 |
| Trevor Graham © Reuters Images |
Trevor Graham, the disgraced athletics coach who remains banned
for life by USA Track and Field, told the New York Times he was
innocent in his first public comments about doping since the 2004
Olympics.
Graham, the ex-coach of doping disgraced former stars Marion
Jones, Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery, served a year of home
confinement for making false statements to a federal agent in a
steroid investigation that he helped launch.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Graham told the Times in comments
published late on Saturday after an interview of nearly five hours on
Friday night.
Graham had not spoken with reporters since the Athens Olympics,
where he said that he was the person who anonymously sent a syringe
of a previously undetectable steroid to US ati-doping officials.
"That was just a coach doing the right thing," Graham said.
That move touched off the epic BALCO steroid scandal probe, a
major doping investigation that widened to eventually ensnare
Jones, Gatlin, Montgomery and Graham and taint other athletics
stars as well as Major League Baseball heroes.
"Everything goes back to me sending in the syringe because if I
hadn't done that, none of this would have happened," Graham told
the Times.
Graham - who is based in Raleigh, North Carolina - completed his
year of home confinement on Friday after being convicted on the
felony charge about his links to a steroid distributor in May of
2008.
Graham said he is considering appealing the life ban placed upon
him by the US athletics governing body.
Prosecutors say Graham played a "major role in ruining at least
a dozen careers and lives other than his own and ringing worldwide
shame to the entire sport of track and field" and has not accepted
responsibility for his actions.
Admitted steroid distributors Victor Conte, the found of BALCO,
and Angel Heredia, have confessed to giving Graham drugs. Five
athletes testified Graham had set them up with Heredia to obtain
banned substances.
Graham argued that there was a conspiracy against him and lacked
proof, noting he was not convicted on harsher doping-related
charges after two jurors pushed to acquit him.
"Trevor Graham has not been truthful from the beginning," Conte
told the Times on Saturday.
"I personally gave him drugs on several occasions, including
hand to hand, so there's no doubt in my mind that Trevor Graham
distributed performance-enhancing drugs to his athletes."
Graham, 46, said he still coaches but would not say where or
who.
"I can coach whoever I want to coach because I'm not doing
anything illegal," Graham said.
"It's clear that Mr. Graham is still living in La-La Land," US
Anti-Doping Agency director Travis T Tygart told the Times.
 | |  | | | Remember to go to www.supersport.com on your Mobile phone and keep in touch with the latest scores wherever you are. |  |
| |  | |  |
|
