“Whatever doping they want to do – blood, Olympian – whatever they want to do, I’ll do it, as long as he does it too,” Marquez said through a translator.

From Sport24.co.za:

Victor Conte, whose BALCO products were at the centre of a major doping scandal, revealed in a Twitter posting on Monday that Marquez’s strength and conditioning coach was Angel Heredia, who testified in a doping investigation.

Heredia admitted providing banned performance-enhancing substances to Trevor Graham, former coach of disgraced former stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery among others.

Alex Ariza, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, commented about Marquez looking bigger and stronger as well. Together with Heredia’s past links to doping, Marquez found himself on the defensive about his fit physique.

“It’s a shame all the work I’ve done has been trashed by these guys, Conte and Ariza,” Marquez said.

“I would like to say through this medium and the public that logically, we are preparing a lawsuit for defamation against Mr. Alex Ariza,” Hernandez said, his words translated from Spanish.

From Boxingforum.com:

While it is unclear exactly which of Ariza’s comments have sparked Hernandez’ statements, Hernandez has come under scrutiny lately after former BALCO chief Victor Conte revealed through his Twitter account on Monday that Hernandez is the former Angel Heredia.

As the government’s star witness in the infamous BALCO doping cases, Heredia testified before a San Francisco court in May of 2008 that he had sold banned substances—namely EPO, growth hormone and steroids—to Olympic sprinters like Marion Jones.

Conte ended up serving four months in prison for his role in orchestrating the steroid distribution scandal.

However, Hernandez’ ire was not directed at Conte, but rather at Ariza and Pacquiao, the latter of whom will fight Marquez on Nov. 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“On his behalf, the declarations he has made are very direct. I think they’re very prejudicial not just with respect toward the image of Juan Manuel Marquez, but for mine as his physical trainer,” Hernandez said.

The nutritionist admitted in May 2008 to a San Francisco court that he sold performance enhancing drugs to track stars, including former Olympian Marion Jones.

From Abs-cbnnews.com:

In a conference call with RingTV and other boxing media, Arum said Hernandez and other strength and conditioning coaches have learned their lesson and are now using only legal supplements.

“There was a period of time when people like Victor Conte, and like this guy, Hernandez, dealt in steroids with some major athletes. But that’s old, old news in this sense,” Arum said.

Conte is the nutritionist for world bantamweight champion Nonito “The Filipino Flash” Donaire, and has spent time in prison for supplying illegal performance-enhancing substances to athletes.

“Most of the intelligent conditioners, like Conte, if you read what he was saying when he was handling Donaire, and this guy (Hernandez) who is now with Marquez, they know that you can achieve all of the benefits you used to achieve with steroids with natural supplements,” Arum said.

“The steroid problem is fading into the past,” Arum said.

Hernandez was known as Angel Heredia when he admitted to a San Francisco court in May 2008 that he supplied performance enhancing drugs to Olympians, including Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

From Abs-cbnnews.com:

In a conference call with RingTV and other boxing media, Marquez defended Hernandez and said he has no knowledge of his new nutritionist’s dealings with steroids.

“I didn’t find out any of this other stuff until it was written over the last couple of days. It was big news to me,” Marquez said.

“I just knew that he had trained a lot of elite and world class athletes before I met him. We talked about what we needed to do. I was very happy with what he told me that I needed to do,” Marquez said, adding that Hernandez has been “a very professional guy.”

“If they want to do whatever doping or drug testing they want to do, Olympic-style, or whatever they want to do, I’ll do it. I’m prepared,” Marquez said.

Jones was on a cocktail of drugs including insulin, growth hormone, EPO, and THG when she won three gold medals and two bronze at the Sydney Olympics, Conte said.

From Independent.ie:

“People have asked me: ‘Do you feel guilty about what you did? Are you ashamed?’ The answer is no. I got to a point where I realised elite sport is about doing what you have to do to win. My clients didn’t come to BALCO to learn how to do drugs. Most were already using (drugs) before they came.

“I’ve seen athletes being forced to decide whether to use or not use, and it’s much more painful for them to entertain the idea of giving up their dream than to use anabolic steroids. That’s what’s really going on. That’s the choice athletes face when they get to the very top.”

Conte’s interview contains extraordinary detail about Jones and the drugs regime that he oversaw, beginning with the build-up to the Sydney Olympics.

“CJ (Hunter, the shot-putter and her husband at the time) had called me six weeks before the Olympics to ask me to work with Marion,” he says. “I started providing her with insulin, growth hormone, EPO and ‘The Clear’ (users’ slang for THG) as well as nutritional supplements. She was on all of it at the 2000 Games. I tell you this knowing Marion passed a lie-detector test saying it’s not true. All that shows me is lie detectors don’t work.”

