This was interesting.
Bodybuilding connection again singes governor
New winner of Arnold Classic reportedly linked to recent pharmacy steroid raids
Carla Marinucci, Edward Epstein, Chronicle Political Writers
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
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BALCO
Bodybuilding connection again singes guv (3/06)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger personally congratulated the massive, chiseled winner of his signature Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition in Ohio on Saturday and stood by as Victor Martinez was presented with a $130,000 first-place check, a spectacular trophy, a luxury Swiss watch and an "Arnold Classic" jacket.
Just days before, the name of the 34-year-old "Dominican Dominator" -- who was caught selling steroids to a New York City undercover police officer in 2004 -- appeared in published reports in New York about a major multistate investigation of steroid use related to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
Both Martinez and eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman -- described as a former client of Victor Conte's BALCO lab in Burlingame -- "were among the many clients in an ongoing multistate investigation that led to the raids on several pharmacies" in Florida recently, though they are not targets of the investigation focusing on major distributors, the New York Daily News reported.
The governor's press secretary, Aaron McLear, said Monday after The Chronicle contacted him on the matter that "this is the first (the governor has) heard of" Martinez's links to steroid investigations.
But McLear stressed that Schwarzenegger has left no question for years that "clearly steroid use is something he is very strongly opposed to" in a sport that he loves.
Still, the embarrassing news that the California governor had just honored an athlete with a criminal background involving steroids is a reminder of the governor's pledge at the 2006 Arnold Classic to "be all over the situation" of illegal drug use in the bodybuilding. There, he vowed to convene a summit of promoters, athletes and magazine publishers to develop tougher drug testing and enforcement to discourage steroid use.
"I have made it clear that we have to step up the testing, and find other ways to be more aggressive" in controlling illegal drug use in the bodybuilding industry, he pledged at last year's fitness expo, which annually draws 100,000 people to Columbus, Ohio.
The summit has never been scheduled. But McLear said that Schwarzenegger "has been in conversations with the top officials in bodybuilding to come up with a system by which they can test their athletes more comprehensively, and that's ongoing."
"If a summit is the means by which to get there, he's absolutely supportive of it," said McLear. "He wants to tackle this once and for all."
Martinez, the 2007 Arnold Classic overall champ and also winner of the competition's $10,000 "most muscular" award, was among a host of athletes recently identified in published reports as having their names on customer lists at Applied Pharmacy Services in Mobile, Ala., one of the pharmacies raided by federal authorities late last month. The names included Los Angeles Angels slugger Gary Matthews Jr., former A's home run king Jose Canseco and former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield.
The revelation has angered some who know the governor well, like bodybuilding promoter Wayne DeMilia. He insists that fault does not rest with Schwarzenegger but with the International Federation of Bodybuilding & Fitness, which oversees major pro bodybuilding events, including the Arnold Classic.
The organization "embarrassed Arnold over the weekend" by putting the former seven-time Mr. Olympia in a situation in which he presented a top award to a competitor with a troubled history, he said. "What the bodybuilding community doesn't realize is that if they keep embarrassing Arnold like this, he won't be in the sport," DeMilia said.
Despite official federation policies that call for drug testing of professional athletes, the freakishly large physiques of competing bodybuilders are stark evidence that cocktails of human growth hormone, insulin and steroids are in the training regimen, DeMilia says.
McLear said Schwarzenegger "is a producer of the event and not the sanctioning body ... and if he were, he would certainly encourage much more testing than they have right now."
Calls and e-mails to the bodybuilding federation for response were not returned.
Schwarzenegger himself has admitted that he used steroids during his bodybuilding days in the 1960s and 1970s, when they were legal. Since then, he has campaigned against their use, citing the potential for serious health complications.
Prior to this year's Arnold Classic, the California governor told Reuters news service that he suspected steroids would be part of the competition.
"I believe they can slip through it. I believe that we have athletes on the stage that are taking things," he said. "Every single year, I feel uncomfortable when we have the competition."
He told Reuters that he wanted to test competitors an hour before the contest, but the federation is "not willing to do that" because "there will be lawsuits, that it will be illegal to do that, to ask for the urine test."
Still, the record of Martinez, the 2007 Arnold Classic champ, has been no secret.
The Bergen County Record newspaper in New Jersey reported in January 2006 that Martinez pleaded guilty in New Jersey to possessing gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GBH, notorious for its use as a "date rape" drug -- but also used by bodybuilders to offset the effects of steroids. Martinez was arrested in July 2004 by narcotics agents who said they saw him exchanging bags and an envelope at a restaurant; he also was charged with the possession and distribution of a similar drug, butanediol, the paper reported.
In his plea bargain, the charges against Martinez were downgraded, and he pleaded guilty to third-degree possession of butanediol that involved no jail time or probation.
In a separate case in 2004, Martinez was jailed for selling steroids to an undercover New York City police officer.
The Arnold Classic itself has been the focus of run-ins with the law over steroid use.
In March 2004, federal drug agents swept in armed with subpoenas for some of the competitors -- a raid that played a role in the eventual indictments of Milos Sarcev, who finished fifth at the Arnold Classic in 1995, and Dennis James, a two-time competitor. Both pleaded guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor possession charges and avoided prison time.
Another competitor who served time for dealing drugs, Craig Titus, is now in jail in Las Vegas, awaiting trial along with his wife, women's fitness competitor Kelly Ryan, on charges of killing their live-in personal assistant, Melissa James, in their Las Vegas home.
