The American drugged Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Dwayne Chambers, but later became an anti-doping advocate.
Victor Conte, one of the most famous suppliers of steroids in the history of athletics, has died at the age of 75.
Athletes Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, CJ Hunter, Kelly White and Dwayne Chambers were among his clients at the turn of the millennium, as his Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative sports nutrition company secretly supplied steroids to dozens of elite athletes.
Jones won three gold and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but was later stripped of the medals after admitting he lied to federal investigators about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Montgomery, meanwhile, set a 100m world record of 9.78 in 2002 but was later disqualified, while Chambers was one of Britain’s most popular athletes at the time but was banned for drugs and stripped of his European 100m title.
Conte died on Monday (November 4) after suffering from pancreatic cancer with his last food company, SNAC, saying: “We sympathize with our fearless leader, Director General of SNAC Executive Director of SNAC of an anti-doping lawyer | Creator of ZMA |: From the death of former Tower of Power and Herbie Hancock.”
Conte began life as a rock and roll musician, but formed BALCO in 1983, initially selling vitamin and mineral supplements, before developing drugs such as tetrahydrogestrinone, called Pure.
When the BALCO scandal broke in 2003, steroids and growth hormones were found in storage, along with lists of customers’ names and their dosage plans. In addition to track and field athletes, a number of baseball players and famous boxers and NFL players were involved.
The biggest name, Jones, served six months in jail for lying under oath in 2008, although she is the only female athlete to go to jail over the BALCO scandal.
Conte also served four months in prison and later returned to the sports nutrition business, founding the Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, or SNAC System, as an anti-doping advocate and advising the World Anti-Doping Agency on how to catch cheaters.
Conte, however, remained defiant about helping the athletes, insisting he had leveled the playing field and that the world was full of fraud.
