"Victor Conte, the architect of a scheme to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75. The federal government's investigation into another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), yielded the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer."
"The investigation led to the book Game of Shadows. A week after the book was published in 2006, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids. Conte said he sold steroids known as the cream and the clear and advised on their use to dozens of elite athletes, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said."
Victor Conte organized a scheme to supply undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to elite professional athletes and has died at 75. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), another company he founded, became the focus of a federal investigation that produced convictions of athletes and multiple associates. Conte served four months in federal prison for dealing steroids and spoke publicly about clients, saying he saw Marion Jones inject human growth hormone while stopping short of implicating Barry Bonds. The investigation inspired the book Game of Shadows and triggered the Mitchell inquiry, which concluded that illegal substance use threatened the integrity of baseball and disadvantaged honest players.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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