What was the BALCO scandal and when did it come to light?

Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
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The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) (1984–2003) was an American company led by founder and owner Victor Conte. In 2003, journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada investigated the company's role in a drug sports scandal later referred to as the BALCO Affair. BALCO marketed tetrahydrogestrinone ("the Clear"), a then-undetected, performance-enhancing steroid developed by chemist Patrick Arnold. Conte, BALCO vice president James Valente, weight trainer Greg Anderson and coach Remi Korchemny had supplied a number of high-profile sports stars from the United States and Europe with "the Clear" and human growth hormone for several years.
Headquartered in Burlingame, California, BALCO was founded in 1984. Officially, BALCO was a service business for blood and urine analysis and food supplements. In 1988, Victor Conte offered free blood and urine tests to a group of athletes known as the BALCO Olympians. He then was allowed to attend the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. From 1996, Conte worked with well-known American football star Bill Romanowski, who proved to be useful to establish new connections to athletes and coaches such as Korchemny. Conte and Korchemny shortly thereafter founded the ZMA Track Club for marketing purposes, well-known members of it being sprinters Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery. In 2000, Conte managed to contact American baseball star Barry Bonds via Greg Anderson, a coach working in a nearby fitness studio. Bonds then delivered contacts to other baseball professionals.
In 2003, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California began investigating BALCO. U.S. sprint coach Trevor Graham had given an anonymous phone call to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in June 2003 accusing a number of athletes being involved in doping with a steroid that was not detectable at the time. He also named Victor Conte as the source of the steroid. As evidence, Graham delivered a syringe containing traces of tetrahydrogestrinone, nicknamed "the Clear."
Shortly after, Don Catlin, MD, the founder of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, developed a testing process for tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).

Now able to detect the new substance, he tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG.
On September 3, 2003 agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Food and Drug Administration, San Mateo Narcotics Task Force, and United States Anti-Doping Agency conducted a house search at the BALCO facilities. Beside lists of BALCO customers in a BALCO field warehouse they found containers whose labels indicated steroids and growth hormones. In a house search at Anderson's place two days later, steroids, $60,000 in cash, names lists and dosage plans were found.
Among the athletes listed in the record of BALCO customers were:
- MLB players: Barry Bonds, Benito Santiago, Jeremy Giambi, Bobby Estalella, Armando Rios
- Athletes: Hammer thrower John McEwen, shot putters Kevin Toth and C.J. Hunter, sprinters Dwain Chambers, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Zhanna Block and Kelli White, middle-distance runner Regina Jacobs.
- Boxer Shane Mosley.
- Cycling: Tammy Thomas.
- NFL players: A number from the Oakland Raiders, including Bill Romanowski, Tyrone Wheatley, Barrett Robbins, Chris Cooper and Dana Stubblefield.
- Judo: Conte was also connected with supplying "vitamin supplements" to the 1988 U.S. Olympic judo team coached by Willy Cahill of San Bruno, California.
- Christos Tzekos and his athletes were initially connected to BALCO but later cleared.
Patrick Arnold, BALCO's chemist, alleges that Bonds and Sheffield were given "the Clear," though the athletes deny knowing about it and Arnold does not claim to have witnessed it.
In April 2005, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada were honored with the journalist prize of the White House Correspondents' Association. In 2006, they published the book Game of Shadows, which consists of a summary of about 200 interviews and 1,000 documents they collected for their research.
On July 15, 2005, Conte and Anderson cut plea bargains, pleaded guilty to illegal steroid distribution and money laundering and avoided an embarrassing trial. Conte spent four months in prison. Anderson was incarcerated for 13½ months.