Conte also said, “Soon I was working with their (Jones and Montgomery’s) rivals,” he says. It is here that Dwain Chambers, of Great Britain, enters the story, another who, despite being banned, continues to profess his innocence. Conte says he gave Chambers “the full enchilada”: ‘The Clear,’ insulin, EPO, growth hormone, modafinil and a testosterone cream.

Marion Jones

The athlete could face a ban of two years if the B sample confirms the A sample as revealed in the test conducted by the International Association of Athletics Federations.

From Guardian.co.uk:

In 1999 Jones’s then husband, the world shot-put champion CJ Hunter, tested positive for record levels of the anabolic steroid nandralone which forced him to withdraw from the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where she won both sprints and a third gold in the 4×400m relay as well as bronze medals in the short relay and long jump.

After he was banned for two years Jones left him and started a relationship with Tim Montgomery, who like her was coached by the Jamaican-born Trevor Graham. Montgomery set a world record for the 100m of 9.78 sec at Paris in 2002, a mark subsequently annulled after he was banned for two years in December due to evidence given in a federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (Balco) in San Francisco.

A number of witnesses involved in the case claimed Jones, a former basketball player, was involved in taking banned performance-enhancing drugs. She has always denied the allegation.

Jones left the hotel where the athletes were staying at 6am, reportedly “for personal reasons”.

The former sprinter spent six months in a federal prison for lying about steroids and her role in a check fraud.

From Guardian.co.uk:

Jones, who was awarded gold medals for winning the 100m, 200m and 4 x 400m relays at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and two bronzes in the long jump and 4×100m, admitted two years ago that she had taken steroids before, during and after the Games and was stripped of her five medals. She also spent about six months in a Texas federal prison for lying about doping and her role in a cheque fraud.

Jones said playing for the Shock is not about her past but instead fulfils her dream of playing basketball against some of the best players in the world.

“The word redemption is not in my vocabulary,” Jones said at a news conference, flanked by the team’s president, Steve Swetoha, and coach Nolan Richardson. “I’m a competitor, I want to play against the best in the world, and I know that I will be doing that.”

The association of Jones and steroids, highlighted by doping charges against her, is expected to affect Jones’ new career option in more than just a way but her fans are hoping she can finally get and stay out of all troubles.

The athletes were stripped after their team-mate Marion Jones was caught doping at the time.

From Guardian.co.uk:

The court of arbitration for sport ruled today in favour of the women, who appealed against the International Olympic Committee’s decision to disqualify them from the Sydney Olympics.

The court said athletics rules in 2000 did not allow teams to be affected by one member’s doping.

In Sydney, Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson were part of the squad that won gold in the 4×400m relay.

Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were on the 4×100m bronze medal squad. All but Perry joined the appeal.

It seems that the seven athletes, who were innocent, got what they deserved – rightful recognition.

Wade proved to be a contentious choice in the first place given that the former US hurdler served a two-year ban for using 19-norandrosterone, an anabolic steroid.

From Foxsports.com.au:

The sudden urge to purge comes on the eve of Steffensen’s 400m race in the adidas Classic in Carson, California, on May 18.

And on May 19 another famous – some would say infamous – sprints coach, Trevor Graham, will go on trial for perjury in a San Francisco court.

Graham coached Sydney Olympic 100m and 200m winner Marion Jones, who is currently in jail after admitting she used performance-enhancing drugs.

US authorities will allege that Graham lied about knowing, much less having dealings with, Texas-based former Mexican discus thrower Angel Heredia, a self-confessed dealer in performance-enhancing drugs.

And Heredia has revealed enough evidence, published in The New York Times, to indicate that the collateral damage will spread from Graham’s group to other coaches and athletes, allegedly including John Smith’s HSI coaching group for which Larry Wade, the squad’s one-time star 110m hurdler and a medal favourite for the Olympic Games in Athens, was an assistant coach.

Steffensen’s manager, Chris Giannopoulos of IMG, confirmed the split with Wade, and said that several coaching options were being assessed.

According to an interview conducted in celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte believes that cheating in sports, through performance-enhancing drugs is still rampant, despite improvements in steroids and drug testing.

Asked about his opinion as to how many of the sprinters who were able to make it to the semi-finals may have possibly used steroids, he replied by using the term “an overwhelming majority”.

The lab Conte used to own may have been tiny, but Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative became big news due to the steroids scandal in 2003 that continues its “legacy” in the sporting world, destroying careers of hundreds of athletes, even including his own.

Some of Conte’s prominent clients include Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery. Both made their way to the Olympics and even earned medals with the help of BALCO products.

Conte said he regretted getting involved in doping and would like to make amends by contributing his knowledge in doping and steroids.

From Reuters:

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Cheating is still rife in sport despite improved testing and more than half the sprint semi-finalists at the London 2012 Olympics are likely to use illegal drugs at some stage of their preparations, says Victor Conte, the man at the heart of the BALCO doping scandal.