BALCO Bad Boy Conte: Beating drug tests like stealing candy from baby!

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BALCO Bad Boy Conte: Beating drug tests like stealing candy from baby


May 23, 5:25 PMBoxing ExaminerMichael Marley

Controversial BALCO Bad Boy Victor Conte claims to walk straight and narrow as boxing adviser now




(Part One of a series)

He was the BALCO Bad Boy, a sort of Dr. Frankenstein who developed athletic monsters in baseball, track and field and, in the case of Sugar Shane Mosley, in boxing.

I spoke at length Sunday with the controversial Victor Conte, who now works for some big name boxers on a continuing basis.
Among his past and present boxing clients, beyond Mosley, are "Filipino Flash" Nonito Donaire, heavyweight contender Eddie Chambers and world super middleweight champion Andre "Son Of God" Ward.

Despite his checkered past, Conte hasn't gone underground, instead he's out in the open advising fighters about strrength, conditioning, nutrition and, of course, drugs.
This time around, though, Conte claims he's on the right side of the law. He's one of those I did the crime, then I did the time guys.

Consulting with fighters is just a small sideline to his SNAC, Scientific Nutrition and Advanced Conditioning business which he told me has steadily provided him a million dollar annual income flow....the better to pay his huge legal bills, including his continuing defamation battle with Mosley.
And, to hear Conte tell it, he will be around boxing longer than sanctimonious Travis Tygart and his USADA will.
Conte makes it plain that he has little regard for Tygart's public posturing and the tactics used by the anti drug cheating agency.

"I think the time will come when boxing will separate itself from him and the USADA," Conte said. "I think Floyd Mayweather will get away from Tygart and his group as well.

"Tygart puts out all sorts of information which is false and inaccurate. Make no mistake, Tygart has his own agenda.

ESPN The Magazine (Timothy Archibald Photo) clevely posed Victor Conte of BALCO scandal as a snake oil salesman

"Tygart uses scare tactics, for example, storing athletes' blood for eight years," Conte said. "Every other word out of his mouth is random, random, random as in random resting.

"So let's look at what they did on Mosley-Mayweather. They took the first blood and urine tests from the fighters on March 22 and 23, about five weeks out from the night of the bout. It turns out there was no testing on the fighters then for 18-19 days before the fight.

"What is random about that? Random, to me, is 24/7/365. I have real issues with Tygart and with the USADA. He talks about their testing being foolproof and that is simply nonsense.

"Starting to test fighters five weeks out is a joke. Under their system, to get caught using, let's say, HGH or EPO , you would have to really be a moron. Tygart acts like he is the biggest sherriff in town and he talks about full disclosure and transparency.

"There isn't any of that in their program. With the Olympics, they don't tell you that in an 18 month moving time frame, you can miss two tests and no one will know except. You would have to miss three tests before the world finds out and, even then, it's like getting one speeding ticket marked on your driver's license.

"Beating the so called 'gold standard' testing system is like taking candy from a baby. The HGH, the EPO and many other banned substances...you can get them out of your system on the same day you take them or one day later. How hard do you think it is to dodge their testing for one day?



Conte was a powerful force in track and field world, including with Marion Jones, until the federal government started snooping around (AP Photo)

"Even if they come back the next day, you can dodge them again and all you get is a notice of your right to a hearing to explain the circumstances," Conte said.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION, FROM NEW YORK DAILY NEWS AND YAHOO.COM:


"These athletes are courageous in their position and their desire to be held to the most stringent anti-doping program to protect their right to compete clean," Tygart said. "At this point, both athletes have agreed to USADA's testing protocols, including both blood and urine testing, which is unannounced, which is anywhere, anytime."


(Each man was tested seven times prior to the fight and then again on the night of the fight by USADA, which will retain their samples for future testing. Each of the eight tests included required the fighters to provide urine samples; they were required to give blood four times.

Mayweather gave blood and urine on March 22, April 1, April 13 and then May 1 after the fight. He gave urine only on April 3, April 6, April 21 and April 24.)
Blood testing is customary in Olympic sports, but professional sports leagues in the U.S. have resisted implementing it. Such tests are the only way laboratories can detect the use of human growth hormone and several other doping methods thought to boost strength and stamina.

The new agreement also brings USADA into an awkward sort of partnership with Mosley, who testified before the BALCO grand jury that he injected himself with drugs supplied by BALCO founder Victor Conte, but escaped the kind of punishments other BALCO athletes faced.
Mosley has claimed he didn't know the drugs he took were the endurance-boosting EPO and steroids, and has spent two years suing Conte for defamation for saying he told Mosley what the drugs were.

"We thought long and hard about it and its impact on us, whether we could be a part of this effort," Tygart said when asked if there was an investigation into Mosley's BALCO links. "At the end of the day we asked ourselves, what would clean athletes want us to do. From that perspective, clean athletes in this sport and in this event have asked us to be involved."

Tygart said that if USADA had had jurisdiction over boxing in 2003, it would have aggressively pursued evidence implicating Mosley, but that any hypothetical suspension would have been complete by this point.

"If he did cheat, and he does again, he will be caught and exposed in our program,"

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