On May 29, 2008, Trevor Graham was convicted by a federal jury on one count of lying to federal investigators about his relationship to an admitted steroids dealer, and the jury deadlocked on two other charges. Sentencing was set for September 5, 2008. He was sentenced to one year of house arrest on October 21, 2008.
- Fainaru-Wada, Mark; Williams, Lance (December 25, 2003). "Barry Bonds: Anatomy of a scandal". Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle PI). San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- Harrington, Mark (November 1, 2003). "Success a Bitter Pill / College dropout moved BALCO into big leagues before charges". Newsday. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- "Lawyers for former track coach Christos Tzekos say investigations show no ties to BALCO". IHT. AP. October 30, 2007. Retrieved January 12, 2008.
- Schmidt, Michael S. (July 25, 2007). "Chemist Says Sheffield and Bonds Used Drugs". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- "Conte released from prison, calls book 'full of lies'". ESPN.com. AP Press. March 30, 2006. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- Bonds indicted on perjury, obstruction of justice charges, Lance Williams, Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 2007
- Maik Grossekathöfer: Leck im System., Der Spiegel, 40/2006, S. 140, (German)
- Reporters in BALCO Case Sentenced to Jail, ESPN, September 22, 2006
- Reporters Must Testify Over Bonds Leak, USA Today, August 15, 2006
- Egelko, Bob (February 14, 2007). "Attorney pleads guilty to leaking BALCO testimony". The San Francisco Chronicle.

Investigation by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), revealing confessions by some athletes, and the Mitchell investigation into professional baseball doping have brought the whole issue of doping to public attention.
Besides different types of anabolic steroids, stimulants such as amphetamines, human growth hormones and supplements (such as androstenedione—known as “andro”) provide a wide variety of ways athletes can gain an edge—often escaping detection. Blood doping is another illicit means of improving athletic performance; the injection of extra red blood cells increases the amount of oxygen available to strained muscles. There are four main ways to increase one’s red-cell count—two legal and two illegal. Putting oneself into a high altitude pressure tank overnight or for a few hours, is one of the ways still legal.
News articles noted steroid use among youth from the 1980s. Here are just a few headlines from over the past decades:
“Children’s steroid use rising, study says,” Associated Press, 5May98
“Steroids and Kids: How Sports Doping Hits Home,” Newsweek cover story, 20Dec04
“Are steroids as bad as we think they are? The Boston Globe, 12December04
“Reading, writing and ‘ROIDS,” The Boston Herald, 24June05
“Congress and Baseball Battle over Steroids,” The New York Times, 10March05
“Steroid use by young women troubling: Specialists believe problem even greater than statistics, The Boston Globe, 10May05
Without getting into all the dangers of youthful steroid use, one problem is the imbalance of suddenly increased muscle strength while bones are still developing. Michael Meyers (exercise physiology, Univ. of Houston) says, “You get a tremendous increase in muscle mass, but the connective tissue does not catch up. The tendons and ligaments are not strong enough…” causing ligament tears and fractures especially around the knees (http://whyfiles.org/090doping_sport/4.html, accessed 27June14).
The documentary, “Bigger, Stronger, Faster,” (Christopher Bell, 2008) puts a family face on steroids. Two of the Bells’ three sons excel with steroid use. The third, Chris, examines steroid culture in this documentary, considering its dangers without taking a clear stand against steroid use.

He was released on November 15, 2007, the same day Bonds was indicted by a federal grand jury on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.
On June 6, 2006 the house of Arizona Diamondbacks player Jason Grimsley was searched as part of the ongoing BALCO probe. Grimsley later said that federal investigators wanted him to wear a wire in order to obtain information against Barry Bonds. He told people which players used performance-enhancing drugs. The final result was that the Diamondbacks released Grimsley, and he was given a 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball.
In October 2006, investigations against Fainaru-Wada and Williams were started. The reporters were served with subpoenas to appear before a grand jury to identify the individual who leaked Bonds' name to them. They refused to do so and federal prosecutors asked that they be jailed for up to 18 months (the typical term of a grand jury). However, in February 2007, federal prosecutors dropped charges against the reporters after a Colorado attorney, Troy Ellerman, who once represented Conte and another executive of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, admitted to leaking the testimony and pleaded guilty to federal charges of unauthorized disclosure of grand jury testimony.
In an interview with Editor & Publisher, Lance Williams revealed that he would never testify in court, even if it did not involve confidential sources. "I have no interest in becoming anybody's witness."
On November 15, 2007, former San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice based on his grand jury testimony in this investigation. The trial began March 21, 2011, and he was convicted on April 13, 2011 on the obstruction of justice charge. The conviction was overturned upon appeal.
On April 4, 2008, Tammy Thomas was convicted by a federal jury on three counts of making false statements to a federal grand jury in November 2003, and on one count of obstructing justice. She was acquitted of two perjury charges. Sentencing was set for July 18, 2008. She was sentenced to six months' house arrest and five years' probation on October 10, 2008.

