By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY
HOUSTON — In another sign of the strengthening alliance between government and anti-doping officials in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs, the special agent who led the U.S. government's latest steroids bust said over the weekend he is willing to share the names of athletes connected to the case.
Drug Enforcement Administration agent Jack Robertson, speaking at the U.S. Olympic Assembly, led Operation Raw Deal, an investigation that became public last month and included raids on 56 drug labs as well as the seizure of 11.4 million doses of steroids.
The government developed an extensive customer database as part of the investigation. Athletes "at every level" are involved, Robertson said.
Robertson said he wants "to be able to share this information" with anti-doping officials in Olympic, college and professional sports. The DEA is targeting suppliers and manufacturers rather than users.
"We're not doing this case to find big names in professional sports, or, god forbid, Olympic sports," Robertson told Olympic officials during a panel discussion. "We're trying to stop the distribution of anabolic steroids."
The DEA's work has just begun, Robertson said.
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"To be quite frank, we have a lot of new informants who are working with us," he said.
During the discussion, Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee's board of directors and a former Major League Baseball commissioner, said that doping penalties need to extend beyond individuals to entire teams, so that athletes would be under pressure from their teammates to stay clean.
"Severity of punishment and consequences to teammates have effects," said Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Currently up for question is whether Marion Jones' 2000 Olympic relay teammates will be stripped of their medals in light of Jones' recent admission that she used performance-enhancing drugs before the Sydney Games. The decision is up to the International Olympic Committee.
When Jerome Young, a member of the U.S. 4x400-meter relay team that won gold in Sydney, was punished for doping, the USOC fought for Young's teammates to keep their medals. That case was different, USOC chief executive officer Jim Scherr said, because Young ran in the preliminary round but not the Olympic finals.
In the Jones case, Ueberroth said, "If some athlete asked me personally, I would not support them."
Olympic network
: The USOC is considering launching its own cable network, possibly before the Beijing Olympics next summer, USOC chief operating officer Norm Bellingham said.
Programming would include original features on up-and-coming Olympians as well as Olympic Games archival content. The network would not compete with Olympic rights holder NBC but rather "augment it," said Bellingham, a former Turner Broadcasting executive who joined the USOC a year ago.
"We should have done this 15 years ago," Bellingham said. "I think it fills a void, and not a sports void necessarily. I think there's a message" in Olympic stories.
Open water berths:
Mark Warkentin and Chip Peterson will represent the USA at next year's open-water world championships, where the top 10 finishers will automatically qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Warkentin won the 10K Sunday at the open water world championship trials in Fort Myers, Fla., in 1 hour, 57 minutes, 1.84 seconds.
In the women's competition, Micha Burden and Kirsten Groome qualified for the team that will compete at the world championships in Seville, Spain. Two-time national champion Chloe Sutton led the entire race until she collided with Burden on the final turn. Sutton finished third and will serve as an alternate with Kalyn Keller.
