Controversy surrounds the world of sport this week, with around 40 professional sportsmen in the US being subpoenaed to appear in front of a US court to give evidence against the founder of the Balco nutrition company, alleged to have supplied leading athletes with an, until now, undetectable anabolic steroid.
Anabolic steroids are taken to improve athletes' performance and build muscle. The steroid, which has been identified as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), is a laboratory-created compound made with gestrinone, an anabolic agent on the prohibited substance list. It was allegedly produced by Victor Conte, president of Burlingame, California-based Balco Laboratories and supplied to the athletes along with their regular nutritional supplements.
It is thought that the steroids were supplied separately to supplements but the case is still likely to have a negative effect on the supplement industry. The industry has already been accused of mislabeling and neglect as a result of the contamination of certain non-hormonal nutritional supplements with traces of anabolic steroids, which may have been responsible for positive drug tests for athletes such as former Olympic champion Linford Christie.
Between October 2000 and November 2001 the International Olympics Committee funded an investigation into the presence of steroids in nutritional supplements. Out of more than 600 supplements obtained from 13 countries and 215 different suppliers, 94 (14 per cent) of the samples analysed contained prohormones (nandrolone or testosterone) not declared on the label. These were all supplied by companies located in the USA, Netherlands, the UK, Italy and Germany.
In addition 21 per cent of the nutritional supplements from prohormone selling companies contained anabolic androgenic steroids compared to nearly 10 per cent of those from companies not selling prohormones, many of which resulted in positive doping results for several hours afterwards.
Balco Laboratories was set up in the late 1980's to offer customised nutritional therapy plans to sports professionals. Coste used blood and urine tests together with inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometer technology to determine the precise trace mineral status of athletes. Balco's most popular supplement is called ZMA and is distributed worldwide by more than 50 distributors.
According to industry insiders, clients included Barry Bonds, the Giants outfielder and Britain's leading sprinter Dwain Chambers - who according to the British newspaper The Guardian has tested positive for THG this week.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced on Wednesday that a new method of detection for THG has been sent to all International Olympic Committee (IOC)/WADA accredited laboratories throughout the world. It added that the test will shortly be a part of regular doping screening conducted by all accredited laboratories.
Coste's lawyers say he intends to fight the allegations as the substance was not on the banned substance list.