Gut wrenching and completely unbelievable , as the player, was far from convincing with his web of deceit and lies, which were further enhanced by many of the rather idiotic questions asked by Katie Couric , herself . And there were idiots who sought to suggest that Lance Armstrong showed contrition with his admission of guilt on a staged environment sought to elicit emotions ? Are these fools, that naïve ? I guess that they are ! Ah , well , it’s in-bred apathy ! It should be noted that in light of Rodriguez’s admission , his name would once again come up in the subsequent indictment and trial of now incarcerated Orlando medical professional , Dr Anthony Galea . Now in another turn of events the player’s name has once again been linked to another BALCO like “scandal” , that could have some serious reverberations around the league as well as damaging the Yankees’ alleged ” pristine image ” .
Courtesy of Yahoo Sports
By Jeff Passan , Yahoo Sports
A man in south Florida supplied performance-enhancing drugs to more than half a dozen major league players, including Alex Rodriguez, according to a Miami New Times report that officials at Major League Baseball believe will grow into a doping scandal that could rival the BALCO case that tarnished Barry Bonds.
Alex Rodriguez is once again at the center of a possible PED scandal. The newspaper reported Tuesday morning that Anthony Bosch, a self-styled biochemist seen frequently in Latin American baseball circles, distributed large amounts of human growth hormone, synthetic testosterone and other cocktails of PEDs to players who previously had not been linked, such as Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz.
Some of the players could be subject to a 50-game suspension for a violation of the league’s PED policy, a league official told Yahoo! Sports. Three of Bosch’s alleged clients – outfielder Melky Cabrera, pitcher Bartolo Colon and catcher Yasmani Grandal – already have been caught and suspended by the league.
Following a relatively quiet period, PED busts spiked in baseball last season. From Ryan Braun’s positive test for testosterone – which got overturned because of alleged mishandling of evidence – to the suspensions of Cabrera, Colon, Grandal, Freddy Galvis, Marlon Byrd, Guillermo Mota and Carlos Ruiz, baseball is facing a renaissance of use, one it believes centered in south Florida.
Click on link to read this article in full.

And I kept at it, stayed focused on the goal. Everything I did was designed to make me a better player. In 1986, I was named the American League's Rookie of the Year, and it began to look like I was on my way. But it wasn't happening by accident. After regular practice, while all the other players went off to the bars, I'd go to the gym and work out. On days off, I'd take more batting practice and hit the gym. I was going to turn myself into a baseball machine, for my mother, and I would do anything I had to do to get there. I read everything I could get my hands on about vitamins and supplements — even in body-building magazines! — and I scoured other publications for new studies on steroids, growth hormones, and other performance-enhancing drugs.
The industry was still in its infancy back then, but I found that exciting, and I experimented with different products, becoming my own guinea pig. I tried every combination you can imagine. I was testing it on myself, and retesting, and mixing and matching every product on the market, trying things no one had ever imagined, and I was doing it to turn myself into a super athlete. I even kept notes! I had a journal where I would keep track of every detail, how much of this or that, when, how I felt twelve hours later, a day later, and at the end of the week. I figured out how to eat to maximize the effectiveness of the steroids, how to train while taking them, and the best time of day to stick myself with the needle, during the season and in the off season. Before long, I was tipping the scales at 240 pounds, most of it muscle, so obviously I was doing something right.
The next year, 1987, Mark McGwire joined the Athletics, a tall skinny kid with absolutely no muscle on him, and I guess he was impressed with my physique, because he had a lot of questions about my regimen. The following year, not surprisingly, McGwire underwent a miraculous transformation, and shortly thereafter the fans began to call us the Bash Brothers. I wonder how that happened?
In 1988, I became the first player in major league history to hit 40 home runs (42, actually) and steal 40 bases in the same season.

