I seem to remeber a female swimmer appearing on tv with a Balco hat on. If I remember correctly, she was talking about how she began training for the 200 Olmypics and was using products from this company. She was helping them develop products for swimmers. I'm not real sure but I was really surprised at the time becasue I had heard about Balco from a friend who lives in San Fransisco and is a body builder. I, at the time, was still recovering from lots of surgeries and he told me about all of their "wonderful" products.
Parents
Former Member
I haven't followed the whole Balco fiasco as it has opened up a huge can of worms. But I thought I heard that a disgruntled coach who worked with some athletes who used their products provided a syringe of some of their juice to the authorities. If not for that coach we still might not know the Balco story.
Based on my limited understanding it seems like a game of cat and mouse. The doctors will come up with a new strain of steriod that evades current testing methods. Eventually the authorities will figure out how to test for that strain and then we go back to square one.
As long as there is an incentive to dope/drug (money, fame, success) there will probably be some athletes willing to use any means necessary to become the best.
The challenge in my mind is to not assume any record setting athlete is dirty and to do everything you can to keep up with the scientific advances in performance enhancing substances. Based on the Balco case, it might also be a good idea to create some sort of reward system for whistle-blowers.
I haven't followed the whole Balco fiasco as it has opened up a huge can of worms. But I thought I heard that a disgruntled coach who worked with some athletes who used their products provided a syringe of some of their juice to the authorities. If not for that coach we still might not know the Balco story.
Based on my limited understanding it seems like a game of cat and mouse. The doctors will come up with a new strain of steriod that evades current testing methods. Eventually the authorities will figure out how to test for that strain and then we go back to square one.
As long as there is an incentive to dope/drug (money, fame, success) there will probably be some athletes willing to use any means necessary to become the best.
The challenge in my mind is to not assume any record setting athlete is dirty and to do everything you can to keep up with the scientific advances in performance enhancing substances. Based on the Balco case, it might also be a good idea to create some sort of reward system for whistle-blowers.
