The Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative also known as BALCO was a business providing services in blood and urine analysis as well as food supplements. The company, founded in 1984 by Victor Conte, marketed a performance-enhancing steroid called Tetrahydrogestrinone, also called "The Clear". This steroid developed by chemist, Patrick Arnold, was at the time undetectable in the tests used to determine drug use by athletes. The company's business was to develop contacts with athletes and market "The Clear". Balco would then provide additional services to provide athletes tests which would not show the performance-enhancing steroid in the athletes system because "The Clear" was undetectable to blood and urine tests at the time.

In 2003, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California began investigating BALCO based on a tip from U.S. sprint coach Trevor Graham. Graham named Victor Conte as the source of the steroid . The investigation resulted in a 2005 plea bargain deal with Conte and others. Conte pled guilty to illegal steroid distribution and money laundering .

Prior to the investigation in 2003, the company had become successful at making contacts in the sports world and supplied a number of athletes in the United States and Europe with "The Clear" and growth hormones for several years. Some of the list of athletes involved in the BALCO case include major league baseball players Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Benito Santiago, Jeremy Giambi, Bobby Estalella, Armando Rios. In the National Football League the list includes Bill Romanowski, Tyrone Wheatley, Barrett Robbins, Chris Cooper, and Dana Stubblefield. Other high profile athletes include John Mcewen, Kevin Toth, C.J. Hunter, Tim Montgomery, Kelli White, Regina Jacobs, Shane Mosley and Marion Jones.

In fact, it was the prospect of jail time that led Marion Jones on Friday, October 5, 2007 (after years of denying her use of steroids), to finally admit that she used performance enhancing drugs. Marion Jones has now pled guilty to lying to federal investigators about her steroid use during the course of the BALCO Labs investigation.

In her prime, Marion Jones was one of track’s biggest stars, typically earning nearly $80,000 a race, plus at least another $1 million from race bonuses and endorsement deals. In 2000-2001, she competed in 21 international events, including the Sydney Olympics, where she won five medals, three of them gold. She won gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 1,600-meter relay, as well as bronze medals in the long jump and 400-meter relay. Today, Marion Jones will probably lose her medals and is reported to be financially challenged. However, despite all this, it is still almost impossible to believe her latest story of how she became involved with performance-enhancing steroids.

Marion Jones, while now admitting to the use of performance enhancing steroids and lying to federal investigators, has indicated that her coach is to blame in leading her into steroid drug use. She is using the same public relations talking points as Barry Bonds. (Bonds reportedly claimed he thought his trainer was giving him flaxseed oil instead of performance enhancing steroids in his grand jury testimony). Both Marion Jones and Barry Bonds want the public to believe that their coaches and trainers were doping them with illegal steroids while telling them it was flaxseed oil. Both Jones and Bonds want us to believe that instead of being illegal drug users and cheaters, that they were victims of their respective coaches fraudulent activity concerning what was being introduced by them into their own bodies.

Let's consider for a moment that the claims of Bonds and Jones are true. First, we have to believe that they were told that dangerous, illegal, performance enhancing drugs were given to them as flaxseed oil. Next, we have to believe that they are victims of fraud by their coaches and trainers. Then, we have to believe that they had no knowledge that they were taking steroids for years as their body mass became more muscular and enhanced while their athletic performance increased. If what they claim is true, where are the lawsuits against their coaches, trainers, and medical professionals? There are none, and unless there is, these claims against their coaches and trainers will be met with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Further, consider these accounts of Marion Jones and Barry Bonds using performance enhancing drugs. If you were doing this to your body would you consider it to be just flaxseed oil?

Here is what Victor Conte told ABC News '20/20 on Friday October 5, 2007, about his involvement with Marion Jones: "He (Conte) taught Olympic sprinter Marion Jones to inject herself with human growth hormone in the weeks before the 2000 Sydney Games. Marion didn't like to inject in the stomach ... area, ... she would do that in her quad, the front part of her leg."

Also, consider this excerpt form the "Game of Shadows" written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams (San Francisco Chronical reporters) about Barry Bonds : "By 2001, when Bonds broke Mark McGuire's single season home run record of seventy, Bonds was using two designer steroids referred to as the cream and the clear, as well as insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate (a fast acting steroid known as Mexican beans) and Trenbolone, a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of cattle". The book continues,... "Depending on the substance, Bonds used the drugs in every conceivable form: injecting himself with a syringe, or being injected by his trainer, swallowing pills (sometimes twenty at a time), placing drops of liquid under his tongue and applying topically."

Both Marion Jones and Barry Bonds (according to the Game of Shadows authors and Barry Bonds reported Grand Jury Testimony) have used performance enhancing drugs and are therefore sports cheaters. They were incredibly stupid for not relying on their considerable natural abilities to compete and perform. The BALCO investigation has led to a guilty plea from Marion Jones and her acknowledgement that she was involved with performance enhancing steroids. The result of the BALCO investigation may also be destined to induct Barry Bonds and his home run record into baseball's hall of shame.

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