American gave drugs to Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Dwain Chambers but later became an anti-doping advocate.
Victor Conte, one of the notorious steroid suppliers in athletics history, has died aged 75.
Athletes Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, CJ Hunter, Kelli White and Dwain Chambers were among his clients at the turn of the millennium as his “Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative” sports nutrition company secretly served steroids to dozens of elite sportspeople.
Jones won three golds and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but was later stripped of her medals after admitting to lying to federal investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Montgomery, meanwhile, set a world 100m record of 9.78 in 2002 but later had his record disqualified, whereas Chambers was one of Britain’s highest-profile athletes during that period but was given a drugs ban and stripped of his European 100m title.
Conte died on Monday (Nov 4) after having suffered from pancreatic cancer with his most recent nutrition company, SNAC, saying: “We are Heartbroken by the Passing of our Fearless Leader, SNAC Mastermind | SNAC CEO | Anti-Doping Advocate | Creator of ZMA | Former Tower of Power and Herbie Hancock Bassist.”
Conte started life as a rock and roll musician but set up BALCO in 1983, initially selling vitamin and mineral supplements, before creating performance-enhancing drugs such tetrahydrogestrinone, which was dubbed “the Clear”.
When the BALCO scandal erupted in 2003, discovered steroids and growth hormones in a warehouse and lists of names of the clients and their dosage plans. The track and field athletes aside, a number of baseball players and well-known boxers and NFL players were implicated.
The biggest name of all, Jones, served six months in jail in 2008 for lying under oath although she the only athlete to go to prison due to the BALCO scandal.
Conte also had four months in jail and later returned to the sports nutrition business with the creation of the Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System, billing himself as an anti-doping advocate and giving advice to the World Anti-Doping Agency on how to catch cheats.
Conte remained defiant, however, about helping athletes, arguing that he levelled the playing field and that the world was rife with cheating.