And I kept at it, stayed focused on the goal. Everything I did was designed to make me a better player.In 1986, I was named the American League's Rookie of the Year, and it began to look like I was on my way. But it wasn't happening by accident. After regular practice, while all the other players went off to the bars, I'd go to the gym and work out. On days off, I'd take more batting practice and hit the gym. I was going to turn myself into a baseball machine, for my mother, and I would do anything I had to do to get there. I read everything I could get my hands on about vitamins and supplements — even in body-building magazines! — and I scoured other publications for new studies on steroids, growth hormones, and other performance-enhancing drugs.
The industry was still in its infancy back then, but I found that exciting, and I experimented with different products, becoming my own guinea pig. I tried every combination you can imagine. I was testing it on myself, and retesting, and mixing and matching every product on the market, trying things no one had ever imagined, and I was doing it to turn myself into a super athlete. I even kept notes! I had a journal where I would keep track of every detail, how much of this or that, when, how I felt twelve hours later, a day later, and at the end of the week. I figured out how to eat to maximize the effectiveness of the steroids, how to train while taking them, and the best time of day to stick myself with the needle, during the season and in the off season. Before long, I was tipping the scales at 240 pounds, most of it muscle, so obviously I was doing something right.
The next year, 1987, Mark McGwire joined the Athletics, a tall skinny kid with absolutely no muscle on him, and I guess he was impressed with my physique, because he had a lot of questions about my regimen. The following year, not surprisingly, McGwire underwent a miraculous transformation, and shortly thereafter the fans began to call us the Bash Brothers. I wonder how that happened?
In 1988, I became the first player in major league history to hit 40 home runs (42, actually) and steal 40 bases in the same season.

Sports has an extraordinary ability to capture the attention of the worldwide audience. The sheer joy of watching your favorite team win a game is incredible. From multi-sports events to the World Cup tournament, we witness a number of sporting extravaganza every year. While some sportspersons leave their fans spellbound due to their record-breaking performance, some put their admirers in great shock due to their engagement in unethical and immoral activities, such as doping, adultery, betting, ball tampering, and theft.
From Lance Armstrong's doping revelations to the White Sox deliberately losing the 1919 World Series, here are five biggest scandals in sports and how they were exposed.
1. The ‘Black Sox’ Scandal, 1919
Deemed as one of baseball’s darkest moments, this scandal concerned eight White Sox players who were accused of intentionally losing the 1919 Series of baseball to the Cincinnati Reds. A Chicago grand jury was set up in 1920 to investigate the dealings of the team with the gamblers. On September 28, 1920, two of the players, Eddie Cicotte and Shoeless Joe Jackson, confessed. The following month, the grand jury charged eight players of conspiracy and fraud and banned them from playing baseball for life. This scandal was dramatized in the 1988 film, Eight Men Out.
2. Spanish ID Basketball Team, Paralympic Games, 2000
Regarded as the greatest cheating scandal in Paralympic Games history, this event witnessed ten members of a Spanish Paralympic basketball team being stripped of their gold medals in December 2000 after it was discovered that they were not mentally challenged. Carlos Ribagorda, a member of the winning team and an undercover journalist, reported that his eligibility to play in the ID category had never been checked and accused Spain of selecting 15 athletes with no intellectual disabilities.
Due to serious impediment in determining the eligibility criteria for intellectually disabled athletes, the International Paralympic Committee announced to suspend all sporting activities that involve an ID. But, later in 2012, the committee revised the system for checking mental disabilities and allowed ID athletes to participate in the game.
3.

