how to evade supposedly strict anti-doping programs.

“HGH injections are routinely done at night before bed, so a morning blood sample would be the target,” says Conte. “The available test for HGH requires a random blood collection protocol to be considered anything more than a PR move by MLB.”

Growth hormone is believed to have replaced steroids as the muscle-builder of choice in baseball since the league began testing for steroids. HGH has been banned by MLB since 2005.

Dr. Gary Wadler, chairman of the prohibitive list of the World Anti-Doping Agency, expressed a different view by telling to the Daily News that this is a big step in conceptual terms.

Tags: BALCO, doping, growth hormone, HGH, HGH injections, Olympic sports, steroids, testing for steroids, Victor Conte

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The spotlight was on Shane Mosley last January 24 as he faced Antonio Margarito at the Staples Center. Margarito wasn’t able to do anything about Mosley’s aggressive attacks for the first six rounds. Although he was able to fight back on the seventh, this wasn’t enough to throw Mosley off. After a knockdown on the eighth round, Margarito was knocked out on the ninth after 43 seconds of trying to put up with his opponent.

What is truly amazing aside from the great determination that Mosley showed during the battle is that he kept his focus from round one. Mosley is facing several trials in his life right now. He just fired his father, Jack, from being his trainer. He is dealing with divorce from his wife, Jin, who had also been his manager. And he is facing an anabolic steroids scandal to which many legal actions against him are attached.

From ESPN News:

Outside the ring, Mosley – a former lightweight champ, now a two-time welterweight champ and unified junior middleweight champion – has had a lot of problems in recent months. He’s continually been dogged by his involvement in the BALCO steroids scandal and his admission that he had used substances given to him by disgraced BALCO boss Victor Conte before his second win against Oscar De La Hoya in September 2003. They turned out to be designer steroids “the clear” and “the cream.” He also admitted to being injected with EPO, the blood oxygen enhancer.

Last Saturday night, Mosley put on one of the greatest battles in his career. He may have regained the welterweight championship but it makes you wonder if this would be enough to help him regain the respect of those around him

Tags: Antonio Margarito, BALCO, designer steroids, erythropoietin, Performance enhancing drugs, Shane Mosley, steroids, The Clear, The Cream, Victor Conte

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Boxing

While Shane Mosley is waiting to battle it out with WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito on January 24, his legal team has been publicly battling it out with BALCO founder and owner Victor Conte.

Back in 2003, Mosley was one of the athletes involved with the BALCO Labs steroid scandal. Investigators reported that Mosley had received designer steroids (“the clear” and “the cream”) and was doping before his fight with Oscar De La Hoya the same year. Mosley was firm on his defense that he thought BALCO was selling him legal vitamins. Conte, on the other hand, claimed that the boxer knew he was taking steroids. Darryl Hudson, Mosley’s then-strength and conditioning coach, sided with Conte.

From Maxboxing:

But in 2007, as he prepared for a bout with Miguel Cotto, an SI.com report was published that detailed his use of two separate designer steroids and EPO prior to his bout with De La Hoya in 2003. When asked about this by Tim Smith of the New York Daily News in a story that came out on September 29, 2007 (‘Shane Mosley admits to using BALCO steroids’) he would state, “We were misled by (Conte). I guess I got the clear and the cream.”

To which Conte would respond via email, “I’ve never misled or deceived any athlete. I’ve always been a man of full disclosure.”

Then Mosley would tell Lance Pugmire of the LA Times in November of that year that his then-strength and conditioning coach Darryl Hudson had influenced him to take the BALCO products, saying to him that they would be, “icing on the cake.” It wasn’t soon after that Hudson would file a defamation suit versus Mosley.

There have been many discrepancies with Mosley’s stories, and Conte is prepared to address each and every detail that had been turned around. After all, Conte is not a novice in legal suits. He had been involved in a similar case with Marion Jones, a multi-gold medalist track and field athlete. Conte had come clean and eventually, Jones admitted to have used anabolic steroids amidst initially filing a defamation suit against Conte. Apparently, Jones’ first statement also claimed that she thought Conte had been selling her vitamins.

Mosley will be facing the court this January 15th in San Francisco, just a few days before his match.

Tags: BALCO, boxing, GNC, illegal drugs, Performance enhancing drugs, Shane Mosely, steroids, Victor Conte

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From The Independent:

In the 100m quarter-finals in the Bird’s Nest, Usain Bolt flew down the track to the 50-metre mark, then shut down his engine and coasted to victory in 9.92sec. Breaking 10 seconds is still considered a sporting feat of note, but Bolt did it without breaking sweat. It was obvious then that the 9.70sec barrier would not survive the final.

And so it proved, although nobody could have envisaged the breathtaking manner in which Bolt would shatter it. Some suggested it was as stunning as Ben Johnson’s 9.79sec win in Seoul back in 1988. But, even pumped up to the yellowing eyeballs on anabolic steroids, Big Bad Ben did not produce quite such a jaw-dropping performance in the most notorious Olympic 100m final. He was flat to the boards until he raised an index finger in celebration as the finish line approached. His winning margin over Carl Lewis was 0.13sec.

Bolt started his celebrations some 20m from the line, stretching out both arms in a “Hey, get me” statement, then beating his right fist against his chest. He still managed to stop the digits on the trackside clock at 9.69, and won by a margin of 0.20sec – a veritable street in sprinting terms.

The clowning that followed was far from the preening arrogance of so many American speed merchants down the years. It was a joyous, natural breath of fresh air from a young man who has redefined the term Cool Runnings.

In an event that looked to be in terminal decline from a barrage of drug scandals, the Lightning Bolt was just what the doctor might have ordered for the mens’ 100m, and for track and field. He had fueled himself on chicken nuggets, and he proceeded to have Michael Johnson’s treasured 200m world record for breakfast. With a little help from his Jamaican friends, he also consigned the 4 x 100m relay world record to history.

Bolt’s impressive performance on the track in Beijing had not only yielded accolades but scrutiny as well.

BALCO founder Victor Conte voiced out his concern in connection with athletes like Bolt who hail from Caribbean countries. Most of these countries lack independent anti-doping agencies to check the cleanliness of these athletes according to confessed and jailed steroid supplier Conte.

American sprint star Carl Lewis similarly expressed his disbelief of Bolt’s performance with this statement: “I’m still working with the fact he dropped from 10-flat to 9.6 in one year,” American Lewis was quoted as saying. “I think there are some issues … countries like Jamaica do not have a random (dope control) program so they can go months without being tested.”

Bolt, in response, said: “I know I’m clean. I work hard for what I want,”

“I know what he said. To me it doesn’t really matter what he said, a lot of people were saying that.

“Carl Lewis can say whatever he wants. That’s just his opinion,” Lewis said

Tags: 100-meter event, anabolic steroids, Beijing Olympics, Caribbean countries, Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt, Victor Conte

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics