Through the letter which Dwain handed to us, he has provided a detailed account of his doping programme which highlights the level of sophistication that goes these systematic regimes. It is through this sort of information that we are able to better understand both the mindset of why athletes choose that path and the network that sits behind them. It is these networks of manufacture, trafficking and supply that we need to be able to tap into if we are to get to the heart of doping in sport.

Victor Conte (in a letter to sprinter Dwain Chambers) explained how easy it is for athletes to thwart anti-doping drug testers, even without designer steroids, using short acting steroids and performance enhancing drugs. It is called the “duck and dodge” technique (“Conte’s prescription for success,” May 16).

Slated for publication in September under the Skyhorse imprint, the book’s working title is “BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and What We Can Do To Save Sports.” Conte, in conjunction with co-author Nathan Jendrick, promises to share “the dirt, the drugs, the doses, the names, dates and places, and a ‘prescription’ for a brighter future.”

He promises the “complete truth in its honest, unadulterated and raw form” and says he is “ready to tell the world everything.”

Most people will be interested in hearing “the dirt” on the various athletes allegedly involved in recent years’ doping scandals. But my attention will be on  what Conte has to say about IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitsky. As Jeff Novitsky testifies on the stand against cyclist Tammy Thomas in her perjury (doping) trial, Victor Conte is working with co-author Nathan Jendrick to pen a book that is highly critical of Novitsky. Forget about the athletes like Barry Bonds or Marion Jones that have doped; Conte has told me that Novitsky is the biggest cheater in the entire BALCO steroid scandal is Jeff Novitsky. The NY Daily News confirms that Novitsky is a target.

One of Conte’s biggest targets is likely to be Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent who sniffed out the BALCO conspiracy in 2003 and has tenaciously chased down every twist in it ever since.

Conte claims Novitzky, who is on the witness stand Monday in the government’s prosecution of cyclist Tammy Thomas (the first BALCO athlete to refuse a plea bargain and take her case to trial), fabricated a confession he says Conte gave on the day of the BALCO raid, and lied in court documents.

The more we learn about doping related events like the BALCO scandal and the Floyd Landis doping scandal, the more we realize that we live in a society where “winning at all costs” is the only standard.  This not only applies to the “dopers” but particularly to the “anti-dopers.” It’s all about winning – not about following the rules, pursuing justice, leveling the playing field, right or wrong or integrity in sports. Jeff Novitsky, WADA, USADA, etc. simply want to win and will seemingly use any unfair advantage and break the rules to do so.

Roger Clemens’ defamation lawsuit against former trainer Brian McNamee vaguely hints at impropriety by federal investigators, including Jeff Novitsky, during their interrogation of McNamee. There is a long trail of alleged investigative misconduct that has followed Jeff Novitsky since the beginning of the BALCO scandal.

Victor Conte has publicly shared his version of events that occurred at the BALCO raid. Conte and former vice president of BALCO, James Valente, both filed declarations in federal court containing regarding Novitsky’s behavior and tactics on the day of the raid. The allegations include “illegally coercing statements, improperly serving search warrants and using excessive force during the raid.”

Michael Rains, an attorney for Barry Bonds, claimed that Jeff Novitsky committed criminal misconduct.

Pitcher Jason Grimsley stopped short of making claims of coercion against Novitsky but changed his mind after federal investigators “wanted him to wear a wire to get evidence against Barry Bonds.”

And now, Clemens defamation lawsuit seems to suggest that the aggressive interrogation tactics and threats used by Notivsky et al may have manipulated the truth in McNamee’s allegations of Clemens’ steroid use and growth hormone use.

In spite of the lack of integrity, questionable ethics, and suspect motives that have been alleged against Jeff Novitsky, his interrogation tactics may still be perfectly legal.

However, it should be noted that baseball players aren’t the only “dirty players” in the doping game. The biggest cheaters in the entire major league baseball doping scandal may not be the ones with the balls and bats.

Victor Conte (owner of BALCO) bought a new silver Bentley Continental GT this year, his SNAC business is bringing in $300,000 a month, and some of his best customers are still major league baseball players.

I’ve recently discussed the role of the media and particularly the contextual internet ads from Google as having a big role in his success. Victor Conte attests to the power of contextual ads in the July 2007 issue of Muscular Development magazine:

It’s just incredible the attention BALCO is still getting. You can’t believe who calls me for interviews almost every day. And I’m making the most of it! Not only can I pick who interview me, but I have a marketing program where I can tap into keyword searches so that anytime anytime someone Googles ‘Barry Bonds,’ or ‘BALCO,’ or ‘baseball,’ or Jason Giambi or Marion Jones – or a ton of other keywords related to BALCO – an ad for SNAC pops up right next to the article…

Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (SNAC) sales have increased 20% from 2006; Conte expects sales to improve even more in 2008.

