Montgomery was Balco's centerpiece
SAN JOSE, Calif.
In November 2000, five men with big dreams mapped a program of coaching, weight training and pharmacology they christened "Project World Record" -- a program that preceded sprinter Tim Montgomery's ascent to the fastest-ever 100-meter time nearly two years later.
That meeting, conducted at a table in a back room at Balco Laboratories, also may have set the scene for the exposure of the nutrition center. The ensuing investigation has unfurled into the biggest drug scandal in American sports history.
The tale of Montgomery's ascent is really the story of Balco, a San Jose Mercury News investigation shows. Balco owner Victor Conte Jr. quietly marshaled a team with experience in performance-enhancing drugs and training to make Montgomery the world's fastest man -- in turn, to promote Conte's supplements.
Because of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's aggressive campaign to remove athletes from competition even without positive drug tests, Montgomery could become one of the agency's targets.
Montgomery is not the most prominent athlete with Balco ties. But the 29-year-old sprinter illustrates how Conte's program of sports drugs and training worked and how the acrimonious breakup of the Project World Record team also probably played a key role in the exposure of Balco and THG.
The fellowship of five
During a three-day period that November, the five men met in a room that featured a poster quoting Albert Einstein: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
According to sources and documents seen by the Mercury News, the five were: Conte, Montgomery, track coaches Trevor Graham and Charlie Francis, and strength coach Milos Sarcev, a former Mr. Yugoslavia bodybuilder.
Francis, the ostracized Canadian coach of sprinter Ben Johnson, designed the workout for Montgomery. Graham, the coach who helped Marion Jones win five medals in Sydney, implemented the program with Montgomery on the track.
Conte masterminded the project. He would provide one of its secret ingredients. It was a substance the group called "clear" that Conte received from a chemist named Patrick Arnold, according to an Internal Revenue Service investigator's account of an interview with Conte last September.
Whether members of the team knew "clear" would be a banned substance is uncertain. But under doping rules of "strict liability," athletes are responsible for any substance found in their bodies.
It would only be in the summer of 2003 that such determination would be made. Don Catlin, chief of the Olympic drug-testing laboratory at UCLA, identified the substance and gave it a scientific name -- tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG.
A training calendar reviewed by the Mercury News showed that Montgomery was scheduled to use "clear" eight times in May 2001.
An attorney for Montgomery, Cristina C. Arguedas, told the Mercury News she has not seen evidence of calendars or documents that show Montgomery received banned drugs from Balco. She did acknowledge that the sprinter sought out Conte's help but with pure intentions.
"Tim Montgomery was always looking for the best people to help him train to break the world record," said Arguedas, who indicated that she couldn't comment on specifics because she just took him on as a client. "Many world-class athletes were advertised as being part of Victor Conte's trainees. There was nothing about him that was suspicious. It seemed like he was on the up and up and an excellent trainer."
The group decided to keep their union quiet because they didn't want Francis publicly linked with Montgomery. Francis was banned from coaching in Canada after Johnson was stripped of his 1988 Olympic 100-meter gold medal because he tested positive for stanzolol.
But Conte was proud enough of the association to hand out black T-shirts adorned with "Project World Record."
Montgomery has always been fast
At Blinn Junior College in Texas, Montgomery ran the 100 meters in 9.96 seconds. He also won Olympic medals -- a silver in 1996 and a gold in 2000 -- for running in preliminary heats of the 400-meter relay.
Montgomery had predicted for years that he would break Maurice Greene's world record in the 100 meters. But his mouth was faster than his feet. By his mid-20s, Montgomery had hit a wall.
He has said his breakthrough occurred in 1999 when he started training with Jones -- who later became his romantic interest and mother of their son.
The Balco connection began at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Conte surfaced at a news conference in Sydney defending shot putter C.J. Hunter, then the husband of Jones. About the same time, Montgomery met Conte. Two months later, they were at Balco.
The cornerstone to Conte's Project World Record plan was to make Montgomery stronger.
The transformation in Montgomery was immediate. Conte's nutrition plan helped him put on about 28 pounds gain an 80-pound increase on the bench press over an eight-week period, sources said. Montgomery began a complex nutritional program filled with legal supplements, but is also alleged to have used THG, according to an IRS agent's memo.
The sprinter visited the Bay Area a number of times to train without the others. He would follow Sarcev's program under the guidance of Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds' trainer.
In February of this year, Anderson was indicted -- along with Conte, Balco executive James Valente and track coach Remi Korchemny -- on federal charges of distributing drugs to athletes.
At the world indoor championships in 2001, Montgomery placed second in the 60 meters in a career-best 6.46 seconds. That summer, Montgomery lowered his personal best in the 100 meters from 9.92 seconds to 9.84. He then won the silver medal at the world outdoor championships in 9.85 seconds.
On Sept.14, 2002, Montgomery finally was as good as his word. He set the 100-meter gold record of 9.78 seconds in Paris. But by then, the Project World Record team had disintegrated. The ill will among Conte, Montgomery and Graham was the genesis of the Balco scandal.
Money squabble ended fellowship
A source told the Mercury News that Conte decided to stop working with Montgomery partially because of a squabble over money. The falling out was bitter.
By last season, Montgomery had been supplanted by a young English sprinter, Dwain Chambers, as Balco's chosen one. Chambers and two other Balco sprinters, Kelli White and Chryste Gaines, had emerged as stars. This didn't sit well with Balco's rivals.
In June 2003, a prominent track coach anonymously sent a syringe with residual amounts of "clear," identifying Balco as the source and providing names of athletes who used the substance, according to court records.
UCLA's drug testers were able to identify THG, and five track athletes tied to Balco -- including Chambers -- tested positive for the substance. Four of those caught were from the U.S. national championships at Stanford in June.
Anti-doping officials have declined to reveal the coach's identify, and Graham has denied reports he was the source.
Graham, 40, told the Mercury News earlier this year: "I have nothing to say about Victor Conte." He did not respond to repeated messages this week.
Montgomery and Graham split last season over a disputed $12,500, according to Wake County (N.C.) court records.
Meanwhile, Conte was considering making his own charges. He wrote a letter to the anti-doping agency and the track's world governing body accusing Graham of supplying athletes with testosterone, according to IRS. An investigator found several drafts of the letter in Balco's trash. It was never sent.
Dirty laundry being aired
Today, four of the Project World Record players face increasing scrutiny over the mushrooming drug scandal.
Conte is under indictment. Last month, the Mercury News reported that the disputed IRS account indicates that Conte named 27 athletes to whom he provided performance-enhancing drugs. Notable among those: Montgomery, Jones, Gaines, White (who has since accepted a two-year ban from USADA) and every athlete -- save one, hammer thrower Melissa Price -- who has tested positive for THG.
Montgomery, who testified before a San Francisco grand jury probing Balco last year, now might face sanctions from the anti-doping agency.
"Tim has tested clean every time in his life," said Arguedas. "If USADA has some Orwellian non-analytical positive evidence -- whatever that means -- they have provided nothing to us.
"So to even talk about some kind of disciplining of this world champion is the height of unfairness."