It was widely known in the 1970s and early-’80s that long-distance runners and cross-country skiers from Scandinavia were using blood-boosting methods (by re-infusing their previously stored blood) to improve their performances. In Italy, its Olympic Committee CONI even sponsored sports doctor Professor Francesco Conconi (inventor of the Conconi test for establishing an athlete’s anaerobic threshold) and his biomedical research center at the University of Ferrara to prepare athletes from several sports, including skiing and cycling, using blood-boosting methods. And it’s widely accepted that Conconi and his assistant Michele Ferrari helped Francesco Moser break Eddy Merckx’s world hour record at Mexico City in January 1984.
Blood doping was undetectable and even encouraged until members of the 1984 U.S. Olympic cycling team (track and road), under the supervision of the U.S. Cycling Federation coaching staff, blood-boosted in Los Angeles. Some intra-federation memos (this happened before e-mails existed) were leaked to Rolling Stone magazine, which published a salacious article on the affair in its February 1985 issue. The result was several USCF officials being reprimanded. It was regarded as a huge scandal in the United States and resulted in blood doping finally being prohibited, first by the USCF, then the UCI, and eventually by the IOC in 1986.
It was ironic that just as blood doping was being banned a team of scientists at biotech company Amgen in California was researching an artificial, or recombinant, form of human erythropoietin for boosting the red-blood-cell count of anemic cancer patients. FDA approval for the new drug Epogen (EPO) came in 1989, but it was already on the black market in Europe, and EPO eventually became the most widely used doping product in cycling, cross-country skiing and long-distance running.
There was no way EPO could be detected in blood tests because it was a genetic hormone that helped athletes create their own new red blood cells. Scientists in Europe and Australia began research on methods to identify the use of EPO by athletes, but it was a long, difficult (and expensive!) process.

Brian McNamee, the chief prosecution witness in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, conceded Thursday that he initially lied about his involvement with steroids.
Starting Monday, a jury will be selected in the very same court house where Barry Bonds testified all those years ago to determine whether he broke the law with four short answers totaling nine words: “Not that I know of,” “No, no,” “No,” and “Right.”
The New York Daily News citing anonymous sources said disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis wore a concealed recorder and video camera during a meeting last spring with designer and cycling team owner Michael Ball.
A former teammate of Lance Armstrong’s has reportedly told federal investigators that widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs on the U.S. Postal Service team was done with Armstrong’s encouragement.

- Williams: I Never Thought Bonds Indictment Would Occur Archived December 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine By: Strupp, Joe Editor and Publisher November 17, 2007
- Elias, Paul (March 21, 2011). "Barry Bonds perjury trial gets under way". Associated Press. Retrieved March 21, 2011.[permanent dead link]
- "Barry Bonds convicted of obstruction of justice in performance-enhancing-drugs case". Los Angeles Times. April 13, 2011. Archived from the original on April 28, 2011. Retrieved April 16, 2011.
- "Barry Bonds found guilty of obstruction,". ESPN. April 14, 2011. Archived from the original on April 29, 2011. Retrieved April 16, 2011.
- Mintz, Howard (April 4, 2008). "Cyclist convicted of perjury in Balco case". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved May 30, 2008.
- Pogash, Carol; Schmidt, Michael S. (October 11, 2008). "Cyclist Avoids Prison Time, Which May Benefit Bonds". The New York Times. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
- Dubow, Josh; Paul Elias; Raf Casert (May 30, 2008). "Track coach Graham convicted in BALCO probe". Tampa Bay Online. Archived from the original on February 15, 2009. Retrieved 2008-05-30.
- Pogash, Carol; Michael Schmidt (October 21, 2008). "Graham Sentenced to Year's House Arrest in Balco Case". New York Times.

