BALCO Scandal - BALCO Investigation

BALCO Investigation

Conte, Arnold and Anderson continued selling these substances undetected from 1988 until 2002 when the official federal investigation of BALCO began. Parallel with this investigation, the USADA began its own covert investigation of Conte and his operation. In the summer of 2003, USADA investigators received a syringe with trace amounts of a mysterious substance. The anonymous tipster was Trevor Graham, sprint coach to Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

The syringe went to Don Catlin, MD, the founder and then-director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, who had developed a testing process for the substance, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Later that year, the Chicago Tribune named Catlin Sportsman of the Year.

He tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG.

Athletes including Kelli White, British sprinter Dwain Chambers, shot putter Kevin Toth, middle distance runner Regina Jacobs, and hammer throwers John McEwen and Melissa Price were subsequently incriminated in the investigation.