|
BALCO scandal now a Grecian formula
Athletes and coaches are implicated
San Francisco Chronicle
Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Athens -- This was supposed to be the day Greece stood still.
The day Kostas Kenteris, the runner they call "Greece
Lightning" and "Son of the Wind," tried to repeat as an
Olympic champion.
Instead, the Greek Olympic team has been engulfed in a doping
scandal that shoved both 200-meter champ Kenteris and Katerina
Thanou, defending silver medalist in the 100 meters, out of
the Games and sparked several Greek governmental probes. The
pair failed to report for drug tests and said they had been
involved in a mysterious motorcycle accident.
In the background of the current controversy in Greece are
documents obtained by U.S. investigators, including some never
before made public, showing that some elite Greek athletes and
coaches have extensive links with Burlingame-based BALCO, the
nutritional lab at the center of an alleged international
steroid conspiracy.
The documents, which include a series of e-mails written by
BALCO founder Victor Conte in 2002 and 2003, indicate that
certain Greek athletes were receiving banned substances as
long as two years ago. The documents also show that one Greek
coach had developed a relationship with an Illinois chemist
whom Conte in the e-mails called "the clearman," because he
had developed an undetectable "clear" steroid that Conte
himself allegedly was distributing.
In most cases the documents don't name names, either because
the e-mail correspondents don't use them or because they were
deleted by investigators. One BALCO source said that Kenteris
and Thanou were named in the e-mails as having used banned
drugs, as the San Jose Mercury recently reported. But a Greek
coach who says he participated in some of the e-mail exchanges
says the identification isn't correct.
Conte and three other Bay Area men, including track coach Remi
Korchemny, are awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in San
Francisco on steroid conspiracy charges in the BALCO case.
The men have pleaded not guilty. Conte's lawyer, Robert
Holley, declined to discuss the e-mails, saying they were
inappropriately leaked to The Chronicle.
"We have an answer for everything, but we don't want to try
the case in the media," he said. "I am appalled that this type
of information is being leaked, and it's something that's
going to have to be dealt with by the court."
One string of e-mails involves Conte's attempts to warn Greek
athletes that Olympic drug testers have discovered "the
clear," the undetectable steroid that he indicates he provided
to athletes after obtaining it from "the clearman," whom Conte
in other passages identifies as Patrick Arnold, a manufacturer
of nutritional supplements from Illinois.
In an Aug. 20, 2002 e-mail with the subject line "heads-up,"
Conte told an unidentified international track coach that
athletes who were using his designer steroid suddenly were at
risk. In the e-mail, previously disclosed in court records,
Conte said it was important "to somehow get this information"
to the coach for two Greek athletes "so that nobody tests
positive." The athletes' names were deleted from court files.
The next day, in an e-mail obtained by The Chronicle, Conte
underscored the importance of the warning.
"The reason that the Greek track coach must know is that if
one of his athletes has a problem with testing, then the
testers will try to trace it back to the source," he wrote. "I
ask (sic) the clearman whether or not he had informed the
Greek about the problem and he said no, because he did not
know how to contact them. Any idea how to inform the Greek
coach to stop using the clear ...?"
The international track coach responded that he would contact
the Greek coach, but he predicted problems.
"It looks a bit crazy: me walking in his office and telling
him stop using what you use because ... etc., etc.," he wrote.
"Can you imagine his reaction? He will look at me like I am
from Mars! Maybe he will deny he is using clear and tell me
how I dare talk to him about these things."
In an Aug. 24 reply, Conte said his name shouldn't be
mentioned to the Greek coach.
"Just say a little birdie told you about Patrick Arnold being
under investigation by the IOC testers and that he should
contact Patrick immediately," Conte wrote. "... If he
continues and has an athlete get a positive test, then it will
be traced back to Patrick and this would not be good."
Arnold has declined to comment when questioned about BALCO. He
did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment Wednesday.
Andreas Linardatos, a Greek track coach, told an Athens
newspaper earlier this year that he was the recipient of the
Aug. 20 e-mail in which Conte warned about the discovery of
"the clear."
Reached at his home last week, as the Kenteris-Thanou scandal
was unfolding, Linardatos denied that Kenteris and Thanou were
the athletes named in the e-mail. The two were "never BALCO
clients," he said.
In November 2002, Conte was receiving e-mails regarding Greek
athletes and the use of banned substances.
On Nov. 16, Conte received an e-mail from an unknown person
reporting that track and field's world governing body (IAAF)
and the World Anti-Doping Agency were investigating the Greeks
for suspected doping.
"The IAAF and WADA are hunting the Greek athletes like crazy!"
the correspondent wrote. "... The problem is that the Greek
athletes appear only at major competitions and take the
medals. After (that) they disappear. ... WADA is definitely
not happy with us, but at the same time they can't catch
nobody."
In another e-mail, an unidentified person asked Conte about
the alphabetic code he used to refer the performance-enhancing
substances human growth hormone and insulin.
"For what stands the letters I and G?" he wrote. "Insul. and
growth? In Greece, the Gh we call it "foam" (haha)."
On Nov. 20, 2002, in an e-mail whose subject line referred to
the blood- doping substance EPO, Conte explained the code to a
Greek track and field coach whose name is redacted.
"L and C is what I gave you for your triple-jumper," Conte
wrote. "S is what they take before competition readily
available in Greece. And remember that all e-mails are saved
for a very long time, so be careful about how you say what you
say."
Investigators believe L and C were codes for undetectable
steroids while S stood for the stimulant modafinil. Other
documents show that Korchemny, the coach indicted in the BALCO
case, also received e-mails regarding Greek athletes, Conte
and doping. One suggests that Korchemny's unnamed
correspondent was familiar with a new "clear" steroid being
distributed by Conte.
"I was the last 20 days in Cyprus for a training camp," the
person wrote on March 21, 2002. "... Speed is coming on and
you can see smiles on the athletes' faces ... Endurance work
and the pain of lactic acid make no one happy (only the coach)
...
"I recently found some information about the stuff trenbolone
("Clear") that Victor ... and others are using. The
information was that although the stuff is an anabolic
steroid, surprisingly it has a side effect ... A Steroid and a
Stimulant together!!!!! ... and Clear ... !!!!"
Korchemny's lawyer, George Walker, couldn't be reached for
comment.
[Link]
|
[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