Supporters argue that slugger Barry Bonds will go down in history as one of the greatest hitters ever. After all, he is the game’s home run king and possesses seven MVP and eight Gold Glove awards. However, Bonds is dogged with an issue outside the game of baseball, proving to be much more difficult to deal with than any pitcher he has ever faced. That issue, is steroids.
Bonds has been accused for the past several years of using performance-enhancing drugs. From ex-girlfriends to scientists, the number of allegations against Bonds is starting to mirror that of his home run totals. He has repeatedly denied the claims and at one point in 2005, he threatened to quit baseball because he was so exhausted from answering questions about the issue.
Despite Bonds’ adamant denials that he never used performance enhancers, an array of evidence against Bonds has been revealed over the past few years. Victor Conte, founder of the infamous BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) and a man under indictment by a federal grand jury, admitted to giving performance-enhancing drugs to Greg Anderson, Bonds’ personal trainer. In the book, Game of Shadows, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, a detailed and exhaustive narrative is presented, documenting Bonds’ involvement with performance-enhancers. Bonds went to court trying to stop the sale of the book, but in his court filings he never denied the veracity of any of the claims in the book.
In the book, the authors wrote that a former girlfriend said Bonds began taking steroids after the 1998 home run chase between heavily muscled Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Kimberly Bell, one of Bonds’ alleged mistresses, claimed he was jealous of the attention that McGwire received for surpassing Roger Maris’ season record of 61.
Before his alleged steroid abuse, Bonds already possessed Hall of Fame credentials. He entered the 1999 season as a 34-year-old with 411 homers. He had won three National League MVPs and seven Gold Gloves. Who knew his most productive years at the plate were still ahead of him?
He was injured for much of the 1999 season, suffering from a left elbow injury, a groin problem, as well as knee inflammation. The various ailments limited him to a then career-low 102 games, but he still managed to bang out 34 homers.

First of two parts
The worldwide sports anti-doping program, created to fight performance-enhancing drug use in international athletics, imposes severe punishments for accidental or technical infractions, relies at times on disputed scientific evidence and resists outside scrutiny, a Times investigation has found.
Elite athletes have been barred from the Olympics, forced to relinquish medals, titles or prize money and confronted with potentially career-ending suspensions after testing positive for a banned substance at such low concentrations it could have no detectable effect on performance, records show.
They have been sanctioned for steroid abuse after taking legal vitamins or nutritional supplements contaminated with trace amounts of the prohibited compounds. In some cases, the tainted supplements had been provided by trusted coaches or trainers.
The findings emerge from a Times examination of more than 250 anti-doping cases involving runners, cyclists, skiers, tennis players and competitors in dozens of other sports from around the world.
Alain Baxter, 28, became the first Briton to win an Olympic medal in Alpine skiing, placing third in the slalom at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Two days later he tested positive for methamphetamine, a banned stimulant. He was forced to forfeit his bronze medal.
His offense? He had used a Vicks Vapor Inhaler bought in Utah to treat his chronic nasal congestion. Unlike the Vicks inhalers sold at home, the American version contained traces of a chemical structurally related to meth — though lacking its stimulative qualities.
Despite testimony from a Vicks scientist that the compounds differed, an arbitration panel hearing Baxter's case ruled that because anti-doping authorities regarded the chemicals as related, he was guilty.
"It never crossed my mind that it would be different from the British one," Baxter told the BBC upon returning home. "I didn't think I was doing anything wrong."
A 17-year-old Italian swimmer treating a foot infection with an antibiotic cream her mother bought over the counter failed a doping test at a swim meet in 2004. Neither Giorgia Squizzato nor her mother realized that the cream's ingredients included a prohibited steroid — or that applying it between her toes could result in a positive urine test.
Arbitrators in her case acknowledged that "the cream did not enhance the athlete's capacity" and hadn't "favored her performance."