Drugs: Balco Founder to Tell All on Tv
December 3: Baseball superstar Jason Giambi has admitted he injected himself with growth hormones as the Balco drugs case rumbles on.
A leading American baseball player admitted yesterday that he injected himself with human growth hormone while the man who allegedly provided him with the banned drug, Victor Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder and owner, prepared to tell all on coast-to-coast television.
The New York Yankees' Jason Giambi injected himself with HGH in 2003 and used steroids for at least three seasons, according to his grand jury testimony.
The testimony given in December 2003 to the federal grand jury investigating the Balco contradicts Giambi's public proclamations that he never used performance-enhancing drugs.
Major League Baseball probably cannot punish Giambi. Penalties for steroid use began in 2004. HGH is not specifically banned by the major leagues.
Giambi described to grand jurors how he injected HGH in his stomach, testosterone into his buttocks, rubbed an undetectable steroid known as "the cream" on his body and placed drops of another, called "the clear", under his tongue.
Giambi testified that he obtained several different steroids from the baseball star Barry Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, one of four men indicted by the grand jury investigating Balco. He said he got the HGH from a gym in Las Vegas.
Giambi was among dozens of elite athletes - including baseball's Bonds and Gary Sheffield and the sprinters Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones - who testified before the grand jury last year under a promise of limited immunity from prosecution. Bonds, Jones and Montgomery deny using performance-enhancing drugs.
Meanwhile the Greek sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterini Thanou were last night formally charged with missing drugs tests on the eve of the Athens Olympics.
The International Association of Athletics Federations had been considering the cases of both athletes in the three months since Athens bade farewell to the 2004 Games. It now believes there is sufficient evidence to charge the pair with doping offences.
A statement from the IAAF confirmed Kederis and Thanou will have to answer the claims that they committed "whereabouts information violations" by missing tests not only in Athens but also in Tel Aviv and Chicago.
The New York Yankees' Jason Giambi injected himself with HGH in 2003 and used steroids for at least three seasons, according to his grand jury testimony.
The testimony given in December 2003 to the federal grand jury investigating the Balco contradicts Giambi's public proclamations that he never used performance-enhancing drugs.
Major League Baseball probably cannot punish Giambi. Penalties for steroid use began in 2004. HGH is not specifically banned by the major leagues.
Giambi described to grand jurors how he injected HGH in his stomach, testosterone into his buttocks, rubbed an undetectable steroid known as "the cream" on his body and placed drops of another, called "the clear", under his tongue.
Giambi testified that he obtained several different steroids from the baseball star Barry Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, one of four men indicted by the grand jury investigating Balco. He said he got the HGH from a gym in Las Vegas.
Giambi was among dozens of elite athletes - including baseball's Bonds and Gary Sheffield and the sprinters Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones - who testified before the grand jury last year under a promise of limited immunity from prosecution. Bonds, Jones and Montgomery deny using performance-enhancing drugs.
Meanwhile the Greek sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterini Thanou were last night formally charged with missing drugs tests on the eve of the Athens Olympics.
The International Association of Athletics Federations had been considering the cases of both athletes in the three months since Athens bade farewell to the 2004 Games. It now believes there is sufficient evidence to charge the pair with doping offences.
A statement from the IAAF confirmed Kederis and Thanou will have to answer the claims that they committed "whereabouts information violations" by missing tests not only in Athens but also in Tel Aviv and Chicago.
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