Now that the worst of the consequences for my actions are behind me, I can openly say that the enormous publicity BALCO has received is great for my business… ZMA sales are stronger than ever. In fact, my entire SNAC System nutritional product line is doing better than ever before. I can’t even imagine what someone would have to pay for the type of international exposure my products have received…

Conte also acknowledges the role of the media in his success; no doubt the display of contextual ads featuring SNAC on CNN.com, NYTimes.com and USAToday.com contributed.

Of course, I would like to thank the media! They have basically turned BALCO into a household name. I now realize that I would never have received the international publicity without all of the adversity, pain and suffering that came with it…

Michael Arrington recently commented on this at TechCrunch:

The problem with automated advertising on news sites has always been the placing of inappropriate ads next to serious news issues.

Many news/media websites posted editorials complaining about the dangers of anabolic steroids and the role of the internet in facilitating steroid sales only to provide links for consumers to buy steroids (and receive payment from Google for displaying those links).

Most of the ads shown recently are not for real pharmaceutical anabolic steroids (although some ads still slip through) but OTC supplements with names that sound like steroids. Google has actually made efforts to prevent advertisers from selling steroids using their service that seem to more effective that efforts at YouTube at preventing piracy.

Victor Conte of BALCO likely made millions promoting ZMA through Google Ads. Mainstream news services published countless stories about his involvement in the recent sports steroids scandals not to mention stories about his star client, Barry Bonds. The countless stories surely provided considerable ad revenue for news sites offering coverage of the BALCO scandal courtesy Victor Conte (via Google Ads).

Another example of how all publicity is good publicity (and very profitable in some cases).

I could figure out how to take a fair amount of testosterone and you’d never catch me, and if I can say that, a lot of others can too.

Who is accredited with the aforementioned statement? Patrick Arnold? Victor Conte?

Actually, it is Don Catlin, the recently retired director of UCLA’s Olympia Drug Testing Laboratory, quoted in today’s Los Angeles Times. And it’s no big secret in competitive athletics… 

It has been recognized for over twenty years that athletes can use a certain amount of exogenous testosterone and still pass drug tests that rely only on the testosterone:epitestosterone ratio. Dan Duchaine described this in some of his early writings on steroids.

It has even become easier for doped athletes to pass this test in the last decade with the newer transdermal testosterone delivery systems; transdermal testosterone (e.g. gels, patches, creams) that have a slower release and result in lower peak blood concentrations.

Contrary to what was widely reported in the media, the “cream” was not a novel designer steroid or sophisticated method of administering steroids without triggering positive test results. The cream contained a mixture of testosterone and epitestosterone prepared for transdermal absorption. Injectable cocktails of testosterone and eptitestosterone were used almost immediately after the T:E ratio test was first introduced in the 1980s. BALCO simply exploited the loophole using an improved delivery system.

After all these years, drug testers have been unable to close this loophole. 

There is a drug testing procedure called “carbon isotope testing“ that has recently been used to determine exogenous (plant-based) testosterone from endogenous testosterone . This is what was used to corroborate Floyd Landis’ positive 11:1 testosterone:epitestosterone ratio test at the 2006 Tour de France.

However, most sports still rely only on the T:E test for exogenous testosterone. And even when carbon isotope testing is used, it occurs only after an athlete fails the T:E test.

Don’t kid yourself by believing the amount of exogenous testosterone athletes can get away with is not sufficient to result in significant performance-enhancing benefits. It doesn’t take much (much less than the Mitchell Report suggests). According to professor Charles Yesalis:

Small doses work… A 1% to 2% increase in performance is unbelievably valuable to an elite athlete, and very often we can’t even measure that as statistically significant in the laboratory.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-baseball15dec15,1,2188287.story 

Hollywood is already promoting this as a “Barry Bonds” movie. I think everyone will be overloaded with stories about Bonds, if not already, by the time the movie is released on HBO. How many people will really want to see a movie about Barry Bonds?

Game of Shadows is well-written and interesting book that is about much more than Barry Bonds.  I hope that director Ron Shelton is able to breathe life into movie adaption with an engaging depiction of  the BALCO steroid scandal. I am hopeful as he has had some notable success with sports films:

Shelton’s sports-film directing credits include “Bull Durham,” the Ty Cobb feature “Cobb,” “Tin Cup” and “White Men Can’t Jump.”

Most are curious who will play the role of “Barry Bonds.” But I want to see who will star as “Patrick Arnold” and ”Victor Conte.” It will be a lot of fun to see actors portraying people that I have known during my time in the “bodybuilding industry!” Of course, these guys were not really major steroid distributors; they just happened to be associated with some prominent athletes thereby making it a huge scandal. Their short-term prison stints more than likely served to guarantee their future success in the bodybuilding/supplement industry.

I feel the steroid hysteria of the past several years has done more harm than good by transforming a woefully ignorant public into a largely misinformed public when it comes to the topic of anabolic steroids. But at least, all the attention given to steroids in the media has made it possible for A-list writers and producers to document the history of steroids in society and sport (e.g. Game of Shadows and Steroid Nation).

Courtesy of Variety (via Dr. Gafney’s Steroid Nation Blog).