The BALCO Steroids Trail: Unraveling the Scandal

On March twenty first, two thousand and four. The Balco steroid trial had begun and really opened up the floodgates to the steroid era in sports back in the nineteen nineties in early two thousands and changed a lot of athletes looks in the public eye and even destroying a few careers. Here's a story heind Balco and how all this happened today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now, to understand the history of Balco, we have to go back all the way to nineteen eighty four when Victor Conti began a company named Melbury Holistics, a vitamin shop in California, which was moderately successful enough to keep food on the table the first year, but Victor had bigger ambitions and closed the holistic shop to start Balco, a sports supplement company. Was able to get investors into his company as he used his knowledge and nutrition, which was largely self taught, not a conventional education. But he was testing different minerals and vitamins on athletes through regular blood and urine testing with them and mottering how that changed their components for They started to become known in the professional sports realm in nineteen ninety six when they added Bill Romanowski to their client list and hired chemist Patrick Arnold to help make what they called supplements for athletes, which actually were different types of steroids. There was h testops from Cream and THHC called the Clear that they had made popular and were starting to give out to different pro athletes or their physical trainers, but they did so without getting these verified by the USDA for over fourteen years until an investigation was launched into the company. Went an anonymous tipster, Trevor Graham, the sprinter coach to Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery gave us a ringe to the USDA for testing this show that had THHG, which is an anabolic steroid that they had not tested war before. But when they tested against the over five hundred samples, over twenty of the samples tested positive for this, including sprinters, shot putters, long distance runners, hammer throwers. As they only had Olympic athletes to testigants, it later came out that there was other high profile athletes involved, not just Bill Romanowski and Marion Jones. Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds of Baseball were also involved in this report an investigation and prior to this, baseball didn't really have a policy against steroids, and in going back, we now know many baseball players back in the nineties in early two thousands were actually using steroids to help their game. But following this report, Commissioner Buzzed Seiler instituted a league wide store policy that if one was tested positive once they would be suspended half the year and twice a full season, and three times they would be banned from Major League Baseball. In two thousand and five, Victor Conti pled guilty of steroid distribution and money laundering and was sentenced to four months in prison with four months at house arrest. We made this case so groundbreaking that it also included athletes going to prison. The sprinter Marion Jones pleaded guilty for lying to federal agents in two thousand and three of her steroid use and was sentenced to six months in prison with two years of probation. Barry Bonds was convicted of one count of obstruction justice and was sentenced to thirty days of house arrest and two years probation, and later had this overturned in a federal appeal. This time in sports was maybe a dark one, as athletes were getting bigger and stronger, which made the games more exciting and more impressive, but it also led younger athletes to also get into steroids, and there's many sad cases where this has ended in death or series century and that's the saddest thing I can never think of, to just try to emulate your favorite athletes and in doing so causing harm or losing in life. Bacco can say they didn't do anything inherently wrong and that someone else would have just done it if they did not. That may be true, but they made it easier for steroids to get into sports, and it's something we've had to fight against ever since, and hopefully we'll continue to be less and less a part of sports. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please go tell a friend about what you're listening to and that you enjoy the show. We love to hear. We love for our community to get out there and tell everyone what they're enjoying about the show. And come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.