By Lem Satterfield
For four years, Victor Conte was among the world's best drug dealers, a man who, as founder of BALCO, "was about helping athletes to circumvent" Olympic style drug testing policies such as those executed by The United States Anti-Doping Agency "until BALCO was raided" in 2003.
"I had gotten to a point when I realized that Olympic officials and those that control major league football and baseball were enabling, harboring, and, promoting this culture of drug use in sport," said Conte. "And I made the bad decision to join that culture. It was a huge mistake, and I wish now that I had never done it."
Today, "I'm part of the anti-doping movement," said Conte, "Trying to help those at WADA [The World Anti-Doping Agency,] and, USADA to develop more effective anti-doping policies and procedures. And I'm very outspoken about it."
USADA executive chief, Travis Tygart, told BoxingScene.com that he would embrace the opportunity to work with Conte, whom he classified as a former "Evil chemist."
"My team tries to think like the cheaters who try to defeat our testing policies and to get away with cheating. We're in the skepticism game, which is what we do for a living, and that's what our clean athletes expect us to do," said Tygart.
"Intelligent testing is based on not only peer reviews from top academic entitites, but also, from information gained from real-life dopers or people who have assisted dopers with information," said Tygart. "When we hear that people are doping or taking this or that, that information isn't coming from academic people, it's coming from people who are real-life dopers or who are assisting real-life dopers."
Tygart's work therein, has involved meeting "early on with Victor Conte," he said.
"We have attempted to meet with him and we're all in favor of that. We frequently meet with athletes or coaches or evil chemists or chemists who have made mistakes," said Tygart. "It's a smart intelligent way to run an effective program. We do this day in or day out, regardless of whether it has to do with boxing."
On Wednesday, Tygart will take part in a Nevada State Athletic Commission hearing that will address its protocol for drug testing for steroids and illegal drugs in particular.
Tygart's USADA achieved a boxing first by implimenting and overseeing the random testing of blood and urine on both Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley during the lead up to their May 1 clash won by Mayweather.
Mayweather had both blood and urine taken on March 22, April 1, April 13 and then on the night directly after the fight. Mayweather provided urine only on April 3, April 6, April 21 and April 24. Mosley provided both blood and urine on March 23, March 31, April 12 and directly after the bout on fight night. Mosley provided urine on April 3, April 6, April 21 and April 24.
"The key with Mayweather and Mosley, as far as those fighters were concerned, was that the deterrent was that we could have showed up to collect urine and they had no idea the day that we were going to come or when we were going to show up. They didn't know if or when we were going to collect blood as well, because we had the right to do it if we chose to," said Tygart.
"Again, we have to have the right to do what we feel is the best, and we have to have the right to test closer to the fight if we would like to do it," said Tygart. "If we had seen a result, and if we had gotten information that would indicate that we needed to, then, in an ideal world, you always stop a fighter before a fight so that you don't have to repay monies and re-do results and all of that sort of stuff."
Tygart defended the USADA testing schedule for Mayweather-Mosley, which drew its final blood sample from Mayweather on April 13, and its final one from Mosley on April 12 -- long before the May 1 date of their clash. Tygart said that there was no need to test Mayweather or Mosley for blood samples any closer than they actually did.
"We chose not to test for blood closer to the fight than we did because there was no need to do so. But, of course, if we had some sort of cause or suspicion that we meant that we needed to do more blood tests, let's say, five days, or, four days before a fight, then we certainly would have done it," said Tygart. "And that's why the right to have that option is such an important aspect to having a good program."
On the other hand, Tygart said that Pacquiao's request for a 14-day window "Misses the point," this, after a proposed, March 13 bout between Mayweather and Pacquiao reached a negotations impasse over the issue of random drug testing.
"You can't have a blackout period," said Tygart. "You simply can't draw circles around certain times where you're not going to be tested."
Given an opporunity, Tygart would try to reason with Pacquiao.
"Part of the education would be to sit down with whatever fighter -- whether it be Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather or whomever it might be -- and say, 'Look, here's the reality of the program, and here's a typical program.' And you could look at Mayweather-Mosley as typical," said Tygart.
"All things considered, the number of tests and the fact that we're re-testing for later analysis, and the fact that we had unlimited tests, and no missed tests, and we showed up and tested them unannounced, looking at the test results -- all of those things factored into how we execute and when we execute tests," said Tygart.
"With Mayweather and Mosley, it was like, 'Look, guys, if we have no desire or need to test you three days, or two weeks with blood, then we're not going to do that,'" said Tygart. "But we have a right to do it, because circumstances might arise where we get wind that there is someone using human growth hormone, or another drug, and we want to catch you and stop you before the fight so that you don't go and hurt the other fighter."
Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com. To read more from Lem Satterfield, go to AOL FanHouse by Clicking Here.
