BALCO scandal now a Grecian formula
Athletes and coaches are implicated
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...PGLB8EC811.DTL
Athens -- This was supposed to be the day Greece stood still. The day Kostas Kenteris, the runner they call "Greece Lightning" and "Son of the Wind," tried to repeat as an Olympic champion.
Instead, the Greek Olympic team has been engulfed in a doping scandal that shoved both 200-meter champ Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, defending silver medalist in the 100 meters, out of the Games and sparked several Greek governmental probes. The pair failed to report for drug tests and said they had been involved in a mysterious motorcycle accident.
In the background of the current controversy in Greece are documents obtained by U.S. investigators, including some never before made public, showing that some elite Greek athletes and coaches have extensive links with Burlingame-based BALCO, the nutritional lab at the center of an alleged international steroid conspiracy.
The documents, which include a series of e-mails written by BALCO founder Victor Conte in 2002 and 2003, indicate that certain Greek athletes were receiving banned substances as long as two years ago. The documents also show that one Greek coach had developed a relationship with an Illinois chemist whom Conte in the e-mails called "the clearman," because he had developed an undetectable "clear" steroid that Conte himself allegedly was distributing.
In most cases the documents don't name names, either because the e-mail correspondents don't use them or because they were deleted by investigators. One BALCO source said that Kenteris and Thanou were named in the e-mails as having used banned drugs, as the San Jose Mercury recently reported. But a Greek coach who says he participated in some of the e-mail exchanges says the identification isn't correct.
Conte and three other Bay Area men, including track coach Remi Korchemny, are awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on steroid conspiracy charges in the BALCO case.
The men have pleaded not guilty. Conte's lawyer, Robert Holley, declined to discuss the e-mails, saying they were inappropriately leaked to The Chronicle.
"We have an answer for everything, but we don't want to try the case in the media," he said. "I am appalled that this type of information is being leaked, and it's something that's going to have to be dealt with by the court."
One string of e-mails involves Conte's attempts to warn Greek athletes that Olympic drug testers have discovered "the clear," the undetectable steroid that he indicates he provided to athletes after obtaining it from "the clearman," whom Conte in other passages identifies as Patrick Arnold, a manufacturer of nutritional supplements from Illinois.
In an Aug. 20, 2002 e-mail with the subject line "heads-up," Conte told an unidentified international track coach that athletes who were using his designer steroid suddenly were at risk. In the e-mail, previously disclosed in court records, Conte said it was important "to somehow get this information" to the coach for two Greek athletes "so that nobody tests positive." The athletes' names were deleted from court files.
The next day, in an e-mail obtained by The Chronicle, Conte underscored the importance of the warning.
"The reason that the Greek track coach must know is that if one of his athletes has a problem with testing, then the testers will try to trace it back to the source," he wrote. "I ask (sic) the clearman whether or not he had informed the Greek about the problem and he said no, because he did not know how to contact them. Any idea how to inform the Greek coach to stop using the clear ...?"
The international track coach responded that he would contact the Greek coach, but he predicted problems.
"It looks a bit crazy: me walking in his office and telling him stop using what you use because ... etc., etc.," he wrote. "Can you imagine his reaction? He will look at me like I am from Mars! Maybe he will deny he is using clear and tell me how I dare talk to him about these things."
In an Aug. 24 reply, Conte said his name shouldn't be mentioned to the Greek coach.
"Just say a little birdie told you about Patrick Arnold being under investigation by the IOC testers and that he should contact Patrick immediately," Conte wrote. "... If he continues and has an athlete get a positive test, then it will be traced back to Patrick and this would not be good."
Arnold has declined to comment when questioned about BALCO. He did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment Wednesday. Andreas Linardatos, a Greek track coach, told an Athens newspaper earlier this year that he was the recipient of the Aug. 20 e-mail in which Conte warned about the discovery of "the clear."
Reached at his home last week, as the Kenteris-Thanou scandal was unfolding, Linardatos denied that Kenteris and Thanou were the athletes named in the e-mail. The two were "never BALCO clients," he said.
In November 2002, Conte was receiving e-mails regarding Greek athletes and the use of banned substances.
On Nov. 16, Conte received an e-mail from an unknown person reporting that track and field's world governing body (IAAF) and the World Anti-Doping Agency were investigating the Greeks for suspected doping.
"The IAAF and WADA are hunting the Greek athletes like crazy!" the correspondent wrote. "... The problem is that the Greek athletes appear only at major competitions and take the medals. After (that) they disappear. ... WADA is definitely not happy with us, but at the same time they can't catch nobody."
In another e-mail, an unidentified person asked Conte about the alphabetic code he used to refer the performance-enhancing substances human growth hormone and insulin.
"For what stands the letters I and G?" he wrote. "Insul. and growth? In Greece, the Gh we call it "foam" (haha)."
On Nov. 20, 2002, in an e-mail whose subject line referred to the blood- doping substance EPO, Conte explained the code to a Greek track and field coach whose name is redacted.
"L and C is what I gave you for your triple-jumper," Conte wrote. "S is what they take before competition readily available in Greece. And remember that all e-mails are saved for a very long time, so be careful about how you say what you say."
Investigators believe L and C were codes for undetectable steroids while S stood for the stimulant modafinil.Other documents show that Korchemny, the coach indicted in the BALCO case, also received e-mails regarding Greek athletes, Conte and doping. One suggests that Korchemny's unnamed correspondent was familiar with a new "clear" steroid being distributed by Conte.
"I was the last 20 days in Cyprus for a training camp," the person wrote on March 21, 2002. "... Speed is coming on and you can see smiles on the athletes' faces ... Endurance work and the pain of lactic acid make no one happy (only the coach) ...
"I recently found some information about the stuff trenbolone ("Clear") that Victor ... and others are using. The information was that although the stuff is an anabolic steroid, surprisingly it has a side effect ... A Steroid and a Stimulant together!!!!! ... and Clear ... !!!!"
Korchemny's lawyer, George Walker, couldn't be reached for comment.
Fainaru-Wada reported from Athens, Williams from San Francisco.
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